Court Opinion

ID: 9738033
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 19:41:06.068852+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:24:03.350185
License: Public Domain

Bronson, P. J.
(concurring). I concur in the result reached by my colleagues, but for different reasons.
It is undisputed that the Warren teachers were on strike. The plaintiff education association admitted that at trial. The issue for decision, as I see it, is whether that strike was prohibited by the public employment relations act.
The act, relevant portions of which are set forth in the majority opinion, by its own terms does not prohibit all strikes, but only those "for the purpose of inducing * * * a change in the conditions * * * of employment”.
My colleagues have concluded that this strike was illegal because it was for the purpose of changing the conditions of employment. With that conclusion I have no quarrel. However, they maintain that the "change” involved returning to the provisions of the then expired contract, in lieu of "interim operating regulations” which are said to have been validly imposed by the school board to fill the void created by the expiration of the old contract. My view is that the "change” urged by the striking teachers — in a way which is condemned by the statute — was to extend the term of the old contract, during which time negotiations for a new contract would take place.
I believe that support for this view is found in *502the facts. The teachers had originally agreed to continue working while negotiations were in progress, in compliance with the mandate of Holland School District v Holland Education Association, 380 Mich 314; 157 NW2d 206 (1968). It was only when the school board, unilaterally and without notice to the association, enacted the "interim operating regulations”, that the teachers voted to withhold their services. The teachers sought to reinstate the provisions of the expired contract in order to avoid the oppressive provisions of the board’s regulations. That purpose — to extend the expiration date of the old contract — was to "induce * * * a change in the conditions” because one of the terms of a contract is its duration. The board was under no obligation to agree to extend the expiration date of the old contract and the withholding of services by the teachers to force that result was the type of strike proscribed by the public employment relations act.
However, I find no warrant in legislation or case law for the "interim operating regulations” created by the board. My colleagues’ position is that MCLA 340.614; MSA 15.3614 empowers the board to institute such regulations. That statute provides, in pertinent part:
"Every board shall have authority to make reasonable rules and regulations relative to anything whatever necessary for the proper establishment, maintenance, management and carrying on of the public schools of such district * * * .”
This law gives school boards the power to enact regulations concerning, for example, (1) the disciplining and suspending of students, Davis v Ann Arbor Public Schools, 313 F Supp 1217 (ED Mich, *5031970), (2) the activities of its pupils and teachers within the classroom and on the school premises during the school day, Nigosian v Weiss, 343 F Supp 757 (ED Mich, 1971), (3) the usage of identification cards by students, faculty and staff, LaPorte v Escanaba Area Public Schools, 51 Mich App 305; 214 NW2d 840 (1974), and (4) the denial to married high school students of the right to engage in extra curricular activities, Cochrane v Mesick School District, 360 Mich 390; 103 NW2d 569 (1960).
The statute does not grant the board a license to dictate unilaterally the terms of the contract under which the teachers are required to work, pursuant to the command of Holland, supra, while negotiations are in progress. It is designed to give school boards the authority to regulate the day-today operation of the schools, not to provide state-supported bargaining leverage by which teachers are forced by Holland to continue working, but on the board’s terms.
I read Holland to require that the old contract remain in force pending the negotiation of a new one to replace it. Otherwise, the teachers, then working under an expired contract, could not properly be said to be "employees” at all. Had Holland’s message been heeded by the board in this case, this strike could have been avoided, since Holland assures precisely what the teachers sought here: maintenance of the status quo while negotiations continue. Teachers cannot fairly be required to refrain from striking and be subjected to the whim of the school board as a reward for practicing restraint.
It is not enough to say that the interim regulations must be reasonable. A brief look at the regulations imposed by the board in this case and *504apparently approved sub silentio by my colleagues well illustrates the point.1
In view of the trial judge’s order, in which he sent the teachers back to work pursuant to the terms of the old contract, I am willing to affirm. But I emphasize my belief that no legislation or case law of which I am aware authorizes a school board to substitute "interim operating regulations” however reasonable,2 for the terms of the expired contract during the period in which teachers continue to teach and their bargaining representatives negotiate a new collective bargaining agreement. I cannot countenance a situation in which teachers are forced to choose between violating the command of Holland and subjecting themselves to the unbridled discretion of the school board with which they are negotiating.

 The interim operating regulations eliminated the following provisions and protections of the previous expired contract: seniority step increase in salary, additional education or higher degree status level increases in salary, recognition of the association as the exclusive bargaining agent, the association’s use of mails and bulletin board, the teachers’ right to review their own personnel files, presence of the association’s representative at disciplinary hearings, certain teacher protection in the enforcement of discipline, and certain procedural protections for discharge and demotion. The length and definition of the teachers’ work day was changed, along with other numerous changes.

 I hasten to point out that there is potentially a great deal of difference between the terms included in a set of "reasonable” regulations and those resulting from the give and take of hard-nosed bargaining.