Court Opinion

ID: 9727636
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 13:45:50.884152+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:25:41.139992
License: Public Domain

ZAPPALA, Justice,
dissenting.
I agree with the majority that the risk of loss of state educational subsidies due to a school district’s failure to schedule 180 days of instruction for pupils is not a “clear *413and present danger or threat to the health, safety or welfare of the public.” But while the majority professes to resist any temptation to judicially legislate a 180-day limitation to the right to strike, it has in fact succumbed to that temptation. By focusing its attention on the inconveniences to the students which accompany the shortened duration of the school year caused by a teachers’ strike, the majority has effectively created a per se rule that the inability to schedule 180 days of instruction constitutes a clear and present danger to the health, safety or welfare of the public.
The student inconveniences detailed by the superintendent for the school district are the inevitable consequences of a strike which continues for such a period of time that it affects the 180 day requirement. By sustaining the grant of a preliminary injunction on the basis that those student inconveniences demonstrate a clear and present danger to the public, the majority has insured that injunctions will issue when the duration of the strike threatens the 180 day requirement. The majority is careful to emphasize that the economic threat of the loss of state subsidies is insufficient in itself to warrant the issuance of an injunction. This distinction is of no consequence. A teachers’ strike which lasts long enough to create that economic threat will always give rise as well to the student inconveniences which concern the majority.
I do not equate the inconveniences to students with a “clear and present danger or threat to the health, safety or welfare of the public.” Nor do I agree with the majority that the health and welfare of the student is not a concern separate from the legislative concern for the public at large. The disruptive effect of a teachers’ strike upon students is properly a matter for concern. In enacting the Public Employee Relations Act, (PERA), 43 P.S. §§ 1101.101-1101.-2301, however, .the Legislature weighed the competing interests which would be affected by the legislation in favor of permitting teachers to strike.
*414The student population was directly affected by that legislation. But it was the clear mandate of the Legislature that a strike by public employes “shall not be prohibited unless or until the strike creates a clear and present danger or threat to the health, safety, or welfare of the public.” 43 P.S. § 1101.1003. The public at large does not share the individualized and personalized concerns of the student population. Nor are the terms synonymous. Nevertheless, the majority superimposes student inconveniences upon public welfare. In doing so, the majority places student inconveniences in a preeminent position and relegates the teachers’ right to strike to a secondary concern. This is contrary to the legislative intent.
Since the enactment of PERA, the inconveniences and disruption experienced by the students and school districts during a strike have been addressed in decisions by the Commonwealth Court. See Armstrong Education Association v. Armstrong School District, 5 Pa.Commw. 378, 291 A.2d 120 (1972); Bellefonte Area School Board v. The Bellefonte Area Education Association, 9 Pa.Commw. 210, 304 A.2d 922 (1973); Root v. Northern Cambria School District, 10 Pa.Commw. 174, 309 A.2d 175 (1973); Bristol Township Education Association v. School District of Briston Township, 14 Pa.Commw. 463, 322 A.2d 767 (1974); Commonwealth ex rel. John Pittenger, Secretary of Education, et al. v. Leechburg Area School District and the Pennsylvania Education Association, 19 Pa.Commw. 140, 339 A.2d 149 (1975); Scanlon v. Mount Union Area School District Board of Education, et al., 51 Pa.Commw. 83, 415 A.2d 96 (1980); Bethel Park Education — Bethel Park School District v. Bethel Park Federation, 54 Pa.Commw. 49, 420 A.2d 18 (1980). Notwithstanding these cases, the Legislature has never taken any action since PERA’s enactment in 1970 to amend the statute so as to circumscribe the plain meaning of the word public.
Although the Legislature’s inattention to student inconveniences may be perceived by some as a failure, the remedy properly rests with the Legislature. I, for one, *415would not judicially disrupt the balance which the Legislature sought to achieve.