Court Opinion

ID: 9651426
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 16:19:13.501276+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:12:33.859694
License: Public Domain

POMEROY, Justice
(concurring).
I have no disagreement with the court’s opinion, and join in it. I do so, however, because, as noted in footnote 5 of the opinion, ante at 458, neither party has questioned the propriety of presenting the question of who is the employer to the courts without first obtaining a determination on that point by the Pennsylvania Labor Re*438lations Board in the certification proceedings. In Hartshorn et al. v. Allegheny County et al., 460 Pa. 560, 333 A.2d 914 (1975), I expressed the opinion that in light of the legislative scheme of the Public Employer Relations Act.1 (“Act 195”), and other considerations, including the doctrine of primary jurisdiction, the determination of who is a “public” employee should be made in the first instance by the Board. Hartshorn v. Allegheny County, supra, 460 Pa. at 560, 333 A.2d 914 (dissenting opinion of Pomeroy, J.). The same considerations as were there expressed are equally applicable here, where one of the basic questions is who is the public employer. That this is the proper procedure is clearly indicated by § 604 of Act 195. It provides: “The board shall determine the appropriateness of a unit which shall be the public employer unit or a subdivision thereof . . . ” It is to be noted, moreover, that the judicial proceedings in Sweet v. Pennsylvania Labor Relations Board, 457 Pa. 456, 322 A.2d 362 (1974) came only after the Board had acted. This in my view, was the proper procedural sequence.

. Act of June 23, 1970, P.L. 563, No. 195, 43 P.S. § 1101 (Supp. 1974).