Court Opinion

ID: 9660759
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-23 22:20:17.453284+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:09:09.541232
License: Public Domain

WELLIVER, Judge
concurring in result.
I agree with the principal opinion that the issues regarding the composition of a bargaining unit involve substantial questions of both law and fact and that based upon the facts herein, the so-called “Electrical Superintendent” of the two-man electrical department is as a matter of fact correctly included in the bargaining unit.
I deem it both unnecessary and inappropriate that the principal opinion calls into question the Board’s long-standing practice of excluding supervisory employees from bargaining units. In my opinion, such a policy was contemplated by the Legislature when it enacted the Public Sector Labor Law and is necessary if the State and its agencies and subdivisions are to effectively manage personnel. I believe Judge Tur-nage correctly stated the law in this State in Golden Valley Memorial Hospital v. Missouri State Board of Mediation, 559 S.W.2d 581 (Mo.App.1977) when he rejected the view the majority suggests today by way of dictum:
[T]he term employee cannot be literally read to include every person on the payroll of a public body. As stated in City of Milwaukee v. Wisconsin Employ. Rel. Com., 43 Wis.2d 596, 168 N.W.2d 809, 812 (1969): ‘someone has to sit on the city’s side of the bargaining table.’
Id. at 583.
I feel compelled to comment on one other aspect of this case. For sometime I have been urging the Court to adopt a rule regulating the participation of amicus which would apply to all equally. Sermchief v. Gonzales, 660 S.W.2d 683, 687 (Mo. banc 1983); State ex rel. Chandra v. Sprinkle, 678 S.W.2d 804 (Mo. banc 1984) (Welliver, J., dissenting). Counsel for the Missouri State Labor Council, a non-party, was permitted by the Court not only “to intervene as amicus” and file briefs, but also to appear and argue in this case. In Fowler v. Park Corporation, 673 S.W.2d 749 (Mo. banc 1984), the Court summarily denied some fifteen associations and business entitles of Missouri the right even to file suggestions as amicus curiae in a matter directly affecting all of their industries.1 Be it labor or industry, both deserve the same and equal treatment in our Court. Such inconsistency in dealing with requests to appear as amici invites accusations that the Court favors labor organizations over business interests. I urge the adoption of a rule regulating the participation of ami-cus curiae.

. Missouri Automobile Dealers Association; the Car and Truck Rental and Leasing Association of Missouri; Mercantile Bancorporation, Inc.; Centerre Bancorporation, Inc.; Boatmen’s Bancshares, Inc.; Terminal Railroad Association of St. Louis; Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe Railway; Burlington Northern Railroad; Chicago and North Western Transportation Co.; Chicago, Milwaukee, St. Paul and Pacific Railroad; Illinois Central Gulf Railroad; Kansas City Southern Railway Co.; Missouri-Kansas-Texas Railroad; Missouri Pacific Railroad Co.; Norfolk and Western Railway Co.; St. Louis Southwestern Railway Co.; and Kansas City Terminal Railway Co.