Court Opinion

ID: 9792645
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-31 02:32:58.081577+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:37:44.165135
License: Public Domain

RABINOWITZ, Justice,
with whom COMPTON, Justice, joins, dissenting.
Article XII, section 6 of the Alaska Constitution provides that “The legislature shall establish a system under which the merit principle will govern the employment of persons by the State.” Although I agree with the court’s conclusion that this constitutional provision does not stand as a categorical bar to the privatization of state jobs for economic reasons, I am unable to join in the court’s sanguine predictions that privatization is unlikely to subvert the existing merit system and that “existing contractual, administrative, and judicial channels for case-by-case review of agency action ... will be capable of enforcing the merit principle.”
The court’s analysis of the issues in this appeal fails to address several significant questions that Moore has raised. A conclusion that article XII, section 6 is not a categorical bar to privatization for economic reasons leaves unresolved how to preserve the merit system that has been established in response to this constitutional mandate. For instance, assuming the absence of any impermissible political motive, is either the executive or legislative branch of Alaska’s government free to privatize all existing and future governmental jobs and thus totally subvert the merit system? If not, upon what principles and criteria are restraints upon privatization to be fashioned? Should governmental positions customarily and historically filled by civil servants be immune from privatization? Should current civil servants, and current positions, be given more protection than prospective employees and newly created positions? Or should privatization be barred by our constitution’s merit principle, in the absence of detailed standards specifying the circumstances under which existing *774jobs may be eliminated in favor of private sector contractors?1
As to this last question, I find persuasive the approach of the Colorado Supreme Court:
[Pjrivatization operates as a labor policy in that it affects the qualifications and conditions of employment of persons who will perform services for the government....
... Absent specific statutory requirements, private contractors need not follow the legislatively mandated pay scales, veteran’s preferences, and other employment practices that apply to the civil service. The civil service laws and regulations protect public workers from arbitrary and oppressive treatment, and require due process protections before disciplinary action or termination; private employees lack these protections.[2] These constraints are necessary in government employment to carry out the functions of the civil service, promote competence in government, and ensure a politically independent civil service. These labor policy aspects of privatization, which are essential components of its cost efficiency, have significant consequences for the civil service.
This critical impact of privatization on the state personnel system implicates the legislature’s role in structuring the system consistent with constitutional constraints, and invokes both the Board’s rulemaking mandate and the Director’s duty to provide leadership in state personnel management. The scope and characteristics of any plan of privatization and means by which such a plan is to be implemented require careful consideration. Legislation, rules, or some combination thereof establishing standards will be necessary to ensure that privatization does not subvert the policies underlying the state personnel system. This requires an evaluation of the effects of the concept of privatization on the state personnel system as a whole, rather than a case specific consideration of the effect of a particular pnvatization plan of a single state agency on individual employees.
Colorado Ass’n of Pub. Employees v. Department of Highways, 809 P.2d 988, 994 (Colo.1991) (emphasis added) (footnote omitted).
I conclude that in order to effectuate the provisions of article XII, section 6 and ensure that privatization does not subvert the state’s merit system, the legislature must enact discrete standards setting the preconditions for privatization.3 These standards should be fashioned after a careful evaluation of the effects of privatization on the state’s merit system for public employment as a whole, rather than upon a case-specific consider*775ation of the effect of a single agency’s particular plan upon individual employees. In my view, this court is ill-equipped to resolve the genuinely ■ difficult policy issues inherent in the tension between privatization of government services and preservation of Alaska’s merit personnel system. I would reverse the superior court’s decision.

. For example, California statutory law prohibits the award of private contracts when the impact would be to undercut state pay rates, displace civil service employees, or hinder the state's affirmative action efforts. See Cal.Gov’t Code § 19130(a)(2) — (4) (West 1994). California also requires that the contracting agency balance the potential economic advantage of contracting against the public’s interest in having the state government perform certain functions directly. See id. § 19130(a)(ll).

. It has been observed that privatization constitutes a fundamental restraint on the power of organized labor in the public sector. See Craig Becker, With Whose Hands: Privatization, Public Employment, and Democracy, 6 Yale L. & Pol’y Rev. 88, 90 (1988) (citing Harry Wellington & Ralph Winter, The Unions and the Cities, 62-65 (1971)).

. We discussed the essentials of a merit system in Alaska Public Employees Ass'n v. State, 831 P.2d 1245 (Alaska 1992):
Generally defined, the merit principle requires that recruitment, selection, and advancement of public employees "under conditions of political neutrality, equal opportunity, and competition on the basis of merit and competence.” R. Vaughn, Principles of Civil Service Law § 9.3[6], at 9-27 (1976) (quoting Stanley, What Are Unions Doing to the Merit Principle?, 31 Pub. Personnel Rev. 109 (1970)). In actual practice, however, "the merit principle is more complex and ambiguous than the above definition reveals.” Id. Our legislature adopted the Personnel Act for the express purpose of implementing the constitutionally mandated merit principle in state employment. AS 39.25.-010(a). Clearly recognizing the complexity of its task, our legislature also provided a detailed definition for the merit principle. Thus, by statute, "[t]he merit principle of employment includes ... regular integrated salary programs based on the nature of the work performed." AS 39.25.010(b). The elements of the merit principle's "salaiy programs,” of course, are the classification plans and the salary plans adopted pursuant to AS 39.25.150.
Id. at 1249 & n. 7 (alterations in original) (footnote omitted).