Court Opinion

ID: 9848032
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-09-24 04:11:39.413737+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T09:17:56.027917
License: Public Domain

OPALA, Justice,
dissenting in part:
I must recede from the court’s decision because its conceptual analysis rests, in a large measure, on the 1978 amendment to our collective bargaining act for professional educators.1 Inasmuch as that amendment was made applicable solely to school districts “with an average daily attendance of thirty-five thousand (35,000) or more,” it is clearly violative of Art. 5, § 46, Okl. Con. The cited provision of our fundamental law absolutely and unequivocally interdicts the *726enactment of “any local or special” law which allows for non-uniform regulation of school district affairs of public school management.2 The legislature may not deal with any phase or public school administration otherwise than by law which has general application throughout the state3
Even if the 1978 addition to § 509.2 did not offend our constitution, I could not accede to the court’s interpretation of the mandatory minimum two-year interval between elections embodied in § 509.2C(1) and (6). That provision constitutes no impediment to choosing another bargaining agent to replace one who had lost recognition, by operation of § 509.8, because of culpable participation in a strike. The two-year minimum interval was clearly intended to apply as a barrier to more frequent election contests among associations competing for the status of an official bargaining agent. It was not meant to deprive educators of a representative when none was legally recognized. The two-year limit cannot hence be invoked to bar an interim election when, as here, professional educators would be left without representation because of a statutorily mandated disaccreditation of their previously certified representative.
Nor can I accede to the court’s pronouncement which equates § 509.8 mandated non-recognition of the culpable bargaining agent with mere suspension for a period coextensive with the illegal strike’s duration. Had suspension been intended as the only sanction, recognition would not have been used. Recognition imports something far more enduring than temporary suspension.
When the anti-strike provisions of § 509.8 are construed with § 509.2 which governs accreditation of representatives, the only meaning that commends itself to my mind is that whenever recognition must be withdrawn a vacancy was intended to occur. The vacancy, which arises ex lege, is not filled automatically upon cessation of a strike. The statute makes no such accommodation. Nor can the disaccredited agent forthwith capture reinstatement via the ballot box. There is no warrant for concluding that the mandating condition of non-recognition may become dissipated in either manner. It is only after the ex lege vacancy has been filled and the succeeding agent chosen that the previously disaccre-dited representative may once again become eligible to compete for the lost position.

. Okla. Sess. Laws 1978, c. 221, § 1, 70 O.S. Supp. 1978, § 509.2. All section references in the text are to 70 O.S.
The pertinent part of the amendment in § 509.2 provides:
“ * * * However, all school districts with an average daily attendance of thirty-five thousand (35,000) or more shall adopt the following method for choosing the professional organization: * * * ”

. Wilkinson v. Hale, 184 Okl. 165, 86 P.2d 305 [1939]; Union School District # 1 v. Foster Lumber Co., 142 Okl. 260, 286 P. 774 [1930]; Bradford v. Cole, 95 Okl. 35, 217 P. 470 [1923]; see also St. Louis-San Francisco Ry. Co. v. Bledsoe, 7 F.2d 364 [8th Cir. 1925],

. Although the constitutionality of the 1978 additions to § 509.2 is not raised, we may review this case on a theory not presented by the parties. The exception from strict adversary process is sanctioned for public-law litigation. Application of Goodwin, Okl., 597 P.2d 762, 764 [1979],