Court Opinion

ID: 9645047
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-22 21:11:19.055329+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:11:22.436614
License: Public Domain

CLIFFORD, J.,
concurring in part and dissenting in part.
I join fully in Part I of the Court’s opinion and in the affirmance of the Appellate Division judgment reached in Part II. I suggest, however, that the scope of the Court’s remedy— resubmission of the matter to arbitration with notice to and full participation by plaintiff — is contrary to the applicable provisions of the Employer-Employee Relations Act and the mechanics of the grievance procedure established by the collective negotiation agreement. More important, I believe that the wrong route has been taken to achieve that remedy. Rather than warp the provisions of N.J.S.A. 34:13A-5.3, with respect to the statutory rights of individual employees in the arbitration of organizational grievances, I would rest the decision on a breach of the State Troopers Fraternal Association’s (STFA’s) duty of fair representation as developed in the landmark case of Vaca v. Sipes, 386 U.S. 171, 87 S.Ct 903, 17 L.Ed.2d 842 (1967), and its progeny.
I
Article I, paragraph 19 of the New Jersey Constitution provides that “[pjersons in public employment shall have the right to * * * present to and make known to * * * [public employers] their grievances and proposals through representatives of their own choosing.” As stated by this Court in Lullo v. Int’l Ass’n of Fire Fighters, 55 N.J. 409 (1970), the delegates to the 1947 Constitutional Convention left it to the Legislature “to both substantively and procedurally flesh out the constitutional guarantees.” Id. at 416. The Court in Lullo recognized that
[t]he decision as to whether there should be a single representative to speak exclusively for all the employees, or multiple representatives to speak for different groups of employees or whether an individual employee should have *498the right to represent himself in all dealings with his employer, or whether all three forms of representation should be authorized, was left to the Legislature. [Id. at 415.]
The Legislature responded to Article I, paragraph 19 by enacting the New Jersey Employer-Employee Relations Act, L.1968, c. 303, codified in N.J.S.A. 34:13A-1 to -21. Section 7 of the Act, N.J.S.A. 34:13A-5.3, provides that the representative duly designated or selected by a majority of the public employees in an appropriate unit shall be the exclusive representative of all employees in the unit. See Lullo, supra, 55 N.J. at 412. The last paragraph of N.J.S.A. 34:13A — 5.3 provides:
Public employers shall negotiate written policies setting forth grievance procedures by means of which their employees or representatives of employees may appeal the interpretation, application or violation of policies, agreements, and administrative decisions affecting them, provided that such grievance procedures shall be included in any agreement entered into between the public employer and the representative organization. Such grievance procedures may ■provide for binding arbitration as a means for resolving disputes. Notwithstanding any procedures for the resolution of disputes, controversies or grievances established by any other statute, grievance procedures established by agreement between the public employer and the representative organization shall be utilized for any dispute covered by the terms of such agreement.
Pursuant to this statutory provision, the STFA and the Division of State Police (Division) entered into a collective negotiation agreement whereby a grievance could be presented to supervisory representatives of the Division either by a trooper individually or by the STFA, but only the STFA could process the grievance to final and binding arbitration, the fifth step of the contractually-established grievance procedure. This is in keeping with the suggestion in Red Bank Reg. Educ. Ass’n v. Red Bank Reg. High School Bd. of Educ., 78 N.J. 122 (1978), that N.J.S.A. 34:13A — 5.3 permits individual employees within the unit to enjoy at least a concurrent right with their majority representative with respect to the presentation of their grievances. 78 N.J. at 135-36. However, this Court has never answered the question of whether the individual public employee enjoys a right of constitutional or statutory dimension to process his own grievances to arbitration when the collective agreement does not so provide. See Lullo, supra, 55 N.J. at *499435-36; N. J. Turnpike Employees Union v. N. J. Turnpike Auth., 64 N.J. 579, 581-85 (1974); Red Bank, supra, 78 N.J. at 134-35. The full application of the principles of union exclusivity emphasized in Vaca v. Sipes, supra, to public sector labor relations would require that this question be answered in the negative, at least when the collective agreement gives the union exclusive discretion to submit employees grievances to arbitration. When considered in light of the clear language of N.J.S.A. 34:13A-5.3 and this Court’s prior interpretation of that statute, the majority opinion muddles the developing law of public sector labor relations.
II
The Court’s statutory interpretation rests on the premise that the pertinent question is whether “the statute permit[s] the employee’s association to foreclose an employee from utilizing that grievance procedure when the public employee has a dispute involving the terms of the agreement that satisfy the substantive requirements of a grievance as defined in the contract.” Ante at 490. This unduly broad phrasing of the issue not only leads to faulty statutory analysis, but also misleads in its assumption of two crucial facts that simply do not exist here.
First, at the time of the STFA’s presentment of its organizational grievance on behalf of the unit as a whole, Saginario did not have the substantive basis for presenting a “grievance” against the Division as defined in Article IX of the collective agreement. At that time he had no grounds upon which to allege “[a] breach, misinterpretation or improper application of the terms of [the] Agreement; or a * * * violation, misinterpretation or misapplication of the written rules and regulations, policy or procedures affecting the terms and conditions of employment.” As far as he was concerned, the Division had properly applied the promotional provisions of the agreement when it granted his promotion to the rank of Sergeant. In its failure to acknowledge this basic circumstance the majority *500distorts the contractual definition of a “grievance” presentable by an employee under the negotiated grievance procedure contained in the collective agreement. It was simply not Saginario’s grievance that the STFA presented and processed to arbitration. Rather, it was the STFA’s organizational grievance presented on behalf of the entire unit, alleging that the Division had improperly applied the promotional provisions of the collective agreement by promoting Saginario out of turn. The STFA filed and processed the organizational grievance in order to effectuate the right of the majority of the unit employees to have their griévanee over the Division’s alleged misapplication of the promotional provisions of the agreement presented to the Division through their collectively chosen representative.
There is an obvious difference between an organizational grievance initiated by the union on behalf of the majority of unit employees on the one hand and a grievance initiated by an individual employee on the other. The applicable statute gives the employee the right to have his grievance presented to the employer, not necessarily to intervene in the union’s organizational grievance. This basic distinction cannot be glossed over by calling the entire matter a “dispute” rather than an employee grievance under N.J.S.A. 34:13A-5.3. Manipulation of the pertinent nomenclature expands by judicial fiat the agreement’s substantive definition of a “grievance.”
The second unwarranted assumption is that the STFA did actually “foreclose [Saginario] from utilizing [the] grievance procedure” once he had a basis for initiating his own grievance against the Division under the agreement. See ante at 490. Saginario did not have the substantive basis for presenting his own grievance, alleging that there had been an improper application of the terms of the collective agreement, until such time as the Division rescinded his promotion as improperly granted. It is the grievance arising from that adverse action that is the grievance the statute and the collective agreement provide he can present individually to the Division. He was not refused permission by either the STFA or by the Division to present that *501individual grievance. Rather, instead of seeking relief through the contractual grievance procedure, he immediately proceeded to the Law Division and Appellate Division to challenge the arbitral award.
However, an obvious practical problem would have arisen had Saginario then attempted to file his own grievance to challenge the rescission of his promotion. The Division would have relied on the contractual language that the decision of the arbitrator is “final and binding” and bars reconsideration of the merits of the same issues that were fully considered and decided in the arbitration of the union’s organizational grievance. The STFA would have refused to process Saginario’s grievance to arbitration, declining to seek a remedy that would effectively reverse the arbitrator’s decision and award in its favor that resulted from its organizational grievance. Thus unsatisfied in the presentment stages of the grievance procedure, and without the right to compel the submission of his grievance to arbitration when rejected by his exclusive representative, Saginario would have had to seek a remedy at law by filing a complaint in the Law Division1 or an unfair practice charge with PERC,2 alleging that the STFA had breached its duty of fair representation.
*503The result under this strictly-administered procedure is that Saginario would not have had the opportunity to present his grievance to the Division until the issue of the propriety of his promotion was settled adversely to him by final and binding arbitration between the union and his employer, without any notice to or participation by him. In its effort to reach a result whereby Saginario would be afforded the opportunity for participation in the grievance arbitration procedure that effectively resolved the question of the propriety of his promotion, the Court has engaged in statutory interpretation that finds no support in either logic or policy.
The Court construes N.J.S.A. 34:13A-5.3 to afford the employee notice and an opportunity to be heard individually in his majority representative’s organizational grievance, and presumably in all grievances wherein the representative’s position directly conflicts with the individual interests of that employee. Accordingly, the Court orders rearbitration of the union’s organizational grievance with notice to and individual participation by the adversely affected employee.
The statute, however, does not require that a collective negotiation agreement provide employees with a right to process their own grievances beyond the presentment stage — that is, it confers no right on an employee to force the submission of his own grievance to arbitration. How then can it be construed as authority for finding a statutorily-vested right of an employee to force himself into the arbitration stage of his union’s grievance presented and processed on behalf of every unit employee but him? As N.J.S.A. 34:13A-5.3 will now be interpreted, the employee has no statutory right to compel arbitration even where he had the right to present his grievance at a prior step in the grievance procedure, but he has a statutory right to compel *504his union and employer to allow his intervention into someone else’s grievance — one not even presented by him or on his behalf. To be consistent with the settled interpretation of N.J.S.A. 34:13A-5.3, the individual employee’s right to be notified of the union’s grievance and have the opportunity to be heard in situations like this should be limited to those early presentment stages of the grievance procedure in which the agreement would have allowed the employee to proceed individually had it been his own grievance.
Ill
An individual employee may challenge an otherwise final and binding arbitral award by establishing that his rights and interests were not represented fairly and in good faith by the union in the grievance arbitration procedure. Hines v. Anchor Motor Freight, Inc., 424 U.S. 554, 567, 96 S.Ct. 1048, 1057, 47 L.Ed.2d 231, 243 (1976). See Davidson v. UAW Local 1189, 332 F.Supp. 375, 377-78 (D.N.J.1971); Corso v. Local Union 153, 123 N.J.Super. 121, 123 (App.Div.), certif. den., 63 N.J. 556 (1973). See also Rabin, The Impact of the Duty of Fair Representation upon Labor Arbitration, 29 Syracuse L.Rev. 817, 860-61 (1978). The duty of fair representation under the National Labor Relations Act arises from the grant of exclusive status to the majority representative under § 9(a), 29 U.S.C. § 159(a). See Humphrey v. Moore, 375 U.S. 335, 84 S.Ct. 363, 11 L.Ed.2d 370 (1964); Ford Motor Co. v. Huffman, 345 U.S. 330, 73 S.Ct. 681, 97 L.Ed. 1048 (1953). The same duty of fair representation under the New Jersey Employer-Employee Relations Act arises from the grant of exclusive status to the majority representative under N.J.S.A. 34:13A — 5.3, with respect to the administration of the contractual grievance arbitration procedure. See Red Bank, supra, 78 N.J. at 129, Lullo, supra, 55 N.J. at 426-27, 432-33. This Court has determined that the “experience and adjudication” from the federal legislative scheme serves as the appropriate guide by which to interpret the New Jersey statutory scheme. See, e.g., Galloway Tp. Bd. of Educ. v. Galloway Tp. Ass’n of Educ. *505Secretaries, 78 N.J. 1, 9 (1978); Lullo, supra, 55 N.J. at 427-28, 432, 434.
The union’s duty of fair representation, which attaches to all stages of the negotiation and administration process and is owed to all employees within the unit represented, is breached when the union’s conduct toward a member of the appropriate unit is “arbitrary, discriminatory, or in bad faith.” Vaca, supra, 386 U.S. at 190, 87 S.Ct. at 916, 17 L.Ed.2d at 857. There can be no question that in the instant case the union’s duty of fair representation attached to the grievance procedure that settled Saginario’s interest in his promotion. Saginario was an employee within the appropriate negotiation unit represented by the STFA, and processing grievances to arbitration was within the exclusive discretion of the STFA under the collective agreement’s provisions governing the administration of the grievance procedure. In Lullo, this Court stated:
The exclusivity concept carries with it an equally heavy responsibility toward dissident employees in the unit as for employee-members of the representative organization. [The exclusive representation] must always be exercised with complete good faith, with honesty of purpose and without unfair discrimination against a dissident employee or group of employees. This is true not only in the negotiating of the employer-employee agreement but in its administration as well. [55 N.J. at 427 (citing Vaca v. Sipes, 386 U.S. at 177, 87 S.Ct at 909, 17 L.Ed.2d at 842).]
The majority reads the scope of the duty of fair representation far too narrowly when it states that the fair representation analysis is not applicable to this “direct conflict” of interest situation. The scope of the duty of fair representation is not limited to the Vaca factual context — that is, situations in which the union refuses to process an employee’s grievance to the arbitration stage. Rather, the scope of the duty is in many ways much broader.
Application of the Vaca analysis establishes that the STFA did not breach its duty of fair representation merely by taking a stand on the merits of the organizational grievance, on behalf of the entire unit, that conflicted with the interests of a individual employee. The collective employee-employer relations system *506“of necessity subordinates the interests of an individual employee to the collective interests of all employees in a bargaining unit.” Hines, supra, 424 U.S. at 564, 96 S.Ct. at 1056, 47 L.Ed.2d at 241; Vaca, supra, 386 U.S. at 182, 87 S.Ct. at 912, 17 L.Ed.2d at 853. The realities of the collective representation system were recognized by the Supreme Court in Ford Motor Co. v. Huffman, supra:
The complete satisfaction of all who are represented is hardly to be expected. A wide range of reasonableness must be allowed a statutory bargaining representative in serving the unit it represents, subject alwáys to complete good faith and honesty of purpose in the exercise of its discretion. [345 U.S. at 337-38, 73 S.Ct. at 686, 97 L.Ed. at 1057-58.]
The union must be permitted to take a stand on the merits of particular grievances. Vaca, supra, 386 U.S. at 194, 87 S.Ct. at 918, 17 L.Ed.2d at 860. The Supreme Court has expressly declined to find a breach of fair representation when the union takes a good faith position on behalf of the majority of unit employees that will necessarily derogate the interests of some individual employees. Humphrey v. Moore, supra, 375 U.S. at 349, 84 S.Ct. at 371, 11 L.Ed.2d at 382. It has recognized that in the collective system “[cjonflict between employees represented by the same union is a recurring fact. To remove or gag the union in these cases would surely weaken the collective bargaining and grievance processes.” Id. at 349-50, 84 S.Ct. at 372, 11 L.Ed.2d at 382. In such situations the union may take a position in favor of the collective interests of the majority “on the basis of an informed, reasoned judgment regarding the merits of the claims in terms of the language of the collective bargaining agreement.” Smith v. Hussmann Refrigerator Co., 619 F.2d 1229, 1237 (8th Cir. en banc), cert. den. sub nom. Local 13889, United Steelworkers of America v. Smith, 449 U.S. 839, 101 S.Ct. 116, 66 L.Ed.2d 46 (1980). See also Belanger v. Matteson, 115 R.I. 332, 346 A.2d 124, 131 (1975); Theel v. Four Lakes Concrete Corp., 76 L.R.R.M. 2260, 2262 (W.D.Wis. 1971).
The record in the present case supports the STFA’s contention that its decision to initiate the organizational grievance concerning plaintiff’s promotion was based upon its good faith judg*507ment regarding the merits of the unit’s interest in upholding the integrity of the promotion provisions of the collective negotiation agreement. If the STFA had not taken action against what it believed was the Division’s unilateral change in the interpretation of the contractually established promotion criteria, the Division might have established a precedent of “management prerogative” that would have controlled the course of future employer-employee relations. The plaintiff alleges nothing that plausibly suggests that the STFA took its position on the merits of the organizational grievance in any other than a good faith, nonarbitrary and nondiscriminatory manner after investigating the underlying factual situation, without any personal hostility toward plaintiff.
Nonetheless, there remains for consideration the separate question of whether the STFA breached its duty of fair representation by failing to notify plaintiff of the grievance proceedings and afford him the opportunity for individual representation of his own interests. Smith v. Hussmann, supra, indicates that the union’s duty to give notice to individual employees whose interests are abandoned by the union in grievance proceedings should be considered as a separate question of unfair representation. See 619 F.2d at 1241. That case involved a meeting to clarify an arbitral award in which the union took a position opposing plaintiffs’ promotion by management in favor of other members of the unit. The Eighth Circuit, en banc, held that the union’s failure to notify plaintiffs of the meeting with the arbitrator or to invite them to attend the session supported a jury determination that the union had breached its duty of fair representation. Id. at 1241.
There are no Supreme Court cases directly on point with respect to any such notice requirement. However, it is significant to note that in the somewhat analogous case of Humphrey v. Moore, supra, the Court considered notice and an opportunity to be heard relevant factors in assessing the fairness of the union’s representation in a grievance arbitration hearing. 375 U.S. at 350, 84 S.Ct. at 372, 11 L.Ed.2d at 382. As interpreted *508by the Eighth Circuit in Smith v. Hussmann, supra, the Supreme Court in Humphrey v. Moore, supra, after “holding that the union was entitled to take a position in the dispute between employees, carefully noted that the disfavored employees had been given notice of the hearing and that three stewards representing them were present at the hearing and given every opportunity to state their position.” 619 F.2d at 1241 (citing Humphrey v. Moore, supra, 375 U.S. at 350, 84 S.Ct. at 372, 11 L.Ed.2d at 382). Not even that procedure was followed in the present case. Had Saginario been notified of the union’s grievance from its inception, he could have communicated with a shop steward or a member of the grievance committee to discuss the merits of the competing claims to the promotion. After bringing his position to the attention of the STFA, the union, like the union in Humphrey v. Moore, supra, might have taken measures to afford independent representation of the employee’s interests that were adversely affected by the union’s position in the grievance. In this manner, the employee’s supervisors would have been made more acutely aware of the employee’s position in the presentment stages of the proceedings. The STFA must have realized that the processing of its organizational grievance would conclusively settle Saginario’s right to the promotion he had received from the Division and thereby effectively exhaust his contractual remedy otherwise available against the Division.
IV
Although it is a close and difficult question, I would hold that as a matter of the union’s duty of fair representation in the administration of the contractual grievance procedure, Saginario should have received notice and an opportunity to be heard at some stage in the presentment of the organizational grievance that determined his right to the promotion. Given its understanding of the importance of the grievance procedure with respect to the contractual interests of Saginario, the STFA, like *509the union in Smith v. Hussmann, supra, should have taken more “adequate measures to insure a fair resolution of the dispute” by affording the abandoned employee notice and the opportunity for independent representation of his own interests in the proceedings. 619 F.2d at 1240. These same considerations of fairness apply in the instant case to support the holding that the STFA’s conduct toward Saginario, the unfavored and abandoned employee, was “arbitrary” under the Vaca standard. See id. at 1237; Bond v. Local 823, Int’l Bhd. of Teamsters, 521 F.2d 5, 9 (8th Cir. 1975). Cf. Summers, The Individual Employee’s Rights Under the Collective Agreement: What Constitutes Fair Representation? 126 U.Pa.L.Rev. 251, 274-75 (1977) (“The union did not act for but against one whom it was obligated to represent, seeking to destroy rather than to protect his contractual rights * * * [Without the opportunity to make his position known to the employer,] he has clearly been deprived of a procedural right to a fair determination.”). Inasmuch as this is a case involving public sector labor relations, we would do well to be mindful of this Court’s recent statement that “[protecting public employees from being victimized at the hands of either public employers or employee organizations is one of the dominant purposes of the Employer-Employee Relations Act.” Red Bank, supra, 78 N.J. at 132 (emphasis added).
The STFA’s conduct was arbitrary and unfair particularly in light of the fact that there was only one abandoned employee to notify and allow to participate in the grievance proceedings. It may well be that the result would be different under the fair representation analysis in a case involving a substantial number of adversely affected employees who seek notice and participation in grievance proceedings initiated on behalf of the majority of the employees in the unit. In that instance, the union’s decision to proceed with the grievance to arbitration without notifying all the adversely affected employees or allowing them *510to intervene might very well be not only nonarbitrary but entirely reasonable.3
I therefore would vacate the arbitration award as procedurally defective and remand the matter for presentment with notice to and participation by Saginario. I would not, however, go as far as the majority in ordering resubmission of the matter to binding arbitration, the fifth stage in the contractual grievance proceedings, with full intervention by the individual employee. Rather, I would limit the employee’s access to the proceedings to the early presentment stages, in which he could have participated had it been his grievance. Since neither the statute nor the collective agreement provides the individual employee the right to process his own grievance to binding arbitration, this Court should not formulate a remedy whereby the employer and the majority representative are forced to accept the intervention of an individual employee in his representative’s organizational grievance. An appropriate remedy would afford the employee no more extensive rights than suggested by the grievance provisions of the collective agreement — that is, notice of and participation in the presentment stages of the grievance proceedings.
I do not suggest that the evidence presented to the arbitrator necessarily reveals any error or substantive deprivation of the *511employee’s right to a promotion pursuant to the terms of the collective agreement, nor any suffering of financial hardship from the action of the STFA or the Division. Rather, I would leave such determinations to the arbitrator, deferring to the grievance arbitration procedure negotiated and invoked by the STFA and the Division as the favored means of resolving the merits of grievances arising over the application or interpretation of the provisions of the collective agreement.

The majority is correct in addressing itself to the “procedural anomalies” of this case and in recognizing that this matter should not have proceeded to the Appellate Division as an appeal under R. 2:2-3(a)(2) from the “final decision or action” of an administrative agency. See ante at 496. However, the majority incorrectly states that the proper procedure was an action under N.J.S.A. 2A:24-7, -8 for vacation of the arbitration award. The grounds upon which a court may vacate an arbitral award are restricted to those specified in N.J.S.A. 2A:24-8. Kearny PBA Local 21 v. Town of Kearny, 81 N.J. 208, 221 (1979). An individual employee who challenges a labor arbitration award on the ground that his exclusive majority representative mishandled or abandoned his interests during the course of grievance arbitration proceedings has no substantive remedy under N.J.S.A. 2A:24-8. See DeMarco v. Thatcher Furnace Co., 102 N.J.Super. 258, 269 (Ch.Div.1968); O’Brien v. Curran, 106 N.H. 252, 209 A.2d 723, 727 (1954). Rather, the employee’s remedy is to attack the award in the context of a claim against the union for breach of its duty of fair representation. Kaden, Judges and Arbitrators: Observations on the Scope of Judicial Review, 80 Colum.L.Rev. *502267, 279 (1980); Comment, Employee Challenges to Arbitral Awards: A Model for Protecting Individual Rights Under the Collective Bargaining Agreement, 125 U.Pa.L.Rev. 1310, 1312 (1977).
Aside from Saginario’s lack of a substantive basis in the arbitration statute upon which to mount an attack on the arbitral award, he had no standing to challenge the award under the statute. N.J.S.A. 2A:24-7 provides in pertinent part that “[a] party to the arbitration may * * * commence a summary action” in the appropriate trial court in order to vacate or confirm an arbitral award. An individual employee is not viewed as a formal party to grievance arbitration provided for in a collective agreement that limits power to invoke arbitration exclusively to the discretion of the union. See Comment, supra, 125 U.Pa.L.Rev. at 1327 & n. 77. Only the union and the employer, as formal parties to the collective agreement, have standing to attack the award on the bases specified in the arbitration statute. See DeMarco, supra, 102 N.J.Super. at 269; O’Brien v. Curran, supra, 209 A.2d at 727; Kaden, supra, 80 Colum.L.Rev. at 279; Comment, supra, 125 U.Pa.L.Rev. at 1312. The individual employee “who wishes to challenge the award — either because he believes the arbitrator was substantively or procedurally in error, or because he feels his union failed to represent him adequately — must follow an entirely different procedure.” Comment, supra, 125 U.Pa.L.Rev. at 1312. He “must attack the award in the context of a suit against his union for breach of its duty of fair representation.” Id. See Kaden, supara, 80 Colum.L.Rev. at 279.

lt is now an accepted component of the practice of public sector labor relations law that PERC has jurisdiction to adjudicate and remedy a breach of the duty of fair representation as an unfair practice under N.J.S.A. 34:14A-5.-4(b)(1). In re Middlesex County, 6 N.J.P.E.R. 560 (¶ 11282 1980); In re N. J. Turnpike Auth., 6 N.J.P.E.R. 560 (¶ 11284 1980); In re N. J. Turnpike Employees Union, Local 194, 5 N.J.P.E.R. 412 (¶ 10215 1979); AFSCME, Council No. 1, 5 N.J.P.E.R. 21 (¶ 10013 1978). In noting these cases, the majority states that in none of its opinions has PERC “rationalize[d] the basis for its jurisdiction.” Ante at 493 n. 5. It is clear, however, that the Employer-Employee Relations Act entrusts PERC with the authority to process claims of unfair practices against public employee representatives and to issue appropriate remedial orders under N.J.S.A. 34:13A-5.4(c). See, e. g., Kaczmarek v. N. J. Turnpike Auth., 77 N.J. 329, 336-37 (1978). The private sector counterpart of N.J.S.A. 34:13A-5.4(b)(l) under the National Labor Relations Act is section 8(b)(1)(A), 29 U.S.C. § 158(b)(1)(A), which has been held to encompass claims of unfair representation.
Although this Court’s adherence to the principles of Vaca suggests that our state courts have concurrent jurisdiction over employee complaints of unfair union representation, see Vaca, supra, 386 U.S. at 187-88, 87 S.Ct. at 915-916, 17 L.Ed.2d at 856; Kaczmarek, supra, 77 N.J. at 345-46 (Pashman, J., dissenting); Corso v. Local Union 153, 123 N.J.Super. 121, 122-23 (App.Div.), certif. den., 63 N.J. 556 (1973); P. T. & L. Constr. Co. v. Teamsters Local 469, 131 N.J.Super. 104, 110 (Law Div.1973), aff’d, 66 N.J. *50397 (1974), the interests of public sector employees in the relatively inexpensive and expeditious disposition of their claims by application of PERC’s specialized knowledge and expertise require that we encourage rather than question PERC’s jurisdiction over such claims.

One advantage to the fair representation analysis, in addition to its eminent soundness, is that it lends itself to case-by-case adjudication in this still developing and unsettled area of labor law. This is particularly advantageous given that the fair representation analysis is quite fact-sensitive in its application, an advantage not shared by the majority’s construction of the provisions of N.J.S.A. 34:13A-5.3. If, as the majority states, an individual employee has a statutorily-vested right to be notified and intervene in the arbitration of an organizational grievance when the union takes a position that directly conflicts with that employee’s interests, then that right is inviolate as to any and every similarly situated employee. This would be so regardless of the detrimental effect that large-scale notice and intervention might have on the grievance arbitration procedure in situations involving a substantial number of dissident or disfavored employees. The judicial imposition of such an inflexible statutory requirement may in some situations seriously undermine the entire scheme of voluntary grievance arbitration as an essential means of promoting industrial peace and stability.