Court Opinion

ID: 9694160
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-25 17:26:32.792131+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:19:56.952890
License: Public Domain

SCOTT, Justice
(dissenting).
I strongly disagree with the view of the majority that the Minnesota Public Employment Labor Relations Act (PELRA) prohibits a sympathy strike of- public employees in support of a lawful strike by members of other bargaining units of the same public employer. My concerns are two-fold: The majority position fails to apply properly well-established rules of statutory construction in interpreting PELRA, and it frustrates the essential purposes of the Act.
The common-law prohibition against public employee strikes has been abrogated by the provision of PELRA currently at issue, Minn.St. 179.64, subd. 7, (hereinafter subdivision 7), which legalizes strikes by nonessential public employees in two situations (i. e., provides two defenses to the general prohibition against strikes) as follows:
“Either a violation of [the employer’s duty to comply with a valid arbitration decision], or a refusal by the employer to request binding arbitration when requested by the exclusive representative * * * is a defense to a violation of this section [prohibiting public employee strikes], except as to essential employees.” (Italics supplied.)
This provision neither expressly limits the defenses to only employees represented by the exclusive representative requesting arbitration nor to only members of the striking bargaining unit. In short, nothing affirmatively appears in the language of PELRA which prohibits the “nonessential” employees involved in this case from striking or cooperating with a lawful strike involving members of other bargaining units of the same public employer. Instead, once one of the two conditions precedent to a lawful strike occurs, the only employees expressly excluded from invoking the defenses of subdivision 7 are “essential employees.” .
It is a well-settled rule of statutory construction that the expression of one thing is the exclusion of another. E. g., Cairl v. City of St. Paul, 268 N.W.2d 908 (Minn.*8821978). Tynan v. KSTP, Inc., 247 Minn. 168, 77 N.W.2d 200 (1956). This rule of construction has even been codified by our legislature. See, Minn.St. 645.19. Consequently, by expressly excluding only “essential employees” from invoking the subdivision 7 defenses, the legislature intended all “nonessential” employees to have the right to invoke these defenses (even if such employees are not engaged in the primary strike, as long as one of the bargaining units of public employees is engaged in a lawful strike pursuant to subdivision 7).
' It is worthy of mention that the legislatures of Oregon and Pennsylvania expressly prohibit public employees from honoring a picket line of a striking public employee unit or from otherwise engaging in a sympathy strike.1 The Minnesota legislature has provided for no similar prohibition in PELRA, and yet has denied other statutory benefits to employees who honor picket lines. See, Minn.St. 268.09, subd. 1(5) (unemployment compensation benefits). This leads to the conclusion that if the legislature had intended the result urged by the City, it would have stated such in a manner consistent with its past practice in dealing with analogous issues or in the manner adopted by the legislatures of Oregon and Pennsylvania.
This construction of PELRA serves more fully the goals the Act was designed to achieve than does the interpretation urged by the City and the majority. PELRA was enacted by the Minnesota Legislature in 1971, and was substantially modified to allow public employee strikes pursuant to subdivision 7 in 1973 after a period of strife in public employment labor relations in this state. The preamble to PELRA proclaims in part that “[ujnresolved disputes between the public employer and its employees are injurious to the public as well as to the parties; adequate means must therefore be established for minimizing them and providing for their resolution.” Minn.St. 179.-61. By allowing public employee strikes in the situations enumerated in subdivision 7, the legislature obviously concluded that the previous blanket prohibition against public employee strikes did not serve the desired goal of minimizing labor friction. It was also our experience in Minnesota under the prior law that the absolute ban on strikes did not prevent strikes. In light of this historical background, the legislature apparently determined that labor difficulties could be reduced in the public employment field by creating bargaining parity between public employees and employers. PELRA’s purpose thus was to provide effective dispute-resolution machinery for public employment labor relations and to grant rights to public employees, through the 1973 amendments to subdivision 7 in question here, which approach the effectiveness of those rights traditionally held by private sector employees.
While it is true that our legislature placed certain threshold restrictions on the public employees’ right to strike which are not present in private sector labor relations law, it does not follow, as has been suggested, that once either of the two statutory prerequisites to a lawful public employees’ strike has occurred the legislature intended to deprive public employees of any of the devices for mutual aid or protection, including a sympathy strike, available to their counterparts in the private sector. Historically, one of the most fundamental rights possessed by an employee or group of employees is the right to request and enlist the support of other employees. It is well-established that striking private sector em*883ployees have a right to appeal to other employees to respect a lawful primary picket line. See, e. g., Local 761, IUE v. NLRB, 366 U.S. 667, 81 S.Ct. 1285, 6 L.Ed.2d 592 (1961). As Mr. Justice Frankfurter stated in Local 761, IUE v. NLRB: “The objectives of any picketing include a desire to influence others from withholding the employer their services or trade.” 366 U.S. 673, 81 S.Ct. 1289, 6 L.Ed.2d 597. Amplifying this concept further, the Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit stated in NLRB v. Union Carbide Corp. 440 F.2d 54, 56 (4 Cir. 1971):
“ * * * It cannot be denied that respect for the integrity of the picket line may well be the source of strength of the whole collective bargaining process in which every union member has a legitimate and protected economic interest. And any assistance by a union member to a labor organization in the collective bargaining process is for mutual aid or protection of the nonstriking unionist even though he has no immediate stake in the labor dispute.”
Consequently, I interpret subdivision 7 as placing limitations only on when a strike may be lawfully engaged in and as placing no limitations on what type of strike may be engaged in. If, therefore, one public employee bargaining unit engages in a lawful strike after the public employer has taken one of the two actions set forth in subdivision 7, all nonessential employees of that public employer may come to the mutual aid and protection of the unit engaged in the strike by engaging themselves in a sympathy strike:
Under a contrary rule, the purposes of PELRA would be greatly frustrated since in many instances the statutory right to strike would be rendered a nullity, a result I must conclude the legislature did not intend. For instance, small bargaining units are not uncommon under our present public employment relations structure. The City even posits a hypothetical case involving a unit consisting of two elevator operators. Without the effective right to engage the support of their fellow employees, the statutory right to strike of the members of a small unit would be meaningless, since the bargaining power exerted by a unit is largely proportional to the size of the unit. Yet the purpose of all labor relations law— public and private — is to correct substantial bargaining power imbalances between the employer and employees. In the absence of the right to call upon fellow workers for support, no rectification of bargaining imbalances would be achieved under PELRA in cases involving units of relatively few members. Employee units would thus be at the total mercy of the public employer since the employer could deal with small units one at a time, which would result in a gross bargaining imbalance contrary to the purposes of the Act.
In addition, contrary to the stated fears of the City that a small unit would theoretically be able to shut down the operations of one entire unit of government, the right of a small bargaining unit to call upon other employees to strike does not mean that the other employees will automatically choose to engage in a sympathy strike. The circumstances of the situation, including the nature of the dispute, the issues involved, and the economics of the situation, will dictate the willingness of other employees to strike in sympathy or not. In addition, the determination of whether a strike is legal or not is largely controlled by the employer’s own actions, since the two subdivision 7 preconditions to a lawful strike are the employer’s refusal to comply with an arbitration decision and the employer’s refusal to request binding arbitration when requested by the unit’s exclusive representative.
Due to these long-standing principles of statutory construction, the application of which furthers the purposes of the Act, I would hold that when one of the two precipitating events set forth in Minn.St. 179.-64, subd. 7, occurs, all nonessential public employees of the public employer have a *884right to withhold their services from the employer or otherwise cooperate in a lawful strike by the other employees. In short, our Act does not protect a public employer against the usual effects that accompany a strike by a group of its employees. PELRA only precludes “essential employees” from striking in sympathy or otherwise and “nonessential employees” from striking when neither of the subdivision 7 precipitating events occurs as to any unit of employees of the same public employer.

. Or.Rev.Stat. § 243.732 (1977), provides: “Public employees, other than those engaged in a nonprohibited strike, who refuse to cross a picket line shall be deemed to be engaged in a prohibited strike and shall be subject to the terms and conditions of ORS 243.726, pertaining to prohibited strikes.”
Pa.Stat.Ann., tit. 43, § 1101.1101 (Supp.1978-79), provides: “Public employees, other than those engaged in a nonprohibited strike, who refuse to cross a picket line shall be deemed to be engaged in a prohibited strike and shall be subject to the terms and conditions of Article X pertaining to prohibited strikes.”