Court Opinion

ID: 9767347
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-29 05:17:07.591728+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T07:30:30.676609
License: Public Domain

Justice McCAFFERY,
concurring and dissenting.
Because I believe that the arbitration panel acted within its powers and authority in awarding the relief set forth in Paragraphs 12 and 9A of the arbitration panel’s opinion and award, such award is beyond our narrow certiorari scope of review, and hence beyond any court’s power to alter. I base my conclusion on the indisputable facts that the awards contained in Paragraphs 12 and 9A plainly address “terms and *490conditions of employment” as defined by Section 1 of Act 111, 43 P.S. § 217.1, and would not force the City, as employer, to commit an illegal act. Thus, I dissent from the Majority Opinion’s analysis and disposition of Paragraphs 12 and 9A (Parts IV(A) and IV(B) of the Majority Opinion). Additionally, I dissent to Part III of the Majority Opinion, which Part constitutes the analytical basis for the majority’s disposition regarding Paragraphs 12 and 9A. Respectfully, I believe that the Majority Opinion’s recognition in Part III of a dominant managerial prerogative in Act 111 is without foundation in the language of the act and impermissibly expands the reach of our narrow certiorari scope of review. However, because I also believe that the Majority Opinion correctly concluded that the arbitration panel did exceed its power and authority in awarding the relief set forth in Paragraph 9B of the arbitration panel’s opinion and award, I join in the majority’s analysis and disposition of Paragraph 9B (Part IV(C) of the Majority Opinion).
In my respectful view, the Majority Opinion commits error on two fronts. First, it construes what I perceive as a facially unambiguous provision of Act 111 (Section 1) as ambiguous; then, on this basis, subjects it to a statutory interpretation analysis; omits consideration of what I respectfully posit are highly relevant rules of statutory interpretation; and arrives at a conclusion not suggested by, and effectively contrary to, the actual language of the statute. Second, it uses its conclusion to expand improperly, in my view, the “authority prong” of our narrow certiorari scope of review. Because Act 111 explicitly prohibits any judicial review of Act 111 arbitration awards (43 P.S. § 217.7), limited permissible judicial review under our established case law must remain extremely circumscribed; otherwise, we “undercut the legislature’s intent of preventing protracted litigation in this arena.” Pennsylvania State Police v. Pennsylvania State Troopers Ass’n (“Troopers Smith and Johnson”), 559 Pa. 586, 741 A.2d 1248, 1253 (1999). At the heart of this case is whether a court may review the arbitration panel’s opinion and award at all.
*491“[T]he narrow certiorari scope of review limits courts to reviewing questions concerning: (1) the jurisdiction of the arbitrators; (2) the regularity of the proceedings; (3) an excess in exercise of the arbitrator’s powers; and (4) deprivation of constitutional rights.” Pennsylvania State Police v. Pennsylvania State Troopers’ Ass’n (“Betancourt”), 656 A.2d 83, 89-90 (Pa.1995). Here, as the Majority Opinion correctly concluded, we are concerned with only the third prong of the narrow certiorari scope of review, namely, the limits of the power or authority of the Act 111 arbitration panel, as the other three prongs are not implicated by the issues in this case. Thus, unless the arbitration panel’s award in this case exceeded the authority granted to arbitrators by Act 111, the arbitration award is final and beyond the review of any court. Betancourt, supra at 89-90.
Section 1 of Act 111 defines the limits of the power or authority of an Act 111 arbitration panel or arbitrator, and provides in relevant part:
Policemen or firemen employed by a political subdivision of the Commonwealth or by the Commonwealth shall, ... have the right to bargain collectively -with their public employers concerning the terms and conditions of their employment, including compensation, hours, working conditions, retirement, pensions and other benefits, and shall have the right to an adjustment or settlement of their grievances or disputes in accordance with the terms of this act.
43 P.S. § 217.1 (emphasis added).1 In other words, “the [arbitration] award must encompass only terms and conditions *492of employment and may not address issues outside of that realm.” Betancourt, supra at 90 (citation omitted).
Additionally, even if the arbitration award concerns terms and conditions of employment, the award may not “mandate that an illegal act be carried out;” it “may only require a public employer to do that which the employer could do voluntarily.” Id.2 Prior to the ruling by the Majority Opinion in this case, this Court has permitted review in Act 111 cases under the authority prong of narrow certiorari only for determinations of whether the arbitration award addressed terms and conditions of employment and whether the award required the performance of a legal act. As we have aptly stated, “what constitutes ‘an excess of an arbitrator’s powers’ is far from expansive.” City of Philadelphia v. Fraternal Order of Police, Lodge No. 5 (“Lodge No. 5”), 768 A.2d 291, 296 (Pa.2001) (quoting Troopers Smith and Johnson, supra at 1251). “This third prong does not provide a portal to unlimited review of an Act 111 arbitration award.” City of Pittsburgh v. Fraternal Order of Police, Fort Pitt Lodge No. 1, 595 Pa. 47, 938 A.2d 225, 230 (2007).
*493Here, Paragraphs 12 and 9A of the arbitration panel’s opinion and award unquestionably address “terms and conditions of employment.” The Majority Opinion concedes as much. See op. at 474-76, 477, 999 A.2d at 571-72, 573. Further, the award does not require the City to perform an illegal act. The requirements of Paragraphs 12 and 9A are those that the City may voluntarily meet within the law. Moreover, the provisions of Paragraphs 12 and 9A consider and incorporate the managerial rights of the City.3 If the arbitration panel purportedly “insufficiently considered” management rights with respect to the working conditions at issue, I believe that this circumstance falls within the realm of “legal error,” and thus is not reviewable. Betancourt, supra at 90. Accordingly, pursuant to the plain language of Act 111 and our case law preceding the present Majority Opinion, the arbitration award, with respect to Paragraphs 12 and 9A, clearly fell within the authority of the Act 111 arbitration panel. Hence, the award is beyond this Court’s or any court’s power to review, no matter what the result.4
However, under a rule of its own invention, the Majority Opinion avoids such plain and straightforward application of the narrow certiorari scope of review to a genuinely clear-cut Act 111 arbitration award. The majority’s rule states that even if an Act 111 arbitration award plainly, even indisputably, addresses terms and conditions of employment, a reviewing court may nonetheless decree that the award, rather magical*494ly, no longer addresses or concerns terms and conditions of employment if the award, as determined by the court, “unduly infringes” upon vaguely-defined “managerial responsibilities” or prerogatives. Op. at 472, 999 A.2d at 570. Thus, under such rule, when terms and conditions of employment, as defined by Section 1 of Act 111, are judicially transmogrified into not being terms and conditions of employment, the relevant issue is now “outside” of Section 1 of Act 111 and, accordingly, is no longer under the “authority” of Act 111 arbitrators to decide. Respectfully, I cannot be a part of what is effectively the judicial rewriting of Section 1 of Act 111 and broad expansion of the authority prong of narrow certiorari.
Let me make clear: I have no dispute with a court’s power to review, under the authority prong of the narrow certiorari scope of review, whether an Act 111 arbitration award legitimately addresses terms and conditions of employment as defined by Section 1 of Act 111. See Town of McCandless v. McCandless Police Officers Ass’n, 587 Pa. 525, 901 A.2d 991, 1000 (2006) (“Generally speaking, a plenary standard of review should govern the preliminary determination of whether the issue involved implicates one of the four areas of inquiry encompassed by narrow certiorari, thus allowing for non-deferential review — unless, of course, that preliminary determination itself depended to some extent upon arbitral fact-finding or a construction of the relevant CBA.”); Betancourt, supra at 90 (“[T]he award must encompass only terms and conditions of employment and may not address issues outside of that realm.”).
However, what the Majority Opinion holds here strays radically, in my respectful opinion, beyond such appropriately limited review. The Majority Opinion, in addition to effectively rewriting Section 1 of Act 111, has effectively expanded the authority prong of narrow certiorari in a manner that, in my view, impermissibly “undercut[s] the legislature’s intent of preventing protracted litigation in [the Act 111] arena.” Troopers Smith and Johnson, supra at 1252-53 (wherein, in an Act 111 case, we rejected an attempt to expand the narrow certiorari scope of review with a public policy exception, *495relevantly stating: “If we were to adopt the State Police’s recommendation to include this ill-defined term within the narrow certiorari scope of review, we would markedly increase the judiciary’s role in Act 111 arbitration awards.”).
Act 111 specifically and exclusively addresses the right of firefighters and police officers to bargain over their working conditions, which necessarily includes issues regarding firefighter or police officer safety, and mandates that any disputes concerning working conditions are to be adjudicated by arbitration without any judicial appeal. 43 P.S. §§ 217.1 and 217.7. Every issue regarding the health and safety of these critical public servants necessarily also falls under the realm of “managerial responsibilities and prerogatives” as contemplated by the Majority Opinion, as this case illustrates to a degree. Indeed, the conclusion is inescapable that “managerial responsibilities and prerogatives” encompass everything that may be considered “terms and conditions of employment.” 5 Therefore, when this Court declares that all terms and conditions of employment are subservient to a dominant “managerial prerogatives” component in the third prong of the narrow certiorari scope of review, as determined by reviewing courts on a case-by-case basis, the Majority Opinion, in addition to effectively rewriting the explicit language of the General Assembly, creates the potential to extinguish even the limited nature of permissible judicial review. Any attorney for a public employer unhappy with an award will henceforth be remiss not to file an appeal of the objected-to portions of the award on grounds that the award, although addressing terms and conditions of employment, “unduly infringes” upon the employer’s vaguely-defined dominant “managerial responsibilities.” Under the Majority Opinion’s precedent, reviewing courts will be required to decide the matter on appeal (and further appeal), and thus drastically alter the legislative scheme whereby disputes concerning terms and conditions of *496employment were to be adjudicated exclusively by Act 111 arbitrators.
The Majority Opinion appears simply not to accept the possibility that the General Assembly actually considered the appropriate balance between the rights of firefighters and police officers and those of public employers when it drafted Act 111, and accordingly already gave thought to the role of “managerial prerogatives” in the remedial scheme it devised. Previously, we have described Act 111 as part of a “carefully crafted plan” that was “focused on making the division of rights and powers between management and labor more equitable.” Town of McCandless, supra at 997 (quoting Troopers Smith and Johnson, supra at 1251-52). We further stated:
Act 111 was created to strike a more perfect balance between the need of the Commonwealth to insure public safety and the rights of the worker. To protect the need of the Commonwealth, police and fire personnel were still denied the right to strike. The rights of the worker were to be safeguarded through collective bargaining rights and arbitration provisions. The interests of labor and management, as well as those of the general public, were to be safeguarded by a provision which forbad appeals from an arbitration award. This swift resolution of disputes decreased the chance that the workforce would be destabilized by protracted litigation, a state harmful to all parties.
Betancourt, supra at 89 (citation and footnote omitted; emphasis added).6 We have never before viewed Act 111 as suffering from a gaping hole into which the judiciary must insert its own test in order to safeguard, not the rights of *497firefighters and police officers to bargain over and have arbitrators decide issues regarding their working conditions, as is the express intent of the act, but “managerial prerogatives” of public employers.
On the contrary, we have previously noted the extraordinary and unique nature of Act 111 itself. Act 111 was born from an explicit constitutional amendment.7 This constitutional amendment authorized legislation that would (1) provide for compulsory final, non-appealable awards addressing disputes over the terms and conditions of employment of firefighters and police officers; and (2) delegate to the tribunals deciding such disputes the power to compel public employers to enact legislation or promulgate regulations in order that such final, non-appealable awards could be implemented. The pertinent legislation resulting from this constitutional amendment is set forth at Section 7 of Act 111.8 See Philadelphia Housing *498Authority v. Pennsylvania Labor Relations Board, 508 Pa. 576, 499 A.2d 294, 301 n. 8 (1985) (“The binding aspect of [Act Ill’s] arbitration procedure is essential to the legislative scheme.... A constitutional amendment was passed in 1967 to permit this binding procedure. Pa. Const. Art. III, § 31.”); Township of Moon v. Police Officers of the Township of Moon, 508 Pa. 495, 498 A.2d 1305, 1311 (1985) (“The public’s interest in approving the constitutional amendment and the purpose of the legislature’s promulgation of Act 111 was to provide a vehicle to permit police and fire personnel, who render so vital a service to the public, to effectively resolve employment disputes with their employers as an alternative to a disruptive work stoppage. To interpret the statute in [ ] a manner as to frustrate this objective is obviously an unacceptable result.”) (footnote omitted); City of Washington v. Police Department of City of Washington, 436 Pa. 168, 259 A.2d 437, 442 (1969) (interpreting Article 3, Section 31 and stating, “[i]t is clear then that this provision does not, by its own force, place any specific limit on the authority of the [Act 111] arbitrators.”) (emphasis added).
Respectfully, I cannot conclude that the Majority Opinion’s holding in this case is compatible with Section 7 of Act 111 or its constitutional mandate. It is inconceivable that a statutory and constitutional directive that an arbitration award serve as a mandate to a political body to timely enact legislation or promulgate regulations is compatible with the idea that the same arbitration award is subservient to a robust and domi*499nant “managerial prerogative” enjoyed by that same political body. Of what value is Act Ill’s command that the interest arbitration award serve as a mandate for the government employer to pass any law or promulgate any regulation to implement an arbitration award if a reviewing court’s notions of dominant “managerial prerogatives” deprive interest arbitration panels of authority or jurisdiction over the actual matters that may require the passage of laws or promulgation of regulations to implement the award?9
I highlight Section 7 of Act 111, as well as Article 3, Section 31 of the Pennsylvania Constitution, in order to underscore my view that in Act 111, the General Assembly has already considered the reach of “managerial prerogatives” over matters concerning terms and conditions of employment of firefighters and police officers. Under a plain reading of Act 111, terms and conditions of employment for firefighters and police officers are not subservient to the public employer’s managerial prerogatives; rather, the opposite is wholly evident. I respectfully posit that this is part of the General Assembly’s “carefully crafted plan.”
Also part of the General Assembly’s “carefully crafted plan” of public employment legislation is the Public Employee Relations Act (“PERA”).10 See Betancourt, supra at 89. PERA concerns public sector employees specifically not covered by Act 111; it lacks Act Ill’s “no-appeal” mandate; and, unlike Act 111, it specifically excludes from employee bargaining “matters of inherent managerial policy.”. 43 P.S. § 1101.702. Accordingly, PERA has a “managerial prerogatives” component expressly stated therein.
PERA was enacted only two years after Act 111. It evidences the General Assembly’s ability to construct legislation imposing, and fully recognizing, a “managerial prerogative” concept that expressly limits bargainable employment *500terms and conditions of public workers. I believe it significant to any statutory analysis of Act 111 to recognize that the General Assembly explicitly set forth a “managerial prerogatives” component in PERA, but explicitly omitted one from Act 111. See L.S. ex rel A.S. v. Eschbach, 583 Pa. 47, 874 A.2d 1150, 1156 (2005) (quoting Kusza v. Maximonis, 363 Pa. 479, 70 A.2d 329, 331 (1950)) (“[I]n construing a statute, the court must ascertain and give effect to the legislative intention as expressed in the language of the statute, and cannot, under its powers of construction, supply omissions in a statute, especially where it appears that the matter may have been intentionally omitted.”); Fonner v. Shandon, Inc., 555 Pa. 370, 724 A.2d 903, 907 (1999) (“[W]here the legislature includes specific language in one section of the statute and excludes it from another, the language should not be implied where excluded. Moreover, where a section of a statute contains a given provision, the omission of such a provision from a similar section is significant to show a different legislative intent.” I quote this passage because I believe the stated principles have even more force and relevance when one statute contains a specific provision but another, purportedly “similar” statute, omits such a provision); Commonwealth v. Shafer, 414 Pa. 613, 202 A.2d 308, 312 (1964) (quoting Commonwealth ex rel. Cartwright v. Cartwright, 350 Pa. 638, 40 A.2d 30, 33 (1944)) (“[The General Assembly] could have done so, and it may even have intended to do so, but the fact is it did not do so.”).
By imposing a robust “managerial prerogatives” component upon Act 111 and its concomitant narrow certiorari scope of review, the Majority Opinion has effectively erased the principal substantive difference between Act 111 and PERA, despite the fact that it is eminently clear that the General Assembly had intended to maintain different statutory schemes.11 This Court has frequently noted that the significant substantive differences between Act 111 and PERA are evident from the greater importance of firefighters and police officers to the health and safety of our citizenry than other public employees, *501as important as those other employees are.12 I would add that under Act 111, firefighters and police are treated differently from other public employees not only because of the services they provide to the general public, but also because of what the public asks and demands of them. We expect of these public employees each day to take risks to personal safety that ordinary citizens would be unlikely to consider or even anticipate. Health and safety issues are not an occasional concern or a remote abstraction to firefighters and police. They are a daily fact of work life. They loom large every time these unique public employees report for duty, and they often take center stage in interest arbitration negotiations. Thus, the reasons the General Assembly had for singling out firefighters and police for special treatment of labor issues, divorced from ordinary concepts of labor relations found in the private sector or even in PERA, are self-evident, and cannot be ignored by this Court in undertaking any analysis of Act 111.
Finally, there is nothing evident from any statutory construction analysis that I can identify that supports the Majority Opinion’s position that if a statutory provision is “ambigu*502ous” because its definitional terms are “open-ended,”13 then a court may impose a condition or test whereby the legislative definitions are severely modified by a concept not even remotely mentioned in the underlying legislation. Thus, if Section 1 and the narrow certiorari scope of review need to be modified to more finely incorporate concerns regarding “managerial prerogatives” of public employers, then I believe, in accordance with the numerous matters I raise in this writing, that the Court must find as narrow an exception from the plain language of Act 111 as possible. I see absolutely no grounds for the imposition onto Act 111 of the robust, dominant concept of “managerial prerogatives” devised by the Majority Opinion that I deem to be devastating to the limitations of narrow certiorari and contrary to the undisputed expansiveness of the text of Act 111 itself.
Accordingly, for a great multitude of reasons, I respectfully dissent from Parts III, IV(A), and IV(B) of the Majority Opinion.

. My reading of this Section requires that I distance myself from the Majority Opinion’s conclusion that it is "ambiguous,” which necessarily subjects the Section to statutory analysis. The Majority Opinion arrives at its conclusion that the Section is ambiguous because it determines that certain terms are “open-ended.” Op. at 467, 999 A.2d at 567. However, to the extent any term is "open-ended,” that alone does not make the term ambiguous: it simply makes the term open-ended. See Delaware County v. First Union Corp., 992 A.2d 112, 118 (Pa.2010); Barasch v. Pennsylvania Public Utility Comm'n, 516 Pa. 142, 532 A.2d 325, 332 (1987) (both holding that words of a statute are ambiguous when there are at least two reasonable interpretations of the text under review). Indeed, the Majority Opinion itself recognized that the Gener*492al Assembly intended Section 1 to "be viewed broadly, to encompass any subject that is rationally related to the ‘terms and conditions of employment’____” Op. at 471, 999 A.2d at 569. Moreover, the Majority Opinion had no difficulty ascertaining that the subjects of Paragraphs 12 and 9A of the arbitration panel’s opinion and award encompassed terms and conditions of employment. Id. at 474-76, 477, 999 A.2d at 571-72, 573. This Court has never before considered Section 1 to be ambiguous. "It is therefore our judgment that [Sjection 1 is free of any ambiguity and must be accepted in accordance with its terms.” Philadelphia Housing Authority v. PLRB, 508 Pa. 576, 499 A.2d 294, 299 (1985) (construing Section 1 to determine whether the Philadelphia Housing Authority is a public employer under its provisions). Accordingly, I believe that this Court is obligated to apply Section 1 simply as written. 1 Pa.C.S. § 1921; Colville v. Allegheny County Retirement Board, 592 Pa. 433, 926 A.2d 424, 431 (2007) ("The touchstone of statutory interpretation is that where a statute is unambiguous, the judiciary may not ignore the plain language under the pretext of pursuing its spirit, ... for the language of a statute is the best indication of legislative intent.”) (citation and quotation marks omitted).

. Those matters that an employer may voluntarily perform include the enactment or promulgation of legislation, ordinance, or regulation, as the case may be. An Act 111 arbitration award mandates the public employer to enact any legislation or promulgate any regulation necessary to carry out the provisions of the award. 43 P.S. § 217.7.

. See, e.g., the preamble to Paragraph 12, which provides that "[i]t is understood that the determination of the overall size of the Fire Department is ultimately a managerial decision.” Arbitration Opinion and Award at 22. Moreover, the underlying collective bargaining agreement, to which subsequent modifications have been made over the years, notes that the City "at all times maintains its managerial responsibilities and prerogatives.” Collective Bargaining Agreement, covering the term July 1, 1986 through June 30, 1988, at 1.

. The subject of Paragraph 9B of the arbitration award may also potentially concern "terms and conditions of employment.” However, because in Paragraph 9B, the arbitration panel made an award on an issue not properly raised by either party, I join the Majority Opinion’s determination that the arbitration panel lacked the authority to make such award. See 43 P.S. § 217.4(a) (providing that either party to an Act 111 dispute may request arbitration, "after written notice to the other party containing specifications of the issue or issues in dispute.”).

. What goal does a public employer have, or what position does it take, when bargaining a labor contract, except to assert its managerial rights and responsibilities? Every position an employer takes in the bargaining process asserts the employer's responsibilities and prerogatives.

. Indeed, Act Ill’s explicit inclusion of the component of swift, final arbitration awards from which there were to be no appeals (now undercut by the Majority Opinion’s judicially-created dominant managerial prerogatives component that will henceforth overshadow the act) is not any sundry provision. It is the "linchpin of” Act 111, as "an Act 111 arbitration panel’s resolution of [a] dispute must be sure and swift, [or] much of its effectiveness would be lost if the mandate of its decision could be delayed indefinitely through protracted litigation.” Betancourt, supra at 89 (emphasis added; quoting City of Washington v. Police Department of City of Washington, 436 Pa. 168, 259 A.2d 437, 440 (1969)).

. See Article 3, Section 31 of the Pennsylvania Constitution, which provides:
The General Assembly shall not delegate to any special commission, private corporation or association, any power to make, supervise or interfere with any municipal improvement, money, property or effects, whether held in trust or otherwise, or to levy taxes or perform any municipal function whatever.
Notwithstanding the foregoing limitation or any other provision of the Constitution, the General Assembly may enact laws which provide that the findings of panels or commissions, selected and acting in accordance with law for the adjustment or settlement of grievances or disputes or for collective bargaining between policemen and firemen and their public employers shall be binding upon all parties and shall constitute a mandate to the head of the political subdivision which is the employer, or to the appropriate officer of the Commonwealth if the Commonwealth is the employer, with respect to matters which can be remedied by administrative action, and to the lawmaking body of such political subdivision or of the Commonwealth, with respect to matters which require legislative action, to take the action necessary to carry out such findings.
PA. CONST. Art. 3, § 31.

. Section 7 of Act 111 reads in its entirety:
(a) The determination of the majority of the board of arbitration thus established shall be final on the issue or issues in dispute and shall be binding upon the public employer and the policemen or firemen involved. Such determination shall be in writing and a copy thereof shall be forwarded to both parties to the dispute. No appeal therefrom shall be allowed to any court. Such determination shall *498constitute a mandate to the head of the political subdivision which is the employer, or to the appropriate officer of the Commonwealth if the Commonwealth is the employer, with respect to matters which can be remedied by administrative action, and to the lawmaking body of such political subdivision or of the Commonwealth with respect to matters which require legislative action, to take the action necessary to carry out the determination of the board of arbitration, (b) With respect to matters which require legislative action for implementation, such legislation shall be enacted, in the case of the Commonwealth, within six months following publication of the findings, and, in the case of a political subdivision of the Commonwealth, within one month following publication of the findings. The effective date of any such legislation shall be the first day of the fiscal year following the fiscal year during which the legislation is thus enacted.
43 P.S. § 217.7 (emphasis added).

. Further, as I have previously noted, I respectfully believe that the Majority Opinion's holding effectively guts Section 7’s "no appeal” mandate, the actual "linchpin” of the entire act.

. Act of July 23, 1970, P.L. 563, as amended, 43 P.S. §§ 1101.101— 1101.2301.

. Significantly, Act 111, unlike PERA, required passage of a constitutional amendment to authorize its unique goals.

. See Philadelphia Housing Authority v. PLRB, 508 Pa. 576, 499 A.2d 294, 300-01 (1985) ("[In contrast to PERA,] Act 111 was intended to carve out a select group of public employees for special treatment because of the essential nature of the services they perform. To attempt to superimpose PERA’s definition of "public employer” upon Section 1 of Act 111 ignores the clear legislative intent to restrict the applicability of Section 1 [in part] based upon the service being delivered by the employee ----”) (citations omitted; emphasis added); Geriot v. Council of Borough of Darby, 491 Pa. 63, 417 A.2d 1144, 1146-48 (1980) (wherein we rejected the Commonwealth Court’s application to Act 111 of a provision from PERA regarding enforcement of awards, explaining that the Commonwealth Court erred by ”ignor[ing] the ‘unique and specific procedures’ provided in Act 111 which were tailored by the Legislature to the specific requirements of the employment relations of municipalities and police and fire labor forces.”); Township of Sugarloaf v. Bowling, 563 Pa. 237, 759 A.2d 913, 916 (2000) ("While the public employees covered by PERA obviously perform useful services for the citizens of this Commonwealth, their functions are not as critical to the continued stability of a peaceful society as are those performed by police and firefighting personnel.” Thus, ”[a]s sagaciously recognized by the legislature, disputes involving police and firefighting personnel are to be resolved swiftly in order to prevent labor unrest, and arbitration is the nimble mechanism which can meet this timeliness challenge.”).

. Again, I continue to dispute that Section 1 is ambiguous.