Court Opinion

ID: 9548143
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-07 17:58:12.768381+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T15:18:31.687084
License: Public Domain

LUCAS, J.
I respectfully dissent. In my view, public employees in this state neither have the right to strike, nor should they have that right. In any event, in light of the difficulty in fashioning proper exceptions to the basic “no strike” rule, and the dangers to public health and safety arising from even a temporary cessation of governmental services, the courts should defer to the Legislature, a body far better equipped to create such exceptions.
*610The majority paints a glowing picture of the public strike weapon as a means of “enhancing] labor-management relations” (ante, p. 581), “equalizing the parties’ respective bargaining positions,” (p. 583), assuring “good faith” collective bargaining {ibid.), and “providing a clear incentive for resolving disputes” (ibid.). Indeed, so enamored is the majority with the concept of the public strike that it elevates this heretofore illegal device to a “basic civil liberty.” (Ibid.) Though wholly unnecessary to its opinion, the majority in dictum even suggests that public employees may have a constitutional right to strike which cannot be legislatively abridged absent some “substantial or compelling justification.” (P. 590.)
Thus, in the face of an unbroken string of Court of Appeal cases commencing nearly 35 years ago which hold that public strikes are illegal, we suddenly announce our finding that public strikes are not only lawful in most cases, but indeed they may constitute a panacea for many of the social and economic ills which have long beset the public sector. One may wonder, as I do, why we kept that revelation a secret for all these years. (See El Rancho Unified School Dist. v. National Education Assn. (1983) 33 Cal.3d 946, 962 [192 Cal.Rptr. 123, 663 P.2d 893] [conc. opn. by Richardson, J.].)
Despite the majority’s encomiums, the fact remains that public strikes may devastate a city within a matter of days, or even hours, depending on the circumstances. For this reason, among many others, the courts of this state (and the vast majority of courts in other states and the federal government) have declared all public strikes illegal. As indicated above, until today the California Courts of Appeal uniformly had followed that rule. (See, e.g., Stationary Engineers v. San Juan Suburban Water Dist. (1979) 90 Cal.App.3d 796, 801 [153 Cal.Rptr. 666]; Pasadena Unified Sch. Dist. v. Pasadena Federation of Teachers (1977) 72 Cal.App.3d 100, 105-107 [140 Cal.Rptr. 41], hg. den.; Los Angeles Unified School Dist. v. United Teachers (1972) 24 Cal.App.3d 142, 145-146 [100 Cal.Rptr. 806], hg. den.; Trustees of Cal. State Colleges v. Local 1352, S.F. State etc. Teachers (1970) 13 Cal.App.3d 863, 867 [92 Cal.Rptr. 134], hg. den.; City of San Diego v. American Federation of State etc. Employees (1970) 8 Cal.App.3d 308, 310 [87 Cal.Rptr. 258], hg. den.; Almond v. County of Sacramento (1969) 276 Cal.App.2d 32, 35-36 [80 Cal.Rptr. 518], hg. den.; Pranger v. Break (1960) 186 Cal.App.2d 551, 556 [9 Cal.Rptr. 293], hg. den.; Newmarker v. Regents of Univ. of Cal. (1958) 160 Cal.App.2d 640, 646 [325 P.2d 558]; City of L.A. v. Los Angeles etc. Council (1949) 94 Cal.App.2d 36, 46-47 [210 P.2d 305], hg. den.)
Justice Coughlin’s opinion in the City of San Diego case offers a cogent analysis of the various rationales underlying the “no strike” rule. He ob*611served that “This California common law rule is the generally accepted common law rule in many jurisdictions. [Citations, including cases from 24 states.]
“The common law rule has been adopted or confirmed statutorily by 20 states and the federal government. [Citations.]
. . The common law rule [that] public employees do not have the right to bargain collectively or to strike is predicated expressly on the necessity for and lack of statutory authority conferring such right. Where a statute authorizes collective bargaining and strikes it includes them within the methods authorized by law for fixing the terms and conditions of employment. Those who advocate the right of public employees to strike should present their case to the Legislature. [Italics added.]
“Wherever the issue has been raised, it has been held laws governing the rights of public employees to engage in union activities, collective bargaining, strikes and other coercive practices, not equally applicable to private employees, and vice versa, are premised on a constitutionally approved classification; and, for this reason, are not violative of the constitutional guarantee of equal protection of the law. [Citations.] [t] The reasons for the law denying public employees the right to strike while affording such right to private employees are not premised on differences in types of jobs held by these two classes of employees but upon differences in the employment relationship to which they are parties. The legitimate and compelling state interest accomplished and promoted by the law denying public employees the right to strike is not solely the need for a particular governmental service but the preservation of a system of government in the ambit of public employment and the proscription of practices not compatible with the public employer-employee relationship. [Citation.]” (8 Cal.App.3d at pp. 311-315.)
The decision to allow public employee strikes requires a delicate and complex balancing process best undertaken by the Legislature, which may formulate a comprehensive regulatory scheme designed to avoid the disruption and chaos which invariably follow a cessation or interruption of governmental services. The majority’s own proposal, to withhold the strike weapon only where “truly essential” services are involved (p. 580) and a “substantial and imminent threat” is posed (p. 586), will afford little guidance to our trial courts who must, on a “case-by-case” basis {ibid.), decide such issues. Nor will representatives of labor or management be able to *612predict with any confidence or certainty whether a particular strike is a lawful one or, being lawful at its inception, will become unlawful by reason of its adverse effects upon the public health and safety. In short, the majority’s broad holding will prove as unworkable as it is unwise.
Of the few states that permit strikes by public employees, virtually all do so by comprehensive statutory provisions. Some of the statutory schemes begin by creating classifications of employees, distinguishing, for example, workers whose services are deemed essential (e.g., police, firefighters), those whose services may be interrupted for short periods of time (e.g., teachers), and those whose services may be omitted for an extended time (e.g., municipal golf course attendants).1 These schemes typically define various prerequisites to the exercise of the right to strike for those categories of workers permitted that option. The prerequisites include a period of mandatory mediation2 as well as advance notice to the employer.3 In addition, some statutory schemes lay out the ground rules for binding arbitration.4
In contrast, the majority’s new California rule is hopelessly undefined and unstructured. In addition to the breadth of the majority’s “truly essential” standard, the statutes presently provide no systematic classification of employees according to the nature of their work and the degree to which the public can tolerate work stoppages. Only firefighters are expressly prohibited from striking and giving recognition to picket lines. (Lab. Code, § 1962.) Moreover, the four principal statutory schemes regulating other public employees establish widely differing approaches to labor relations for different types and levels of employees. (Compare Gov. Code, §§ 3500-3510 [Meyers-Milias-Brown Act, covering local government employees]; 3512-3524 [State Employer-Employee Relations Act, covering state em*613ployees]; 3540-3549.3 [Ed. Employment Relations Act, covering public school employees]; 3560-3599 [governing employment in higher education].) Thus, these statutes produce inconsistent results when, as here, the right to strike is given recognition almost across the board.
The Meyers-Milias-Brown Act, for example, provides “no clear mechanism for resolving disputes” between local governments and their workers. (Ante, p. 572, fn. 14.) In the absence of an administrative agency to settle charges of unfair labor practices and compel such remedies as mediation, presumably all strike-related issues will go to the courts in the first instance, but the courts are poor forums for the resolution of such issues. On the other hand, issues arising out of work stoppages by public school employees are to be resolved by the Public Employee Relations Board (PERB) on the basis of PERB’s own set of remedies. Of course, this anomalous situation is in large part the product of this court’s tolerance of strikes by teachers (El Rancho Unified Sch. Dist. v. National Ed. Assn., supra, 33 Cal.3d 946; San Diego Teachers Assn. v.. Superior Court (1979) 24 Cal.3d 1 [154 Cal.Rptr. 893, 593 P.2d 838]) and PERB’s correlative expansion of its authority so that it may compel mediation or adopt other remedies in labor disputes in public education (see Cal. Admin. Code, tit. 8, § 32000 et seq.).
Finally, nothing in PERB’s explicit statutory powers (Gov. Code, § 3541.3) extends to mandatory arbitration, for example, so it remains to be established whether state employees, also under PERB’s jurisdiction (id., § 3513, subd. (g)), will be governed by the same ground rules as educational employees, or whether some of them, perhaps deemed “truly essential,” will be subject to binding arbitration under rules that do not now exist.
I would affirm the judgment.
Respondent’s petition for a rehearing was denied June 27, 1985.

See Alaska Statutes section 23.40.200(a) (1972) (categorizing, first, all police, fire, correctional, and hospital workers; second, public utility, snow removal, sanitation, and education employees; and third, all other public workers). See also Minnesota Statutes Annotated section 179A.03 (West Supp. 1985) (defining “essential” workers, etc.).

E.g., Alaska Statutes section 23.40.200(c) (1972) (mediation required); Illinois Public Act 83-1012, section 17 (1983) (El. Legis. Serv. 6781, to be codified at 111. Ann. Stat. ch. 48, § 1617) (mediation required); Minnesota Statutes Annotated section 179A.18, subdivisions 1, 2 (West Supp. 1985) (mediation required for 45 days, 60 days in case of teachers); Pennsylvania Statutes Annotated, title 43, section 1101.1003 (Purden Supp. 1984) (mediation required); Wisconsin Statutes Annotated section 111.70(4)(cm) (West Supp. 1983) (mediation-arbitration required).

E.g., Illinois Public Act 83-1012, section 17 (5 days’ notice required); Minnesota Statutes Annotated section 179A.18, subdivision 3 (West Supp. 1985) (10 days); Wisconsin Statutes Annotated section 111.70(4)(cm) (West Supp. 1983) (10 days).

E.g., Minnesota Statutes Annotated section 179A.16 (West Supp. 1985); Wisconsin Statutes Annotated section 111.70(4)(jm) (West Supp. 1983).