Court Opinion

ID: 9696056
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-25 18:34:41.205879+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:20:18.120364
License: Public Domain

WOLLMAN, Justice
(concurring specially).
The law in question here, SDCL 3-18, is entitled “Public Employees’ Unions.” We are dealing with a law that affects not only teachers but all public employees generally, inasmuch as SDCL 3-18-1 provides that:
“The words ‘public employees’ as used in this chapter shall mean any person holding a position by appointment or employment in the government of the state of South Dakota or in the government of any one or more of the political subdivisions thereof, or in the service of the public schools, or in the service of any authority, commission, or board, or any other branch of the public service.”
Our holding in the instant case will of necessity, by implication if not by outright declaration, set the pattern for the interpretation of “conditions of employment” as that phrase relates to other employees in the public sector.
The appellant Association asks that we give a broad, expansive reading to the phrase “conditions of employment” in the light of the special group of public employees involved in this case.
“The Association submits that the phrase ‘conditions of employment’ as it applies to a specific and somewhat unique group of employees, namely teachers, properly encompasses any subject matter having an impact or effect on the working day or working life of a teacher.” Brief for Appellant at 8.
This argument would perhaps be more persuasive if we were dealing with an act that dealt solely with the subject of teachers’ *136negotiations, as was the case in West Hartford Education Association, Inc. v. DeCourcy, 162 Conn. 566, 295 A.2d 526, where the act was entitled the “Teacher Negotiation Act” and imposed upon the board of education “* * * the duty to negotiate with respect to salaries and other conditions of employment about which either party wishes to negotiate .
It is important that we keep in mind that we are dealing with public employers and employees rather than with employers and employees in the private, profit-making sector of our economy. Public employees in this state have only recently been given the specific statutory right to form and join labor or employee organizations (SDCL 3-18 had its origin in Ch. 88, Laws of 1969); we should give due regard to whatever limitations the legislature has seen fit to write into the negotiations act at this relatively early stage of the operation of the public employees’ union law in this state.
SDCL 3-18-2 provides in part that:
“* * * the governmental agency or its designated representatives shall be required to meet and negotiate with the representatives of the employees at reasonable times in connection with such grievance procedures and conditions of employment. * * *”
If this were the only statute to be considered, it could be argued that SDCL 3-18-2 is as broad as the statute described in the West Hartford case, supra. We must also consider SDCL 3-18-3, however, which in its original form provided in part that:
“Informal recognition shall give an organization the right to meet with, confer, and otherwise communicate with the governmental agency or its designated representatives on matters of interest to its members. * * *” (Ch. 88, § 7, subdiv. 3, Laws of 1969)
SDCL 3-18-3 was amended in 1971 (Ch. 20, § 1, Laws of 1971) so that in pertinent part it now reads:
“Representatives designated or selected for the pur*137pose of formal representation by the majority of the employees in a unit appropriate for such purposes shall be the exclusive representatives of all employees in such unit for the purpose of representation in respect to rates of pay, wages, hours of employment, or other conditions of employment * *
We must assume that the legislature amended this section from its original broad, nonspecific delineation of the subjects on which employee representatives were given authority to represent an employee unit to a specific enumeration of the subjects of such representation for the purpose of limiting employee representation to the specific subject matters set forth in the statute as amended.
When viewed against this background, it seems reasonable that the phrase “or other conditions of employment” as used in SDCL 3-18-3 refers back to the immediately preceding specifically enumerated items, “rates of pay, wages, hours of employment,” and as thus limited refers to those areas of the employment relationship encompassed within the subjects of compensation and required periods of attendance at and permitted periods of absence from the employees’ place of employment. Although such an interpretation of the phrase in question may include areas within the periphery of the statutorily enumerated subjects that directly and materially affect compensation and hours of employment, it is not so broad as to include the eight items sought to be negotiated by the Association, on the basis of the record before us.* This interpretation is consistent with and follows from the application of the familiar rule of ejusdem generis. Cf. State v. Fairbanks, 65 S.D. 272, 273 N.W. 188.
*138As thus interpreted and when read in conjunction with SDCL 3-18-2, the phrase “other conditions of employment” in SDCL 3-18-3 defines and limits the phrase “conditions of employment” as used in SDCL 3-18-2. Any other interpretation of the latter section would lead to the inconsistent result that the duty to negotiate imposed by SDCL 3-18-2 on the governmental agency would be broader than the authority given employee representatives by SDCL 3-18-3.
In summary, then, although I agree with the result reached by the majority opinion, I do so for slightly different reasons, and I expressly decline to join in any discussion of the constitutionality of SDCL 3-18 inasmuch as that issue is not before us.

 If the record (as opposed to appellant’s explication in its statement of negotiation items presented to the Board of Education) established that, e. g., elementary conferences and elementary planning periods had a direct material effect on a teacher’s hours of employment, then these two items might very well be proper subjects of negotiation. Although to a member of appellant Association this might seem to be a self-evident proposition, so clear as to be beyond the need of establishing by empirical evidence, I am reluctant to engage in speculation or assumption about the nature and extent of the effect these two subjects may have on a teacher’s hours of employment. Likewise as to the other items sought to be negotiated.