STATE OF MAINE MAINE LABOR RELATIONS BOARD Case No. 78-34 _______________________________ ) SANFORD SCHOOL COMMITTEE, ) ) Complainant, ) ) v. ) ) SANFORD TEACHERS ASSOCIATION ) DECISION AND ORDER ) and ) ) FREDERICK BROWN, ) ) Respondents. ) _______________________________) This case comes to the Maine Labor Relations Board ("Board") by way of a prohibited practice complaint filed May 15, 1978 by Thomas E. Humphrey, Esquire, attorney for the Sanford School Committee. A response to the com- plaint was filed June 2, 1978 by Shirley E. Randall, UnlServ Director for the Sanford Teachers Association. A pre-hearing conference on the matter was held in Augusta, Maine on June 27, 1978 by Alternate Chairman Donald W. Webber. As a result of this pre-hearing conference, Alternate Chairman Webber issued on June 29, 1978 a Pre-Hearing Conference Memorandum and Order, the contents of which are incorporated herein by reference. The parties agreed at the pre-hearing conference that since no factual issues were raised requiring a fact hearing before the Board, the matter would be submitted to the Board on briefs. All briefs were filed by September 12, 1978, and the Board proceeded to deliberate on the case on September 21, 1978 at a conference held in Augusta, Maine, Chairman Edward H. Keith presiding, with Paul D. Emery, Employer Representative and Michael Schoonjans, Employee Representative. JURISDICTION Neither party has challenged the jurisdiction of the Maine Labor Relations Board in this matter, and we conclude that this Board has juris- diction to hear and render a decision in this case as provided in 26 M.R.S.A. 968(5). FINDINGS OF FACT Upon review of the Pre-Hearing Conference Memorandum and Order, the Exhibits submitted at the June 27, 1978 pre-hearing conference and the pleadings, the Board finds that: 1. Complainant Sanford School Committee ("School Committee"), a duly authorized body acting on behalf of the Town of Sanford, Maine, is a public employer within the meaning of 26 M.R.S.A. 962(7). -1- ______________________________________________________________________________ 2. Respondent Sanford Teachers Association ("Teachers Association") was at all times material herein the exclusive bargaining agent as defined in 26 M.R.S.A. 962(2) for the teachers employed by the Sanford School Committee. 3. Respondent Frederick Brown, at all times material herein Presi- dent of Respondent Sanford Teachers Association, is a public employee within the meaning of 26 M.R.S.A. 962(6). 4. At all times material herein, the School Committee and Teachers Association were conferring and negotiating with respect to wages, pay and fringe benefit increases for the teachers employed by the School Committee. 5. On or about May 8, 1978, Respondents filed with the Town of Sanford's Selectmen's Office a petition to be placed as an Article in the Warrant of a Special Town Meeting scheduled for May 31, 1978. 6. The petition filed by Respondents states in part that "We, the undersigned, citizens and voters of said Town of Sanford, hereby request that the following petition be inserted in the Warrant for the . . . Special Town Meeting of 1978, to wit: "To see if the Town will vote to raise or appropriate for the Instruction, Line Budget Account numbered as follows, for the period of July 1, 1978 through June 30, 1979. . . . "213 Teachers . . . . . . . . 2,397,971.00" The petition was signed by 19 persons, and was placed as Article 20 in the Warrant of the Special Town Meeting. 7. On May 8, 1978 Complainant submitted its proposed 1978-79 school budget to the Selectmen's Office for consideration at the Special town Meeting. Complainant's proposed school budget requested that the sum of $2,235,671.76 be raised or appropriated for line budget item 213 (teachers). 8. In explanation of the sum of money requested for teachers in Respondents' petition, Respondent Frederick Brown stated that the difference between the figure contained in Complainant's budget proposal and the amount requested in Respondents' petition is approximately the amount which Respondents calculate would be needed to fund salary increases which Respondents were seeking to obtain for teachers through the collective bargaining process. DECISION Complainant has charged that Respondents violated 26 M.R.S.A. 964(2)(B) when Respondents, during contract negotiations, drafted, circulated and caused to be placed as an Article In the Warrant of the Special Town Meeting a peti- tion seeking an appropriation for the teacher's salary line budget item an amount approximating the sum which would be needed to fund salary increases which Respondents were seeking to obtain through the collective bargaining process. Complainant argues that Respondents' actions in effect constitute an attempt to circumvent negotiations with the School Committee by obtaining desired salary increases directly from the Town Meeting members. The result of Town Meeting approval of Respondents' requested appropriation, Complainant contends, would be to place undue public pressures and burdens on the School Committee to accede to Respondents' salary proposals. In light of the undue public pressures to which -2- ______________________________________________________________________________ the School Committee would be subject, Complainant asserts, the practical and legal effect of Respondents' actions is negotiation of certain provisions of the teachers' collective bargaining agreement between Respondents and the citizenry, thereby bypassing the public employer's duly authorized bargaining body in violation of Section 964(2)(B). Respondents contend that the exercise of the right to petition one's government is not a per se violation of the obligation to bargain set forth in 26 M.R.S.A. 965, and that the record does not contain evidence showing bad faith or unlawful refusal to bargain on the part of Respondents. The question presented for our determination, then, is whether Respondents' actions in drafting, circulating and placing a petition in the Warrant of the Special Town Meeting amounted to an attempt to circumvent the School Committee in collective bargaining matters. After carefully reviewing the record, we are of the opinion that the evidence does not support a finding that the Respondents' actions were an attempt to circumvent the collective bargaining process, particularly in light of our view that the actions in placing a petition in the Warrant of the Special Town Meeting are protected by the First Amendment of the Constitution of the United States. There is no question that the Teachers Association continued to meet, confer and negotiate with the School Department throughout this controversy. Paragraph No. 4 of the Complaint states that "[a]t all times relevant hereto, the Complainant and the Respondent . . . were and now are conferring and negotiating with respect to wages, pay and fringe benefit increases." Complainant's initial brief contains a similar statement. The record there- fore does not provide a basis for a finding that Respondents broke off negotiations with the School Committee and appealed directly to the members of the Town Meeting for satisfaction of their bargaining proposals. The record also does not contain evidence which suggests that Respondents thought or represented to think that they were bargaining or attempting to bargain with the members of the Town Meeting when Respondents placed their petition in the Warrant of the Town Meeting. Neither is there evidence indi- cating that the Town Meeting members believed that they were somehow nego- tiating with Respondents in considering whether to approve the Article requested by Respondents. As was the case in Caribou Board of Education v. Caribou Teachers Association, M.L.R.B. Case No. 74-01 (1973), the activities pursued by Respondents in placing their petition in the Warrant were not activities typically related to the collective bargaining process. In Caribou, the Teachers Association formally requested during contract nego- tiations that the City Council reinstate a cut in the school budget. The Board of Education filed a prohibited practice complaint alleging that the Teachers Association's actions constituted a violation of 26 M.R.S.A. 964(2) (B). We dismissed the complaint, finding that the evidence did not support a holding that the request to reinstate the school budget cut amounted to a violation of Section 964(2)(B). We believe that our decision in Caribou is relevant here. Because our critical findings in Caribou were that the actions of the Teachers Association did not constitute an attempt to circumvent the collective bargaining process, we do not find persuasive Complainant's attempts to distinguish our decision in Caribou from the instant case on the grounds that Sanford operates on a line item budget rather than -3- ______________________________________________________________________________ a lump sum budget or that the Sanford School Committee has no authority to determine how gross sums in the budget will be spent. The relevant inquiry is whether or not Respondents engaged in activities which suggest that they were seeking to negotiate with entities other than the employer's authorized bargaining body. In the absence of evidence indicating such impermissible bargaining was attempted, we cannot find that Respondents violated Section 964(2)(8) by attempting to circumvent Complainant. Our conclusion regarding the effect of Respondents' actions is not changed by Complainant's contention that the result of approval of the requested appropriation would be to place undue pressure on the School Committee to accede to Respondents' salary proposals. Collective bargaining, while it is a fragile process, does not take place in a vacuum free of pressures or interruptions from the outside world. In N.L.R.B. v. Insurance Agents International Union, AFL-CIO, 361 U.S. 477, 488-489 (1960), holding that employees may exert economic pressures upon employers during contract negotiations, the Supreme Court stated: "It must be realized that collective bargaining, under a system where the Government does not attempt to control the results of negotiations, cannot be equated with an academic collective search for truth - or even with what might be thought to be the ideal of one. The parties - even granting the modification of views that may come from a realization of economic interdependence - still proceed from contrary and to an extent antagonistic viewpoints and concepts of self-interest. The system has not reached the ideal of the philosophic notion that perfect understanding among people would lead to perfect agreement among them on values. The presence of economic weapons in reserve, and their actual exercise on occasion by the parties, is part and parcel of the system . . ." School committees and teacher associations are always subject to various pressures from the citizenry during contract negotiations. Any pressures created by the fact that increased appropriations for teacher salaries were approved should not constitute extraordinary or undue pressure on the School Committee to accede to Respondents' proposal. The fact that the budget contains sufficient money is no more of a requirement to negotiate raises than is the fact that the budget contains no money a release from the obligation to bargain. We consequently conclude that a finding that the School Committee would suffer undue pressure due to Town Meeting approval of the requested appropriation would not correspond to the reality of the collective bargaining process. The most significant reason why we find that Respondents' actions do not constitute a violation of 26 M.R.S.A. 964(2)(B), however, is that we believe that Respondents' actions in petitioning the Town Meeting to approve the increased appropriation is protected by the First Amendment of the United States Constitution. The right to petition one's government is one of the most fundamental rights guaranteed by the Constitution. A citizen does not lose this right upon assumption of the occupation of teacher. Were we to order Respondents and their agents, servants, and representatives to cease and desist for engaging in any further petitioning activities, our order might well run afoul of the Constitutional guarantee. For all of the foregoing reasons, we conclude that Respondents' actions in placing a petition in the Warrant of the Special Town Meeting did not constitute a -4- ______________________________________________________________________________ violation of 26 M.R.S.A. 964(2)(B), and that the prohibited practice com- plaint filed by Complainant with the Board on May 15, 1978 must be dismissed. ORDER On the basis of the foregoing findings of fact and by virtue of and pursuant to the powers granted to the Maine Labor Relations Board by the provisions of 26 M.R.S.A. 968, it is hereby ORDERED: That the prohibited practice complaint filed on May 15, 1978 by the Sanford School Committee against the Sanford Teachers Association be and hereby is DISMISSED. Dated at Augusta, Maine this l9th day of October, 1978. MAINE LABOR RELATIONS BOARD /s/____________________________________ Edward H. Keith, Chairman /s/____________________________________ Paul D. Emery, Employer Representative /s/____________________________________ Michael Schoonjans, Employee Representative -5- ______________________________________________________________________________