The Public Employment Relations Act bars arbitration of a dispute between a school district and a teachers’ union, a split Michigan Court of Appeals panel held, reversing an order from the Michigan Employment Relations Commission that dismissed an unfair-labor-practice charge against the union.
When the union demanded arbitration of a transfer of a guidance counselor who holds a valid teaching certificate to a classroom teaching position, the school district said that a guidance counselor falls under the definition of a teacher.
Saying that a guidance counselor doesn’t fit the ordinary dictionary definition of “teacher,” the MERC declined to apply the Teachers’ Tenure Act definition of the word to MCL 423.215(3)(j) of the Public Employment Relations Act because the latter statute does not specifically include the TTA definition.
The appellate majority said that was the wrong call.
“The word ‘teacher’ in MCL 423.215(3)(j) is defined by MCL 38.71 of the TTA because the TTA and MCL 423.215(3) of PERA are in pari materia,” the majority wrote. “The MERC erred by concluding otherwise. Accordingly, we reverse the MERC’s order dismissing the unfair-labor-practice charge ….”
Judges Michael J. Riordan and Jane E. Markey issued the unpublished per curiam opinion in Kalamazoo Pub. Sch. v. Kalamazoo Educ. Ass’n; (MiLW 08-107098, 9 pages).
Judge Christopher P. Yates dissented.
“Just as all roads once led to Rome, all principles of statutory construction lead, in this case, to the...
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