Management Rights - AELE's Home Page

Scope of Arbitration 2-4
provisions concerning the hiring of substitute teachers to replace regular,
absent teachers, this is not a provision to which the school committee
must adhere, if, in its discretion, it determines that -- for educational
policy reasons -- it should be disregarded. 3
What we decide in this case should not be
construed as a requirement that, in the course
of collective bargaining, a school committee
must reach an agreement on class size, teaching
load, or the use of the substitute teachers. A
school committee is entitled to maintain its own
position on these subjects as matters of fiscal
management and educational policy.
When the parties have agreed to submit a dispute to arbitration, the
courts will generally enforce that agreement and decline to interfere with
the arbitration process. 4 In labor disputes between public employers and
employees, however, where a statute confers upon the public employer a
particular managerial power, an arbitrator is not permitted to direct the
employer to exercise that power in a way that interferes with the discretion
granted to the employer by statute. 5
B. DEPUTY SHERIFFS
While the sheriff may not surrender his statutory authority to make
deputy appointments, the sheriff may enter into a binding agreement to
follow certain procedures in making the appointments. 6 In a 2005
Appeals Court case involving the managerial prerogative of the Middlesex
CountySherif to appoint deputy sherifs, the Court held that the sherif’s
decision not to appoint a member of the union to position of deputy was a
non-arbitrable managerial prerogative, and that the collective bargaining
agreement did not bind the sheriff to particular appointment procedures. 7
Under G.L. c. 37, § 3, a sheriff is vested with the discretion to appoint
deputies who have law enforcement powers, and are thus able to perform
certain functions beyond those that can be exercised by correction officers
or other employees of the sheriff. 8 A correction officer does not need to be
a deputy sheriff. The powers of a deputy sheriff are not exercised in
carrying out the duties of a correction officer. By posting an invitation for
correction officers to apply for the position of deputy, the sheriff was
simply offering an opportunity for correction officers to enhance their
incomes by performing duties outside the scope of their duties as
correction officers. Thus, the Court explained that the appointment of a
deputy by the sheriff can be viewed as the equivalent of appointing
someone to exercise police-type power, and this case is closely analogous
to cases such as Massachusetts Coalition of Police, Local 165, AFL-CIO v.
Commonwealth of Massachusetts