Management Rights - AELE's Home Page

Good Faith 4-6
The Appeals Court explained that its holding in this case was consistent
with earlier decisions which ruled that the means of implementing
managerial decisions, especially touching on compensation, may be the
subject of an enforceable provision in a collective bargaining agreement.
PRACTICE POINTERS
The decisions of the Appeals Court and the Supreme Judicial Court would
appear at variance with certain Labor Relations Commission (or Hearing
Officer) decisions. Since relatively few Commission rulings are appealed to
the Courts, it is only a matter of conjecture as to what the courts would
have done in some cases involving assignment.
The traditional three-part distinction among subjects of bargaining
(mandatory, permissive and illegal/prohibited) is one followed more closely
by the LRC than the Massachusetts courts. The distinction may be only
semantic. However, it is possible that a municipal employer will receive
conflicting rulings from the Commission and the Courts. The LRC might
well order bargaining over some matters which ultimately need not (and
should not) be submitted to arbitration. Unfortunately, a municipality may
have to appeal an adverse Commission ruling to court if it wishes to
challenge a bargaining order over a matter the city or town believes is an
inherent managerial prerogative.
Two Leominster cases involved the issue of police officer assignments 37
and resulted in orders compelling bargaining over at least some aspects of
assignments. It does not appear that the City decided to appeal to the
courts in either case.
In the 1991 case it appears that the City of Leominster allowed shift
bidding (to learn the officer's preferences) but the chief retained the right
to make shift assignments, with seniority being one factor. This was in
keeping with the contract provision which specified that "[a]ssignments to
shifts of all men in the uniformed branch shall be by seniority where
determined practicable and expedient by the chief of the department."
The 1993 Leominster case, a superior officers case with the same shift
bidding language, involved both shift bidding and specialist bidding. The
LRC's decision focused more on the chief's failure to provide the union
with notice and opportunity to bargain before changing annual shift
bidding than on the pure issue of assignment as a managerial prerogative.
Several LRC decisions, especially certain Hearing Officer rulings, appear to
place the issue of assignments in the category of a mandatory subject of
bargaining. 38 However, some were decided before the JLMC statute was
enacted which removes assignments from the scope of arbitration. Others
were decided before certain court decisions found public safety
Commonwealth of Massachusetts