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State v. Public Safety Employees Association6/25/2004
I. INTRODUCTION
Alaska labor relations law provides that if a public employer and a labor union successfully negotiate a contract, it "shall include a grievance procedure which shall have binding arbitration as its final step." Does this statute permit parties to a collective bargaining agreement to waive their right to grieve a subject governed by the agreement? The Alaska Labor Relations Agency answered this question "yes." We agree, and therefore affirm the decision of the agency.
II. FACTS AND PROCEEDINGS
A. Facts
The Public Safety Employees Association (PSEA) is certified by the Public Employment Relations Act as the exclusive bargaining representative for state correctional officers. The terms and conditions of the officers' employment are governed by a collective bargaining agreement between PSEA and the state. The agreement contains a provision regarding indemnification, under which the state agrees to provide a legal defense to officers sued in their individual capacities unless the state determines that the officer acted beyond the scope of his or her authority or engaged in willful misconduct or gross negligence in performing the acts underlying the complaint. The agreement also explicitly exempts the state's decision whether to provide legal representation to a correctional officer from the grievance procedure which governs the rest of the contract.
In July 1999 Raymond Jones, an inmate at the Spring Creek Correctional Center in Seward, filed a complaint in state court against corrections officer Vernon Gilliam, charging him with threatening and intimidating Jones and calling him a "rat" in front of two other inmates. The Department of Corrections (Corrections) subsequently reprimanded Gilliam for his actions. After Jones sued Gilliam, an assistant attorney general notified Gilliam that the state would not provide him with legal representation because it deemed the conduct underlying the lawsuit to be "willful misconduct or gross negligence." Through PSEA, Gilliam filed a grievance, which the state refused to hear because its contract with PSEA explicitly excluded the state's indemnification decisions from the grievance procedure.
At about the same time, Anthony Holland, an inmate at the Palmer Correctional Center, filed complaints in federal and state court against corrections officer Beth Donovan, alleging that she made racially derogatory remarks in a conversation with him. Corrections suspended Donovan for three days. Donovan was also informed that the state would not defend her against Holland's lawsuits because it considered her conduct to be outside the scope of her authority and to constitute either "willful misconduct or gross negligence." Through PSEA, Donovan attempted to grieve the state's decision but this grievance was denied on the same grounds that the state rejected Gilliam's grievance.
B. Proceedings
After both grievances were rejected by the state, PSEA filed a petition with the Alaska Labor Relations Agency (ALRA) to force the state to arbitrate its indemnification decisions. PSEA argued that its collective bargaining agreement with the state provided that "any controversy or dispute involving the application or interpretation of the terms" of the collective bargaining agreement was subject to the grievance procedure. While conceding that the collective bargaining agreement excluded the state's indemnification decisions from the grievance procedure, PSEA argued that this exclusion was contrary to law and thus unenforceable.
The relevant provisions of the collective bargaining agreement are sections A and F of Article 36. Section A provides:
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