School Parity Labor Accords Held Legal by Supreme Court

The state Supreme Court on Monday upheld the legality of labor agreements that tie pay raises of custodians, mechanics and other non-teaching school employees to gains won by certified teachers.

The court unanimously rejected a challenge to so-called “parity” or “me, too” agreements by the California Teachers Assn. and its Banning affiliate, which contended that the arrangements weakened the teachers’ position and effectively forced them to carry the bargaining burdens of non-teachers.

Parity agreements, connecting gains won by one bargaining unit with those of a separate group, are widespread not only in public school labor bargaining but in other public and private negotiations as well.

State courts around the country have been divided on their legality, some fearing that they may serve to “chill” free and independent bargaining between employers and employee organizations.

Backed by School Groups

Lawyers for an array of school, city and labor groups--including the California Federation of Teachers--had urged the justices to uphold the agreements, saying that an adverse ruling could disrupt existing bargaining procedures and lead to more prolonged and bitter negotiations.

The high court, in an opinion by Justice Edward A. Panelli, overturned a state appeal court ruling that parity agreements violate state law requiring school districts to bargain separately with teaching and non-teaching unions.

“To hold parity agreements per se illegal would place a burdensome limitation on public school employers to negotiate effectively in an already cumbersome environment of multi-unit collective bargaining,” Panelli wrote.

Barring such agreements also would “adversely affect” bargaining efficiency and strategy by school districts and public employee unions and “would prolong bargaining, making settlements more difficult and labor unrest more frequent,” Panelli said.

The ruling was welcomed as “very good news” by Charles Spittler, acting general counsel of the state Public Employment Relations Board, the agency that oversees collective bargaining between school districts and unions.

Talks Begun in 1983

“Such agreements can serve to facilitate the process,” Spittler said. “The more we can let parties engage in negotiations, with as much flexibility as possible, all the better.”

Lawyers for the CTA were not immediately available for comment.

The case arose when the Banning Unified School District and the Banning Teachers Assn. began negotiations in May, 1983, on salaries, fringe benefits, grievance procedures and working hours.

But before a pact was reached, the district reached a parity agreement with non-teaching workers, granting them a 5% pay increase and stating that if the teachers received a higher increase, the non-teachers’ salaries would be raised to meet it.

Finally, the district presented the teachers’ association with a “last, best and final” offer of an 8% pay boost. The association resisted and finally protested to the employment relations board, saying the agreement violated state law requiring the district to bargain separately with the two units.

The board upheld the legality of such agreements but a state Court of Appeal in San Bernardino ruled in October, 1986, that they improperly obstruct the separate and “good-faith” bargaining required under state law. Without the parity agreement, the appeal court said, the Banning teachers might have negotiated an offer greater than the 8% the district offered.

The justices, overturning the appeal court, said Monday that while an individual pact might be challenged as invalid, parity agreements as such could not be struck down.

The high court noted that “one of the realities” of the process is that employers “must consider the effect of one bargaining unit’s contract on the other units, and that parity clauses reflect this need.”

While the salary increase that the teachers gained may “incidentally” benefit the non-teachers, it does not violate the law’s requirement of separate negotiations between the district and the two groups, the court said.

In another case Monday, the court ruled 6 to 1 that the California Insurance Guarantee Assn., a group of insurers who pool funds to meet claims against insolvent insurers, may not be sued for damages for wrongfully refusing to settle with a claimant.

The court held that CIGA, which was created by state law to spread the consequences of insurer insolvency among other firms, was not subject to the same liability that an individual insurer would face for unfair practices.

“CIGA is not, and was not created to act as, an ordinary insurance company,” Chief Justice Malcolm M. Lucas wrote for the majority. Its liability is limited to the amount of the claim itself, not for compensatory or punitive damages for improper denial of a claim, he said.