Backers of labor lose out in court's decision

KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- A case organized labor supporters had hoped would prompt the Missouri Supreme Court to recognize collective bargaining rights for public employees under the state constitution came to an official end Tuesday with a ruling by a lower court.

A three-judge panel of the Missouri Court of Appeals, considering the case for the second time after the high court sidestepped deciding the case late last year, dismissed the matter on technical grounds and not on the merits of the claims that were raised.

As a result, the issue of public employee bargaining is expected to be revisited in future litigation.

Two former educators and their union representative filed the lawsuit, claiming the Jefferson City School District had violated their constitutional right to bargain collectively.

However, by the time the case came before Cole County Circuit Court Judge Thomas J. Brown III, the educators' contracts had expired. Since they were no longer district employees, Brown said the redress they sought -- grievance hearings attended by a union representative of their own choosing -- couldn't be granted. As a result, the plaintiffs' claims were moot.

Brown added that even if the claims' lack of standing wasn't an issue, the Missouri Supreme Court had ruled in the landmark 1947 case City of Springfield v. Clouse that the Missouri Constitution's protection of collective bargaining rights doesn't apply to state workers.

In its first decision in the case in May, the western district court agreed with Brown's interpretation of the claims. The Supreme Court accepted the case and heard arguments in November.

Plain language

Ronald C. Gladney, the plaintiffs' attorney, claimed that the court ignored the plain language of the state constitution in 1947 when it created an exemption to bargaining rights for state employees. Article I, Section 29 of the Missouri Constitution says: "That employees shall have the right to organize and to bargain collectively through representatives of their own choosing."

Three weeks after hearing the case and without issuing a ruling, the high court remanded it to the western district for reconsideration.

In its action Tuesday, the western district panel essentially readopted its original opinion with the additional instruction that Brown vacate his ruling on the merits of the case. Since the case was moot, Brown's findings on the merits were irrelevant.

Gladney has said he expects to again challenge the 1947 ruling at some point with a different set of plaintiffs protected from discharge by tenure. The western district court acknowledged that possibility in its decision.

"If the tenured teacher had raised claims similar to those posed here, the claims would survive to receive appellate review," Judge Ronald R. Holliger wrote for the court.

Gladney, a prominent St. Louis labor lawyer, drafted the controversial executive order Gov. Bob Holden signed in June 2001 that granted collective bargaining rights to many state employees.

In a lawsuit unrelated to the educators' case, Senate President Pro Tem Peter Kinder, R-Cape Girardeau, and coalition of pro-business groups and state workers sought to have the order declared unconstitutional.

Last month, the western district court upheld the order as a directive to Holden's subordinates but said it had no force of law.

The court's decision Tuesday was in Thruston, et al, v. Jefferson City School District.

mpowers@semissourian.com

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