Summary
The court affirmed a judgment dismissing the City of Schenectady’s CPLR article 78 challenge to a Public Employment Relations Board determination that police disciplinary procedures were subject to collective bargaining. It held that Second Class Cities Law article 9 was superseded by the Taylor Law because Second Class Cities Law § 4 expressly permits later laws to supersede its provisions.
Topics
Practice areas
Questions Presented
- Whether Second Class Cities Law article 9 required police disciplinary procedures to remain within the unilateral discretion of the City's Public Safety Commissioner despite the Taylor Law's collective-bargaining requirements.
- Whether the Taylor Law superseded the police disciplinary procedures in Second Class Cities Law article 9 through the supersession provision in Second Class Cities Law § 4.
- Whether prior Court of Appeals decisions required the collective-bargaining policy to give way to the police-discipline provisions of Second Class Cities Law article 9.
Holdings
- The Taylor Law mandates that disciplinary procedures for public employees, including police employees, be the subject of good-faith collective bargaining, subject to a contrary legislative assignment of police disciplinary authority.
- Second Class Cities Law article 9 did not require police discipline to remain within the unilateral discretion of the Public Safety Commissioner because Second Class Cities Law § 4 expressly permits its provisions to be superseded by later laws applicable to the same subject matter, including the Taylor Law.
- The cited Court of Appeals decisions did not control the outcome because they interpreted statutes lacking the broad supersession provision found in Second Class Cities Law § 4.
Key quotations
““Courts] have long recognized the 'strong and sweeping policy of the State to support collective bargaining under the Taylor Law’”” (1087)
““the presumption is that all terms and conditions of employment are subject to mandatory bargaining”” (1087)
““a statutorily planned obsolescence for [the Second Class Cities Law] resulting from subsequent enactment of state or local legislation”” (1088)
Factual background
The City of Schenectady had a collective bargaining agreement with the Schenectady Police Benevolent Association providing police disciplinary procedures culminating in an appeal to a neutral arbitrator. The City announced that it would no longer follow those negotiated procedures and instead unilaterally adopted the procedures in Second Class Cities Law article 9, which placed disciplinary determinations in the sole discretion of the Public Safety Commissioner. The PBA filed an improper-practice charge, and PERB determined that the Taylor Law required the disciplinary procedures to be collectively bargained and superseded the conflicting Second Class Cities Law procedures.
Procedural history
The Schenectady Police Benevolent Association filed an improper-practice charge with PERB after the City unilaterally replaced collectively bargained police disciplinary procedures with procedures placing disciplinary decisions in the Public Safety Commissioner's sole discretion. An Administrative Law Judge sustained the charge, and PERB affirmed. Supreme Court confirmed PERB's determination and dismissed the City's CPLR article 78 proceeding. The City appealed, and the Appellate Division affirmed.