Freeman v. Local 1802, American Federation of State, County & Municipal Employees Council 67

ELDRIDGE, Judge. The broad issue in these cases is whether the Circuit Court for Harford County erred in issuing writs of mandamus which required the County Executive of Harford County to sign certain collective bargaining agreements. I. Beginning in January 1987, pursuant to the Harford County Employee Labor Relations Act (ELRA), Harford County Code, Ch. 38, Art. I, §§ 38-1 — 38-11, Harford County conducted separate negotiations with two labor organizations representing two different groups of Harford County employees. Those organizations are Local 1802 of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, Council 67, AFL-CIO (AFSCME), and the Maryland Classified Employees Association, Inc. (MCEA).

On March 23, 1987, Habern Freeman, the County Executive of Harford County, received a legal opinion 1 which concluded that he had no authority to bargain collectively with the labor organizations. This conclusion was based on the lack of a state public general law or county charter provision authorizing the collective bargaining process as carried out under the ELRA, and on perceived conflicts with county charter provisions governing public employment and the fiscal authority of the County Executive in preparing the county budget. Freeman chose not to reveal immedi ⁶⁸⁷ ately the contents of this opinion. 2 On March 24, 1987, the negotiator representing the County, Personnel Officer Pat Yancone, reached a tentative agreement with MCEA on a new collective bargaining agreement, which was later ratified by MCEA’s membership. A tentative agreement between AFSCME and Yancone was reached on April 14, 1987, and that agreement was also ratified by AFSCME’s membership. 3 Both agreements were to cover fiscal years 1987-1988 and 1988-1989.

The tentative agreements are extensive, covering a variety of employment conditions including salary, hours, overtime, holidays, leave, seniority, life insurance, health insurance, and discipline. Both agreements provide that the County shall deduct union membership dues from the wages of each employee member who individually requests the deduction. Under the AFSCME agreement, the payroll deduction authorization of the employee is renewed automatically for a subsequent year unless revoked within a 15-day period. Under the MCEA agreement, the authorization is similarly renewed automatically, but there is a 30-day period during which the employee may revoke the authorization.

Both agreements acknowledge that benefits and fiscal matters were contingent upon funding by the Harford County Council. Consistent with these agreements, the County Executive submitted his fiscal 1987-1988 pay and classification plan for county employees to the Harford County Council, where the plan received approval. Nonetheless, on July 13, 1987, ⁶⁸⁸ the County Executive, citing the March 23 legal opinion, issued a memorandum which informed the County’s negotiator that he (the County Executive) would not sign the agreements negotiated with the labor organizations. In addition, the County Executive refused to honor the dues checkoff cards.

Thereafter, AFSCME and MCEA each sought in the Circuit Court for Harford County a writ of mandamus compelling the County Executive to execute the agreements and remit to the organizations the dues monies which employees had authorized the County to remit. The circuit court initially granted the plaintiffs’ motions for interlocutory injunctions requiring the County to continue to withhold dues from the pay of employees belonging to the organizations. At the conclusion of trial, the court issued the writs of mandamus requested by both labor organizations. The writs stated that implementation of the orders would be stayed pending any appeal.

The County. Executive filed timely notices of appeal to the Court of Special Appeals. Before any proceedings in that court, we granted the County Executive’s petitions for writs of certiorari.

II

Harford County is a charter home rule county under Art. XI-A of the Constitution of Maryland. The Harford County Charter prescribes what is known as an “executive budget system.” Under § 302 of the Charter, all county executive power is vested in the County Executive, who is required to prepare and submit “to the Council the annual County budget in the manner and form provided in Article V of this Charter.” Under Article Y, § 503, the budget shall consist of the current expense budget, the capital budget and capital program, and the budget message. Section 509 dictates that “[n]ot later than three months prior to the beginning of each fiscal year [which runs from July 1 to June 30] the County Executive shall submit to the Council ⁶⁸⁹ the proposed County budget for that fiscal year.” Section 512 provides that “the Council may decrease or delete any items in the budget except those required by the laws of this State or of this County____ The Council shall have no power to change the form of the budget as submitted by the County Executive, or to alter the revenue estimates except to correct mathematical errors, or to increase any expenditures recommended by the County Executive for current expense or capital purposes.” Thus, the County Executive determines the maximum appropriation for any particular purpose. In addition to this critical role in the annual county budgetmaking process, the County Executive, under § 311, may also veto “individual items in budget and appropriation bills.” The Harford County Charter provides, in § 302, that the County Executive has the duty and responsibility of “signing or causing to be signed on the County’s behalf all deeds, contracts and other instruments.” In addition, Article VI of the Charter contains eight sections directing the County Council to establish a system of personnel administration, and setting requirements for that system.

The Harford County Council enacted the ELRA in 1973. The ELRA grants certain county employees the right to form or join employee organizations, and provides for certification of the employees’ collective bargaining representative. Section 38-6.A. bestows on certified employee organizations the right “to negotiate collectively with the County in matters related to wages, hours, working conditions and other terms of employment of all employees in the representation unit____” Section 38-l.B. imposes on the county “the obligation to enter into negotiations with affirmative willingness to reach agreement in matters of wages, hours, working conditions and other terms of employment____” Section 38-6.B. defines the term “negotiation” as follows: “The term ‘negotiation,’ as used in this Article, shall include the duty to confer in good faith at reasonable ⁶⁹⁰ times and to reduce to a memorandum of agreement the matters agreed upon as a result of such meetings and conferences when all issues have been resolved, which memorandum shall be signed by the duly authorized county and employee organization representatives.” The ELRA does not purport to designate anyone other than the County Executive as “the duly authorized county representative,” who shall sign for the County “when all issues have been resolved”’ The labor organizations contend that the execution of the agreements by the County Executive in this case is a ministerial duty which a court, by writ of mandamus, can order to be performed. The County Executive’s principal argument against issuance of the writs of mandamus, in the circuit court and in the briefs before this Court, was that Harford County, as a home rule county, could not enter into collective bargaining agreements with its employees absent a state public general law or a charter amendment so authorizing.

The County Executive relied on four opinions of this Court in support of this argument. See Office & Prof. Employees Int’l v. MTA, 295 Md. 88 , 453 A.2d 1191 (1982); Maryland Cl. Emp.

Ass’n v. Anderson, 281 Md. 496 , 380 A.2d 1032 (1977); City of Balto. v. Am. Fed. of St., Etc., 281 Md. 463 , 379 A.2d 1031 (1977); Mugford v. City of Baltimore, 185 Md. 266 , 44 A.2d 745 (1945). Subsequent to the submission of briefs in this case, but prior to oral argument, this Court decided Anne Arundel County v. Fraternal Order, 313 Md. 98 , 543 A.2d 841 (1988), in which Anne Arundel County had made an argument similar to the County Executive’s argument in the present case. In the Anne Arundel County case, we made it clear that the prior cases in this court “did not hold that every local government collective bargaining agreement and arbitration must be specifically authorized by charter or public general law.” 313 Md. at 113 , 543 A.2d at 849 .

It was sufficient for Anne Arundel County’s Office of Personnel to receive its express legislative authority to enter into collective bargaining agreements from a county ordinance. ⁶⁹¹ 313 Md. at 114 , 543 A.2d at 849 . On the other hand, the Anne Arundel County case reaffirmed the holdings in our prior cases that, absent authorization from the county charter or State public general law, the local ordinance could not validly provide for the delegation to others “of certain duties involving the exercise of discretion specifically assigned by a county charter to the county executive and council,” 313 Md. at 115 , 543 A.2d at 850 . In other words, simply put, a local collective bargaining ordinance could not violate the county charter, unless the General Assembly of Maryland by public general law in effect abrogated the inconsistent provision of the charter. Thus, it was clearly permissible for Harford County, by a duly enacted ordinance, to authorize collective bargaining with county employees.

At oral argument before us, however, counsel for the County Executive insisted, as also argued in the briefs, that the process of collective bargaining under the ELRA conflicted with the charter’s budget and personnel systems and unlawfully restricted the discretion of the County Executive and County Council over personnel and budgetary matters. Specifically, counsel for the County Executive contended that a collective bargaining agreement cannot bind the County for more than one year, in regard to any terms, absent a charter provision or public general law so authorizing, and that the ELRA itself forbids multi-year agreements. 4 The attorneys for the County Executive also disputed the labor organizations’ contention that the terms of the agreements reached at the bargaining table had been accepted by the County Executive. The attorneys for the County Executive did not argue, however, that mandamus would be inappropriate if we were to reject all of the County Executive’s arguments concerning the ELRA. ⁶⁹² While the above-summarized issues concerning public employee collective bargaining in Harford County may all be quite important, this case simply does not provide us with an opportunity to reach them. We cannot agree with the assumption, apparently shared by all parties and the trial judge below, that this would be a proper case for issuance of a writ of mandamus, even if we found no legal fault with the ELRA and the particular collective bargaining agreements at issue.

III

Judge Alvey, writing for the Court over one hundred years ago in George’s Creek Coal & Iron Co.