Office & Professional Employees International Union, Local 2 v. Mass Transit Administration

Eldridge, J., delivered the opinion of the Court. This declaratory judgment action concerns the authority of the Mass Transit Administration to enter into a collective bargaining agreement with the respondent Union covering the wages, hours, pension rights, etc. of a particular group of the Administration’s employees. The Mass Transit Administration (MTA) was created by Ch. 160 of the Acts of 1969, as an agency of the State of Maryland, to develop "improved and expanded transit facilities, consisting of rapid transit and bus service operating as a unified and coordinated regional transit system” in Baltimore City, Baltimore County and Anne Arundel County. Ch. 160 of the Acts of 1969, § 2, "Declaration of legislative policy”; Maryland Code (1977), § 7-102 of the Transportation Article.

The organization, powers, duties and responsibilities of the MTA remain essentially as set forth in the 1969 statute. 1 Included among those statutory powers is the right of the MTA either to ⁹¹ construct new transit facilities or to acquire existing transit facilities. Code (1977), §§ 7-208 (a) (1), 7-301 (b), 7-305 and 7-401 (b) of the Transportation Article. Also included among the MTA’s powers and duties are the following (§§ 7-601 and 7-602 (b) of the Transportation Article): "§ 7-601. Labor contracts.

The Administration may deal with and make written contracts as to wages, salaries, hours, working conditions, and pension and retirement provisions with the accredited representatives of the employees who form part of any operating company that the Administration acquires, including the representative of any labor organization authorized to act for those employees. "§ 7-602. Arbitration in labor disputes. "(b) Unresolved labor dispute to be submitted to arbitration board. — If, in a labor dispute between the Administration and any employees described in § 7-601 of this subtitle, collective bargaining does not result in agreement, the Administration shall submit the dispute to an arbitration board.” In April 1970, the MTA acquired the assets of a privately owned bus company, the Baltimore Transit Company (BTC), and began operating bus service in the Baltimore metropolitan area.

At the time of this acquisition, the respondent Office and Professional Employees International Union Local 2 (hereafter referred to as "the Union”) was the accredited collective bargaining representative of certain employees of the BTC who performed secretarial and clerical tasks for the bus operations. The MTA assumed the collective bargaining agreement between the Union and the BTC as required by law. 2 Since that time, the MTA and the ⁹² Union have reached several new collective bargaining agreements covering former employees of the BTC. Several years after its acquisition of the BTC, the MTA began a rapid rail transit development program (subway) which required the hiring of several new employees. This group of new employees included a support staff of secretaries and clerical workers needed for the planning, engineering and construction of the metropolitan Baltimore subway system.

Also, the creation of the Department of Transportation and the placement of the MTA within that Department, by Ch. 526 of the Acts of 1970, effective July 1, 1971, resulted in some reorganization causing the MTA to employ additional secretaries and clerical employees. The additional secretaries and clerical employees who were hired because of the subway operation and the creation of the Department of Transportation, and who had not been employees of the BTC, are approximately thirty-five in number. As found by the court below, the jobs of these additional secretaries and clerical employees "are often very similar to those of employees represented by the Union.” The court went on to point out, however, that these employees are in grades comparable and similar to those established by the State Department of Personnel for most other state employees, that they are required to be members of the state pension system, and that they are treated as regular state employees for budgetary and pension purposes. These thirty-five additional secretarial and clerical employees (hereafter collectively referred to as the "clerical employees”) are the subject of the dispute in this case.

Some time prior to 1978, many of these additional clerical employees expressed an interest in being covered by the ⁹³ Union’s contract with the MTA, and they signed cards authorizing the Union to represent them. During the 1978 collective bargaining negotiations between the MTA and the Union, the Union demanded that the additional clerical employees be recognized as part of the bargaining unit for which the Union was the accredited representative. The demand was later withdrawn, and further attempts by the Union in 1979 and 1980 to represent these clerical employees also failed. During contract negotiations in March 1981, the Union again requested that the additional clerical employees be covered in the collective bargaining agreement by adding job classifications to the agreement.

When the MTA refused to bargain over this request, contract negotiations ceased, and the Union demanded arbitration of the representation issue. 3 The MTA then commenced the present action by filing a bill of complaint in the Circuit Court of Baltimore City. The MTA sought a declaratory judgment that it was not legally authorized to recognize the Union as the collective bargaining representative of the thirty-five clerical employees and that arbitration of the representation issue was "illegal under Maryland law.” The Union sought dismissal of the MTA’s bill; it also filed a counterclaim for an order directing the MTA to arbitrate the issue of representation. After a hearing, the Circuit Court filed a declaratory judgment and, following the Union’s motion for reconsideration, a supplemental declaratory judgment. The court declared that the MTA has no "authority to bind itself to collectively bargain in matters of employee compensation in the absence of enabling legislation.” The court further declared that the authorization to enter collective ⁹⁴ bargaining agreements in § 7-601 of the Transportation Article was limited to collective bargaining agreements covering employees who form or formed a part of an operating company that the MTA acquires or had acquired in the past, and that the thirty-five additional clerical employees did not fall into this category.

The court concluded that "[s]ince .. . there is no legislative authorization for the MTA to recognize any representatives of employees other than representatives of former employees of operating companies acquired by the MTA, it follows that the MTA has no right or authority to do so. It is, therefore, irrelevant whether the MTA agreed by contract to recognize the Union as the representative of employees other than former employees of an operating company acquired by the MTA, because an illegal promise is clearly unenforceable.. . . The issue of the scope of the Union’s representation will, therefore, not be referred to arbitration.” The Union appealed to the Court of Special Appeals. Before the case was heard in that court, the MTA filed in this court a petition for a writ of certiorari which we granted.

The Union appears to advance two alternate state law grounds for reversing the judgment of the Circuit Court. First the Union seems to contend that, even if the collective bargaining authorization in § 7-601 and the arbitration provision in § 7-602 (b) of the Transportation Article do not encompass the thirty-five additional clerical employees, nothing in these sections prohibits the MTA from arbitrating the representational issue and, depending upon the result of the arbitration, from entering into a collective bargaining agreement covering the wages, pension rights, etc. of these employees. Consequently, the Union argues, the MTA’s alleged agreement to arbitrate this issue is valid and should be enforced. Second the Union asserts that § 7-601 is subject to varying interpretations, that the section should be ⁹⁵ "liberally construed” to accomplish its purpose, and that, under such construction, the thirty-five additional clerical employees are encompassed by § 7-601, In our view, neither argument by the Union is sound. 4 Finding ourselves in agreement with the Circuit Court, we shall affirm.

I. Section 7-602 (b) of the Transportation Article provides for arbitration of labor disputes between the MTA "and any employees described in § 7-601” if collective bargaining fails to produce an agreement. Consequently, at the heart of this case is the scope and effect of the collective bargaining authorization in § 7-601. Section 7-601 permits the MTA to bargain collectively as to wages, salaries, hours, working conditions, and pension rights "with the accredited representatives of the employees who form part of any operating company” that the MTA acquires. The Union’s first argument is premised on the assumption that the collective bargaining authorization in § 7-601 does not include the thirty-five additional clerical employees.

The Union, however, asserts that nothing in § 7-601. prohibits the MTA from entering a collective bargaining contract governing the wages, hours, working conditions and pension ⁹⁶ rights of these thirty-five employees, and thus the MTA is free to do so by agreement. In our view, if an agreement with the Union covering the thirty-five additional clerical employees is not embraced by the terms of § 7-601, then that section does have the effect of prohibiting the MTA from bargaining collectively with those employees. It is a settled principle of statutory construction that the Legislature’s enumeration of one item, purpose, etc. ordinarily implies the exclusion of all others. State Insurance v. Nationwide, 241 Md. 108, 117 , 215 A.2d 749 (1966); Trust Co. v. Ward Baking Corp., 177 Md. 212, 220 , 9 A.2d 228 (1939); Railroad Co. v. Lichtenberg, 176 Md. 383, 390 , 4 A.2d 734 , appeal dismissed, 308 U.S. 525 , 60 S.Ct. 297 , 84 L.Ed. 444 (1939); Vanderford v. Farmers’ Bank, 105 Md. 164, 168 , 66 A. 47 (1907) ("the express mention of one thing implies the exclusion of another”); 2A Sutherland, Statutory Construction, §§ 47.23, 47.24 (4th ed. 1973).

The principle is often expressed as the latin maxim "expressio unius est exclusio alterius,” Gay Investment v. Comi, 230 Md. 433, 438 , 187 A.2d 463 (1963). A related principle is that where a statute authorizes or permits a person or agency to take a certain type of action in a particular manner, such manner becomes a mandatory limitation, and the action must be taken in conformity with it. Trust Co. v. Ward Baking Corp., supra, 177 Md. at 220 (" 'A statute that directs a thing to be done in a particular manner ordinarily implies that it shall not be done otherwise.’ ”); 2A Sutherland, supra, §§ 57.14-57.18. Consequently, the statutory permission for the MTA to enter into collective bargaining agreements "with the accredited representatives of the employees who form part of any operating company that the Administration acquires,” places a limitation upon the MTA’s authority to enter collective bargaining agreements.

The MTA may enter into such agreements only in accordance with § 7-601. If an agreement with the Union covering the thirty-five additional clerical employees is not within § 7-601, then such agreement is beyond the MTA’s authority. ⁹⁷ Apart from the principles of statutory construction discussed above, the Union’s first argument would still lack merit. Even if § 7-601 were not construed as prohibiting collective bargaining agreements except in accordance with its terms, the result would be the same. It is established in this State that, absent express legislative authority, a government agency cannot enter into binding arbitration or binding collective bargaining agreements establishing wages, hours, pension rights, or working conditions for public employees.

Maryland Cl. Emp. Ass’n v. Anderson, 281 Md. 496, 508-513 , 380 A.2d 1032 (1977); Mugford v. City of Baltimore, 185 Md. 266, 270-272 , 44 A.2d 745 (1945). See also City of Balto. v. Am.

Fed. of St., Etc., 281 Md. 463 , 379 A.2d 1031 (1977). As previously pointed out, the MTA is an agency of the state government. See Comm’n On Human Rel. v. Mass Transit, 294 Md. 225, 227, n.2 , 449 A.2d 385 (1982); Mass Transit v. Household Finance, 292 Md. 313, 314 , 439 A.2d 1104 (1982); Harden v. Mass Transit Adm., 277 Md. 399 , 354 A.2d 817 (1976); MTA v. Balto. Co. Revenue Auth., 267 Md. 687, 690-691 , 298 A.2d 413 (1973).

Therefore, the mere absence of a prohibition against a collective bargaining agreement concerning the wages, working conditions, etc., of the additional clerical employees would not aid the Union’s cause. Instead, under the Anderson and Mugford cases, the MTA may enter into only those collective bargaining agreements which are expressly authorized by statute. Consequently,