This article discusses recent court decisions affecting the relationship between teachers' associations and unions and the public agencies that employ those teachers. Topics discussed include constitutional rights, union representation and union rights, obligation to bargain and scope of bargaining, grievances and arbitrability, fiscal…

Three persistent misconceptions about collective bargaining for public employees are 1) that public employee organizations are singularly culpable for strikes in the public sector, 2) that strikes necessarily follow collective bargaining and will not occur unless the right to bargain has been granted, and 3) that public employees have less right…

Problems have arisen with the Michigan Public Employment Relations Act, which allows collective bargaining for public employees, because the act does not extend the right to strike and has no provision for a final resolution of a bargaining impasse in the event that voluntary settlement is not achieved. Neither voluntary negotiation nor…

This document contains edited presentations given during a conference on teacher negotiations and solutions to impasse in Rhode Island. The principal speakers were Henry J. Nardone, chairman of the Elementary and Secondary Education Sub-Committee of the Board of Regents; Julius C. Michaelson, Attorney General for Rhode Island; and Dr. Peter…

This paper highlights some of the similarities and differences in the labor-management experiences of Boston University (Massachusetts), Temple University (Pennsylvania), the University of Bridgeport (Connecticut), and Yeshiva University (New York) to determine which may represent failures and which do not. In comparing the Yeshiva and Boston…

In spite of recent advances in mechanization, farmworkers continue to be a vital and necessary element in the harvesting of American crops. However, farmworkers, whether migrant or non-migrant, continue to have the lowest annual income of all occupational groups. The overriding concern is one of powerlessness. Farmworkers have been excluded at the…

The major results are described of an historical/legal study of statewide legislative and judicial decisions tracing changes in California's state policies regarding teacher labor relations from 1930 to 1975. The central research questions dealt with identifying specific public policy changes, events surrounding these changes, positions taken by…

Collective bargaining relationships in school districts are affected by court actions in a variety of ways. Courts have acted as a "surrogate legislature" by providing legal structures where legislation is absent and by modifying legislation through the process of statutory construction. This paper examines the courts' role in structuring…