SEIU Loc. 503 v. ST

544 P.3d 440

330 Or.App. 310

SEIU LOCAL 503, OPEU, Respondent, Cross-Petitioner,

v.ST, Petitioner, Cross-Respondent.

A179824

Court of Appeals of Oregon.

Argued and Submitted November 16, 2023

January 24, 2024

Employment Relations Board, UP02421

Rebekah C. Millard, Springfield, argued the cause for petitioner-cross-respondent. Also on the opening brief was James G. Abernathy.

Stacey Leyton argued the cause for respondent-cross-petitioner. Also on the briefs were Zoe Palitz and Altshuler Berzon, LLP; and Jared Franz.

Before Tookey, Presiding Judge, and Lagesen, Chief Judge, and Kamins, Judge.

KAMINS, J.

[1] ₃₁₂This petition for judicial review is about whether the Employment Relations Board (ERB) had authority to address a public employee’s challenge to a union’s deduction of about six weeks of union dues from her paycheck after she resigned her union membership. Petitioner Staci Trees seeks reversal of an ERB order determining that ERB has jurisdiction over disputes regarding authorization for union dues deductions and resolving the dues deduction dispute in favor of Service Employees International Union Local 503 (the Union). The Union cross-petitions, challenging ERB’s dismissal of its unfair labor practice (ULP) claim against petitioner. We review ERB’s order for substantial evidence, substantial reason, and legal error, ORS 183.482(8), and affirm.

We draw our summary of the facts from ERB’s findings. In 2009, petitioner signed a union membership card when she began working for the Oregon Department of Transportation, Over 11 years later, petitioner sent a letter to the Union seeking to resign her union membership. At that time (and per her request), the Union provided her with a copy of her membership and dues authorization agreement signed in March 2016. The Union notified petitioner that she had submitted her resignation request outside the window for terminating dues as stated in the 2016 agreement, meaning that petitioner was required to continue paying union dues for the next two months. The Union also explained to petitioner that it would retain her request and process it during the dues termination window.

Petitioner denied having signed the 2016 agreement and filed a federal lawsuit against the Union alleging fraud, racketeering, and civil rights violations. In response, the Union filed a claim with ERB to resolve whether petitioner had indeed signed the 2016 agreement authorizing dues deductions. The Union also alleged that petitioner had committed a ULP by refusing to honor her agreement and by filing preempted state law claims in federal court. Petitioner challenged ERB’s jurisdiction, first in an informal response with the Administrative Law Judge (ALJ), then in a motion to dismiss that was referred to ERB, and finally in a motion ₃₁₃filed in federal court. At each juncture, petitioner’s objections to ERB’s jurisdiction were rejected.

Following a three-day hearing, an ALJ determined that petitioner had signed the 2016 agreement and was bound by its terms. ERB affirmed the ALJ’s recommendation, and both petitioner and the Union seek review of that order.

[2, 3] Petitioner’s first assignment of error challenges ERB’s jurisdiction to determine the validity of the 2016 agreement. An administrative agency’s "[j]urisdiction depends on whether the matter is one that the legislature has authorized the agency to decide." Multnomah County Sheriff’s Office v. Edwards, 361 Or. 761, 778, 399 P.3d 969 (2017) (internal quotation marks omitted). Relevant to this petition, the legislature had authorized ERB to resolve disputes "between the public employee and the labor organization regarding the existence, validity or revocation of an authorization for the deductions and payment [of dues]," and has provided that "the dispute shall be resolved through an unfair labor proceeding under ORS 243.672." ORS 243.806(10)(a). ERB determined that it had jurisdiction under ORS 243.806(10)(a) to resolve the question of whether petitioner had signed the 2016 agreement. We review ERB’s interpretation of ORS 243.806(10)(a) for legal error. ORS 183.482(8)(a).

Petitioner contends that ERB lacked jurisdiction to decide whether her union membership agreement was valid because, in her view, ERB’s jurisdiction is limited to deciding ULP claims as defined in ORS 243.672. Here, because the factual dispute regarding the authenticity of the signature of the union membership agreement did not relate to a ULP claim, petitioner contends that ERB should have dismissed the claim. In response, the Union argues that the statute grants ERB jurisdiction to resolve disputes regarding the existence of authorizations for deductions of dues and does not limit that jurisdiction to claims alleging ULPs.

[4] When interpreting statutes, "our task is to discern the intent of the legislature." Black v. Coos County, 288 Or App 25, 29, 405 P.3d 178 (2017). "Our starting point is the ₃₁₄text and context of the statute, because the best evidence of the legislature’s intent is the text itself." Id. (internal citations omitted). We give words of common usage their "plain, natural, and ordinary meaning." PGE v. Bureau of Labor and Industries, 317 Or. 606, 610-11, 859 P.2d 1148 (1993). After examining text and context, we review legislative history that is useful to our analysis. State v. Gaines, 346 Or. 160, 171-72, 206 P.3d 1042 (2009).

We begin with the relevant text of the statute:

"If a dispute arises between the public employee and the labor organization regarding the existence, validity or revocation of an authorization for the deductions and payment [of dues], the dispute shall be resolved through an unfair labor practice proceeding under ORS 243.672."

ORS 243.806(10)(a). It does not appear contested that a "dispute" exists as described in ORS 243.806(10)(a)—the Union asserted that petitioner signed a membership agreement in March 2016 entitling it to deduct dues for about six weeks after her resignation from the union while petitioner denies that she ever signed that agreement. The question then is whether ORS 243.806(1) requires the assertion of a ULP claim as defined in ORS 243.672 for ERB to exercise its jurisdiction.

The plain text of ORS 243.806(10)(a)—"the dispute shall be resolved through an unfair labor proceeding" (emphases added)—grammatically and logically signifies that ERB shall resolve dues deduction authorization disputes as ULP proceedings—not that a ULP claim, as defined in ORS 243.672, must be asserted. ORS 243.806(10)(a). To avoid that common-sense reading, petitioner argues for a construction that would require a dispute relating to an authorization for deduction of dues to be part of a separate claim for a ULP, as defined in ORS 243.672. That construction would render ORS 243.806(10)(a) superfluous, as ERB already has authority to resolve factual disputes that arise in ULP claims. See State v. Cloutier, 351 Or. 68, 98-100, 261 P.3d 1234 (2011) (A statutory interpretation "that renders a statutory provision meaningless should give us pause, both as a matter of respect for a coordinate branch of government that took the trouble to enact the provision into law and ₃₁₅as a matter of complying with [interpretive principles]."); Vsetecka v. Safeway Stores, Inc., 337 Or. 502, 510, 98 P.3d 1116 (2004) ("When, as in this case, a statute contains multiple provisions, ORS 174.010 directs us to read those provisions, if possible, in a way that will give effect to all of them"). The statute does not state that dues deduction disputes can be resolved before ERB only in the context of "an unfair labor practice" claim under ORS 243.672, which would have been a straightforward way to describe the reading advanced by petitioner.

Context strengthens our reading. ORS 243.806(1)¹ and (2)² authorize a public employee and a union to enter into a dues-deduction agreement and require a public employer to make deductions in accordance with that agreement. Those provisions describe general dues deduction authorizations and do not refer to ULFs. ORS 243.806(10) then provides a remedy for resolving disputes arising out of dues deduction authorizations. The context and plain text of the statute explicitly provide ERB with authority to resolve disputes regarding authorization for the deduction of dues between public employees and a labor organization by way of an unfair labor proceeding.

Petitioner contends that ORS 243.766 and ORS 243.676(3), together, provide context for the construction that ERB’s jurisdiction is limited to resolving ULP claims. ORS 243.766(3) grants ERB jurisdiction to "[c]on- duct proceedings on complaints of unfair labor practices." And, pursuant to ORS 243.676(3)(a), "[w]here the board finds that the person named in the complaint has not engaged in or is not engaging in an unfair labor practice, the board shall * * * [i]ssue an order dismissing the complaint * * *." Petitioner ₃₁₆argues that those statutes limit ERB’s authority to consider claims that do not involve a ULP. But that construction overlooks the explicit statement in ORS 243.806(10) that disputes concerning authorization for dues deductions are to be resolved through a ULP proceeding. Simply stated, although it does not itself constitute a ULP claim, a dispute relating to authorization of union dues deductions is to be brought to ERB as a ULP proceeding.

The legislative history supports our construction of the statute. ORS 243.806(10) was added to the Public Employee Collective Bargaining Act (PECBA) as part of House Bill (HB) 2016 (2019), an expansive piece of legislation dealing with labor relations in the wake of the United States Supreme Court’s decision in Janus v. AFSCME, Council 31, 585 U.S. 878, 138 S Ct 2448, 201 L Ed 2d 924 (2018). The bill included multiple amendments to PECBA, including a comprehensive scheme regarding dues deductions for public employees, labor organizations, and public employers. Part of that comprehensive scheme is Section 6 of HB 2016, which is...