Board of Trustees of Junior College District No. 508 v. Cook County College Teachers Union, Local 1600

343 N.E.2d 473, 62 Ill. 2d 470, 1976 Ill. LEXIS 269, 92 L.R.R.M. (BNA) 2380
CourtIllinois Supreme Court
DecidedJanuary 26, 1976
Docket47137, 47138, 47139
StatusPublished
Cited by53 cases

This text of 343 N.E.2d 473 (Board of Trustees of Junior College District No. 508 v. Cook County College Teachers Union, Local 1600) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Illinois Supreme Court primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
Board of Trustees of Junior College District No. 508 v. Cook County College Teachers Union, Local 1600, 343 N.E.2d 473, 62 Ill. 2d 470, 1976 Ill. LEXIS 269, 92 L.R.R.M. (BNA) 2380 (Ill. 1976).

Opinion

MR. JUSTICE UNDERWOOD

delivered the opinion of the court:

These three cases involving different, but related, issues in disputes that have arisen between substantially the same parties were consolidated for argument and opinion. Plaintiff in each action is the Board of Trustees of Junior College District No. 508, Cook County, Illinois (the Board), organized pursuant to statute (Ill. Rev. Stat. 1973, ch. 122, par. 101 — 1 et seq.). The Board operates seven public junior colleges within the city of Chicago serving approximately 36,000 students and employing some 1200 full-time teachers. Defendant in each action is the Cook County College Teachers Union, Local 1600, affiliated with the American Federation of Teachers. Additional defendants were joined in Nos. 47137 and 47139 as individuals, officers of the union, collective bargaining representatives of the union, or as members and representatives of the class of members of the union. The Board and union have been involved in a collective bargaining relationship since 1967, during which time the Board has recognized the union as exclusive bargaining representative for all full-time teachers. The disputes at issue in these consolidated cases arose under the second and third collective bargaining agreements between the parties, spanning the 4½-year period from January 1, 1969, to June 30, 1973.

The principal issue in No. 47137 is whether an arbitrator may award teaching contracts to nontenured junior college teachers whose contracts were not renewed without the prior, advisory faculty evaluation and recommendation called for by the collective bargaining agreement between the union and the Board.

Early in 1972, the president of one of the junior colleges operated by the Board recommended that the Board not rehire eight nontenured teachers after the expiration of their one-year contracts. The union filed grievances on behalf of the teachers, based upon an alleged failure to comply with relevant provisions of the collective bargaining agreement. Those provisions are contained in article VIII, section J, of the collective bargaining agreement and established a procedure whereby faculty advice regarding the Board’s decision whether to renew employment contracts of nontenured teachers in each college department could be, transmitted to the governing authorities. Eligible faculty members or a committee of their democratically chosen representatives were to evaluate nontenured teachers according to published criteria, and make a recommendation as to future employment which was to be forwarded to the college president, who was free to accept or reject it. The collective bargaining agreement, including the evaluation section, is incorporated into the teachers’ employment contracts with the Board. It is undisputed that no such evaluation was made.

The grievance was denied and arbitration requested by the union, which urged as a remedy that the arbitrator grant employment contracts to the teachers. The case was docketed by the American Arbitration Association and set for hearing. Prior to that hearing and on July 18, 1972, the Board filed in the circuit court of Cook County a petition for declaratory relief, requesting the court to declare that the arbitrator could not grant employment contracts to teachers because sole power to do so was vested in the Board by statute and could not lawfully be delegated to another. After evidence and arguments were heard, the court filed a memorandum opinion holding that the arbitrator, if he found noncompliance with the collective bargaining agreement, could only order the Board to comply with the evaluation procedures; he could not grant employment contracts as a remedy.

A decree incorporating the provisions of the opinion was entered on September 15, 1972, and the parties were ordered to proceed to arbitration. Subsequently, as part of an order entered October 23, 1972, the court made its memorandum opinion equally applicable to two earlier arbitration cases between the Board and the union, vacating those awards insofar as they purported to grant employment contracts or tenure to teachers. The union appealed from both orders, and the First District Appellate Court affirmed. (22 Ill. App. 3d 1060.) We allowed leave to appeal.

While the union makes passing reference in its brief to its allegation that the circuit court was without jurisdiction to hear and determine the merits of this case, that contention is not pursued. Since the jurisdictional issue was fully presented to the appellate court, and we are satisfied that it was decided correctly, we need not consider it further.

The principal argument of the union is that the teachers were denied continued employment in violation of the evaluation procedures and that award of an employment contract is the appropriate resolution of an issue which, in essence, involves the enforceability of personal service contracts. To the contrary, replies the Board, an arbitrator’s award of a public teaching contract is expressly prohibited by the terms of the collective bargaining agreement, the departmental faculty is itself entirely responsible for implementing the evaluation procedure and must bear the blame for its failure, any resulting departmental recommendation is only advisory in any event, and any agreement or contract which allowed an arbitrator to award positions of employment would constitute an unlawful delegation of the Board’s sole, discretionary authority to appoint teachers.

Very recently we determined the effect of a similar provision of the School Code in Illinois Education Association v. Board of Education (1975), 62 Ill.2d 127. In that case, as here, the Board and union had entered into a collective bargaining agreement which included a provision for the evaluation of classroom performance preceding the “[d] ischarge, demotion, or other involuntary change in the employment status of any teacher.” The Board, without complying with the evaluation procedure, decided not to renew a teacher’s employment contract. Actions of that Board were governed by the School Code, which imposed upon the Board the duty to appoint teachers (Ill. Rev. Stat. 1973, ch. 122, par. 10 — 20.7), and empowered it to terminate the employment of teachers by dismissal or the nonrenewal of probationary teachers’ contracts (Ill. Rev. Stat. 1973, ch. 122, pars. 10 — 22.4 and 24 — 11 through 24 — 15). We held that these powers were discretionary and could not be delegated, and that a termination in compliance with the statute was valid notwithstanding a failure to comply with the evaluation provisions of the collective bargaining agreement.

In our judgment, the holding in Illinois Education Association controls the result in this case. We adhere to our position there stated that the Board’s duties in appointing teachers are nondelegable, and it follows therefrom that the arbitrator is without authority to award an employment contract as a remedy for the violation of a collective bargaining agreement. Since our holding here sets aside previously awarded employment contracts, the tenure awards simultaneously fall, and there is no need to consider independently the arbitrator’s authority to award tenure.

The trial court’s memorandum opinion, while prohibiting the arbitrator from renewing the teaching contract, indicated that the arbitrator could require a reevaluation in accordance with the terms of the collective bargaining agreement.

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343 N.E.2d 473, 62 Ill. 2d 470, 1976 Ill. LEXIS 269, 92 L.R.R.M. (BNA) 2380, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/board-of-trustees-of-junior-college-district-no-508-v-cook-county-college-ill-1976.