International Ass'n of Fire Fighters, Local 3564 v. City of Grants Pass

326 P.3d 1214, 262 Or. App. 657, 2014 WL 1819639, 199 L.R.R.M. (BNA) 3453, 2014 Ore. App. LEXIS 629
CourtCourt of Appeals of Oregon
DecidedMay 7, 2014
Docket8411; A150721
StatusPublished
Cited by4 cases

This text of 326 P.3d 1214 (International Ass'n of Fire Fighters, Local 3564 v. City of Grants Pass) is published on Counsel Stack Legal Research, covering Court of Appeals of Oregon primary law. Counsel Stack provides free access to over 12 million legal documents including statutes, case law, regulations, and constitutions.

Bluebook
International Ass'n of Fire Fighters, Local 3564 v. City of Grants Pass, 326 P.3d 1214, 262 Or. App. 657, 2014 WL 1819639, 199 L.R.R.M. (BNA) 3453, 2014 Ore. App. LEXIS 629 (Or. Ct. App. 2014).

Opinion

SCHUMAN, S. J.

This case stems from a labor dispute between the City of Grants Pass and the union that represents the city’s firefighters, the International Association of Fire Fighters, Local 3564 (IAFF). The dispute centers on how the city should calculate the number of hours a firefighter has accumulated for purposes of qualifying for overtime compensation. The union relies on ORS 652.080, which mandates that, for firefighters, “authorized vacation or sick leave time shall be considered as time on regular duty[,]” and therefore count toward overtime entitlement. The city argues that the statutory requirement does not apply, because the city and the union bargained over, and agreed to, a different method of calculating overtime — a method based on actual “time worked,” not including sick leave and authorized vacation. According to the city, the Public Employees Collective Bargaining Act (PECBA), ORS 243.650 to 243.782, creates a comprehensive structure under which public employee unions can negotiate terms of employment, and it supersedes the mandate of ORS 652.080. The Commissioner of the Bureau of Labor and Industries (BOLI) issued a declaratory ruling in favor of the union, and the city appeals. For the reasons that follow, we agree with the commissioner and the union that ORS 652.080 applies and that the city must include authorized vacation and sick leave time when computing overtime wages for the union-represented firefighters that it employs.

The relevant facts are not in dispute. The City of Grants Pass operates a “regularly organized fire department” that employs firefighters on a full-time basis. Those firefighters are represented by IAFF. The parties have negotiated a collective bargaining agreement that specifies how overtime is to be calculated. The agreement states that “Regular Shift Employees,” including firefighters, are to be compensated

“at the rate of 11/2 times their respective 56 hour per week regular hourly rate * * * for overtime work under the following conditions:
“1. All time worked as a Firefighter or Fire Corporal in excess of the regularly scheduled work shift for that employee (e.g., in excess of 24 hours in any one workday).
[660]*660“2. All time worked as a Firefighter or Fire Corporal in excess of 204 hours in a 27 calendar day for 24-hour duty schedule fire service non-exempt employees.
“3. Forty-Hour Employees: Overtime for 40-hour employees shall be time worked (1) in excess of 8 hours for a specific job class in a workday for employees working five 8 hour shifts, or (2) in excess of 10 hours for a specific job class in a workday for employees working four 10 hour shifts and (3) in excess of 40 hours in a work week.
“4. Employees assigned to on-call fire prevention shall be paid $100.00 a month in addition to overtime and callback earned.”

The agreement does not require the city to include time spent on authorized vacation and sick leave when determining when a firefighter has accumulated enough time to qualify for overtime wages, nor does the agreement expressly prohibit the city from doing so.

In June 2011, the union petitioned BOLI for a declaratory ruling, ORS 183.410, that the city was required to “include vacation and sick leave time when calculating overtime wages for firefighters employed by the City, as set forth in ORS 652.080.” That statute provides:

“In computing the average or total number of hours a week for the purposes of ORS 652.060 and 652.070 [relating to overtime hours for firefighters], authorized vacation or sick leave time shall be considered as time on regular duty.”

The City of Grants Pass intervened, noting that, after enacting ORS 652.080 in 1959, Or Laws 1959, ch 402, § 4, the legislature passed PECBA in 1973, Or Laws 1973, ch 536. PECBA, the city notes, permits employees to bargain collectively with their public employers. According to the city, the subsequent passage of PECBA allowed the city and the union to agree to a method of calculating overtime other than the one mandated by ORS 652.080. BOLI concluded, however, that the enactment of PECBA did not create a collective bargaining exception to the overtime requirements of ORS 652.080 and issued a declaratory ruling that the city [661]*661was “required to include authorized vacation and sick leave time when computing overtime wages for the IAFF firefighters it employs [.]” On appeal, the city seeks reversal of that ruling, arguing that “a correct interpretation of [PECBA], compels a determination that the city is not required to include vacation and sick time when calculating overtime wages for firefighters.”

We review declaratory rulings for errors of law. Simpson v. Dept. of Fish and Wildlife, 242 Or App 287, 290, 255 P3d 565 (2011); ORS 183.482(8)(a). Where, as here, the resolution of a dispute requires us to determine the meaning of a statute, our “paramount goal” is to determine the legislature’s intent. State v. Gaines, 346 Or 160, 171, 206 P3d 1042 (2009). We begin by examining the text and context of a statute and any relevant legislative history. Id. at 171-72. To aid us in that examination, we employ “rules of construction that bear directly on the interpretation of the statutory provision in context [,]” some of which are statutory — for example, the rule that counsels us not to omit what is included or insert what is omitted. ORS 174.010; PGE v. Bureau of Labor and Industries, 317 Or 606, 611, 859 P2d 1143 (1993). If the legislature’s intent remains unclear, the final step is to resort to “general maxims of statutory construction.” Gaines, 346 Or at 172.

We begin by noting that there is nothing in the plain text of PECBA that would imply that the legislature intended to create a collective bargaining exception to the requirements of ORS 652.080. Typically, when the legislature intends to create such an exception, it does so explicitly. See, e.g., ORS 653.269

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Bluebook (online)
326 P.3d 1214, 262 Or. App. 657, 2014 WL 1819639, 199 L.R.R.M. (BNA) 3453, 2014 Ore. App. LEXIS 629, Counsel Stack Legal Research, https://law.counselstack.com/opinion/international-assn-of-fire-fighters-local-3564-v-city-of-grants-pass-orctapp-2014.