Background
Donegal Township filed an unfair labor practice charge against International Union of Operating Engineers Local 66, which represented a small unit of township employees. The dispute arose from grievances the union advanced toward arbitration while the parties were operating under a collective bargaining agreement that had expired as they negotiated a successor.
The agreement set detailed deadlines for the grievance process. It required written notice of an intent to arbitrate within five working days after the township’s Step 2 answer, but the separate arbitration article did not state a deadline for requesting a panel or completing later steps. The township maintained that the union’s delay in moving several grievances forward showed bad faith and repudiated the agreement. The union responded that the contract supplied no such deadline and that it had continued trying to resolve the grievances through individual hearings, consolidation, and scheduling.
A hearing examiner dismissed the charge, and the Pennsylvania Labor Relations Board denied the township’s exceptions. The Board found that the union had a “sound arguable basis” in the contract for its conduct and had not refused to bargain in good faith under the Public Employe Relations Act. The township petitioned the Commonwealth Court for review.
The Court’s Holding
The Commonwealth Court affirmed. The Board adjudicates unfair labor practices; it ordinarily does not sit as an arbitrator to decide which side has the better interpretation of a collective bargaining agreement. A party may defeat an unfair-practice charge through the contractual-privilege defense when its conduct follows an interpretation that has a sound arguable basis in the agreement.
The union met that standard. The grievance article contained express time limits, while the arbitration article omitted a deadline for requesting an arbitration panel. That textual difference supplied an arguable basis for the union’s view that no fixed deadline governed the later step. The Board did not hold that the union’s interpretation was definitively correct. It held only that the interpretation was sufficiently grounded in the contract to defeat an allegation of bad-faith bargaining or clear repudiation.
The record also showed continuing use of the contractual process. Some grievances had been arbitrated, another remained in litigation, and the union had proposed consolidating multiple matters. Whether the agreement implied a reasonable-time requirement, and whether the union met it, were questions of contract interpretation for an arbitrator rather than grounds for the Board to find an unfair labor practice on this record.
Key Takeaways
- The PLRB resolves statutory unfair labor practices, not ordinary disputes over the best reading of a labor contract.
- A sound arguable basis in collective bargaining language can establish contractual privilege and defeat an unfair-practice charge.
- Express deadlines in one contract article and silence in another can support an arguable distinction between grievance and arbitration timing.
- The defense does not make one party’s interpretation controlling; the ultimate contract question remains for arbitration.
Why It Matters
Donegal Township clarifies the boundary between Pennsylvania public-sector labor regulation and grievance arbitration. Employers cannot convert every alleged failure to meet an implied contractual deadline into a statutory bad-faith charge. Where the challenged position has textual support and the party continues to use the agreed process, the PLRB may leave the interpretive dispute to an arbitrator.
For public employers and unions, precision at the bargaining table is the best preventive measure. If the parties want a deadline for selecting a panel, consolidating claims, or scheduling a hearing, they should state it expressly and identify the consequence of noncompliance. In litigation, the immediate question is not always which interpretation ultimately wins; it may be whether the opposing interpretation is so contrary to clear language that it loses contractual privilege.
The opinion also warns against using an unfair-practice proceeding as a substitute for the parties’ chosen merits forum. A charge should identify conduct that independently shows repudiation or bad faith, not simply delay coupled with a disputed reading. Evidence of ongoing scheduling, consolidation proposals, completed arbitrations, and related appeals can demonstrate continued adherence to the process. Conversely, a party claiming contractual privilege should tie its behavior to particular words, structural differences among articles, and a consistent course of performance.