National Guard technicians win labor dispute at Supreme Court

WASHINGTON (CN) —  In a 7-2 ruling, the Supreme Court on Thursday sided with civilians working for Ohio’s National Guard, forcing the state to sit at the bargaining table with a labor union.

Civilian employees working as technicians for the National Guard came to a labor agreement for conditions of their employment in 2011. That agreement expired in 2014, however, and since then the guard and the American Federation of Government Employees, AFL-CIO, have been unable to come to a new agreement. 

Years passed with the guard continuing to abide by the 2011 agreement, but then it reversed course and decided it didn’t want to be bound by the old agreement. The guard announced it would halt union deductions from technicians. 

The union filed multiple unfair labor practice charges with the Federal Labor Relations Authority arguing the guard had violated labor laws. The FLRA conducted an investigation and concluded that the guard refused to negotiate in good faith, violating the technicians' rights. 

The Ohio adjutant general intervened on behalf of the guard, putting the dispute before an administrative law judge. The judge sided with the union, finding the FLRA had jurisdiction and the guard violated the technicians' labor rights. The judge ordered the guard to abide by the 2011 collective bargaining agreement. 

After losing on appeal, the Ohio adjutant general's office brought the case to the high court, questioning the FLRA’s authority to review the labor practices of state militias. The office argues the FLRA’s congressional authority is limited to regulating the practices of federal agencies — not state entities or state officers. 

The FLRA countered that the Ohio adjutant general's problem was really with Congress’ mandate, and therefore, it should take its complaint to Congress, not the high court. 

In Thursday's ruling, the justices found that the Ohio adjutant general and Ohio National Guard do act as a federal "agency" when "they hire and supervise dual-status technicians serving in their civilian role," thus subjecting them to the authority of the FLRA.

"Because adjutants general act on behalf of an agency of the Federal Government with respect to their supervision of civilian technicians, their actions in that capacity do not implicate the balance between federal and state powers," Justice Clarence Thomas wrote for the majority.

“It would be passing strange if dual-status technicians, who qualify as employees under the Statute, were supervised by an entity not required to safeguard the rights guaranteed employees under the Statute," he added.

Justices Samuel Alito and Neil Gorsuch disagreed. In a dissenting opinion, they wrote that the adjutants general are not actual "agencies," despite the court finding that they act and function like one. They added that the statutory language of the Federal Service Labor-Management Relations Statute defines an agency as “an executive department, a government corporation, or an independent establishment," and that the Ohio adjunct general should be considered none of those.

"The designation of petitioners by the Departments of the Army and Air Force to perform some of those departments’ duties and to exercise some of their authority does not turn petitioners into agencies or necessarily have any effect beyond assigning them those duties and responsibilities," Alito wrote.

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