Bonner School District No. 14 v. Bonner Education Association

Montana state law obligated public employers to bargain in good faith with respect to hours, wages, benefits, and other conditions of employment (duty to bargain). A separate statutory right gave public employers the right to hire, promote, transfer, assign, and retain employees (managerial rights). The Bonner School District No. 14 (the district) (defendant) unilaterally decided to transfer teachers during the 2003 school year. The transferred teachers had to teach new subjects and new groups of students, some of whom had special needs. The district and the Bonner Education Association (the union) (plaintiff), the representative of teachers in the district, had in place a collective-bargaining agreement (CBA), which was silent on the matter of teacher transfers. The CBA did, however, contain a management-rights clause, which recognized the district’s prerogative to manage the district except as limited by express terms of the CBA. The union filed a complaint with the Board of Personnel Appeals (the board), alleging that the district had committed an unfair labor practice by failing to negotiate on a mandatory subject of bargaining. After a hearing, the board sided with the union. The district appealed the ruling. A district court reversed the board’s decision, finding that teacher transfers and assignments were not mandatory subjects of bargaining under state law. The union appealed.