The Missouri Supreme Court affirmed a St. Louis Circuit Court decision that found House Bill 1413 is unconstitutional because it imposed new requirements on one group of unions but not others.
“The exemption of public safety labor organizations violates principles of equal protection,” wrote Missouri Supreme Court Judge Mary Russell in the June 1 decision. “The exemption of public safety labor organizations permeates throughout HB 1413 and reaches all provisions. The operation of this exemption forces this Court to declare HB 1413 void in its entirety rather than sever the offending provision.”
Judge Russell was appointed to the court by Democratic Governor Bob Holden 17 years ago.
The new requirements of HB 1413, which was enacted in 2018, included filing certain disclosures, requiring labor organizations to adopt a constitution and bylaws as well as providing detailed reporting and annual filings, and authorizing the withholding of dues and fees from earnings for labor organizations to use in political contributions or expenditures.
"It's not about a right to impose these different requirements on the election process, on the recognition process, on the reporting process, or on the certification process," said attorney David Eisenberg, member of the Baker Sterchi Cowden & Rice law firm and editor of the firm's Missouri Law Blog. "It's about drawing distinctions in this statute between types of unions that represent public employees and whether this carve-out for unions that mainly represent public safety workers is a permissible distinction."
In Missouri National Education Association, et al. versus Missouri Department of Labor and Industrial Relations, Ferguson-Florissant School District, the plaintiffs sued state agencies authorized to implement and enforce HB 1413, the employers of the bargaining units represented by labor unions, and the prosecutor who would enforce HB 1413’s criminal provisions. Judge Joseph Walsh ruled in favor of the plaintiffs and the state appealed.
“The Missouri Supreme Court is saying that there are constitutional rights provided for by the Missouri constitution and this statute infringed on the constitutional rights,” Eisenberg told the St. Louis Record. "The court will tell you that the constitution trumps legislation that is not consonant with the constitution."
The decision overall protects fairness in the collective bargaining process for public employees, according to Eisenberg.
“While you've got these provisions that impose new requirements on folks trying to organize public employees, the court views it and the unions challenging the statute view it as going about it in an unfair way that impermissibly advantages one union group over another,” he said.
Judge W. Brent Powell, who dissented in a separate opinion along with Judge Zel Fischer, a Republican, said HB 1413 does not violate the state constitution because there is adequate justification for treating public safety labor organizations differently given the unique nature of public safety employees.
“This Court’s role is not to determine whether the solution raised by the legislature is perfectly suited to the problem it purports to solve; rather, as long as the reason for distinguishing between public safety and non-public safety unions is plausible, there exists a rational basis for treating these labor organizations differently under the law,” wrote Judge Powell, who was appointed by Gov. Matt Blunt, a Republican.
“Here, the distinctions between the public employees the separate labor groups wholly or primarily serve provides plausible explanations and justifications for the dissimilar regulatory framework for public safety and nonpublic safety labor groups and is not unconstitutional.”