Alaska Public Employees Ass'n v. State, Department of Administration, Division of Labor Relations

I agree with the various holdings in this opinion. However, I disagree with the court’s exclusive reliance on the NLRA for purposes of determining when the state may unilaterally change the terms of class II employee contracts under PERA.1

In part the NLRA is designed so that upon a good faith impasse, parties can break off negotiations to pursue their respective interests through “economic warfare.” In particular, a union may respond to what it deems to be an unfair unilateral change in working conditions by striking.2 The NLRA provides a statutory scheme in which both the requirement of good…