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5 J.L. & Educ. 479 (1976)
What Is the Effect of a Sunshine Law on Public Sector Collective Bargaining: An Introduction

handle is hein.journals/jle5 and id is 489 raw text is: What is the Effect of a Sunshine Law on Public Sector Collective Bargaining: An Introduction HUGH D. JASCOURT* Almost every state now has an open meeting law and an open records law. Perhaps stimulated by public reaction to Watergate most of these laws have been enacted the past five years. In almost half of the states official actions by public bodies taken in closed meetings can be voided. Since meaningful collective bargaining.... would be destroyed1 if bar- gaining sessions were to be held in public, courts had generally found open meeting or sunshine laws that did not specifically refer to negotiations to not apply to public sector collective bargaining. Similarly, insistence by the public employer that bargaining sessions be conducted publicly has been found by state public employment relations boards to constitute an unfair labor practice in that the exclusive status of the bargaining representative would be undermined.2 Only very recently has there been a strong push towards sweeping collec- tive bargaining into the ambit of such sunshine laws. The impetus has come from the realization that negotiated agreements have affected-whether for good or for bad-1) the allocation of public resources in terms of how much money will be spent for education as compared to other budget categories, 2) the level of certain public services through impact on classroom size, the number of teachers, guidance counselors or police officers, or 3) even whether certain programs will be conducted. In any event, collective bargaining in the public sector could be said to be restructuring the political process.3 The jury may still be out on whether governmental processes need to be modified to * Labor Relations Editor, JOURNAL OF LAW & EDUCATION; Director Public Employment Relations Research Institute I Talbot v. Concord Union Sch. Dist. 323 A.2d 912, 87 LRRM 3159 (N.H. Sup. Ct., 1974). 2 See Zoll and IAFF Local 1780, Mass. St. Labor Relations Bd. Case MUP 309, 12/14/72, 485 GERR B-S. See also City of Madison Jt. Sch. Dist. v. Wisconsin Employment Relations Commissions, 231 N.W.2d 206 (1975) in which the Wisconsin Supreme Court upheld WERC's determination that the School Board committed an unfair labor practice when it permitted a member of an ad hoc teachers group to speak at a school board public meeting in opposition to a fair share agreement that was being discussed in current, but impassed, negotiations between the parties. The Court found that the derogation of the status of the exclusive representative created so much chaos to labor relations that First Amendment rights were outweighed. 3 See Clyde W. Summers, Public Employee Bargaining: A Political Perspective, 83 YALE L. J. 1156 (1974).

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