## Facts

- Montana public-sector labor law required public employers to bargain in good faith over wages, hours, benefits, and other conditions of employment.
- Montana law also granted public employers certain managerial rights, including the right to hire, promote, transfer, assign, and retain employees.
- Bonner School District No. 14 (the District) and the Bonner Education Association (the Union) were parties to a collective-bargaining agreement (CBA).
- The CBA did not contain an express provision addressing teacher transfers or reassignments.
- The CBA included a management-rights clause recognizing the District’s authority to manage operations except where limited by the CBA’s express terms.
- During the 2003 school year, the District unilaterally transferred certain teachers.
- The transfers required affected teachers to teach different subjects and different groups of students, including students with special needs.
- The Union filed an unfair-labor-practice complaint with the Montana Board of Personnel Appeals (the Board), alleging the District failed to bargain over a mandatory subject of bargaining.
- After a hearing, the Board ruled for the Union.
- The District sought judicial review, and the district court reversed the Board, concluding teacher transfers and assignments were not mandatory subjects of bargaining under Montana law.
- The Union appealed to the Montana Supreme Court.

## Issues

1. Whether the District’s unilateral teacher transfers and assignments—when they materially change teachers’ working conditions—are mandatory subjects of bargaining under Montana public-sector labor law.
2. Whether a general management-rights clause and the statutory grant of managerial authority allowed the District to implement such transfers without bargaining.

## Decision

- The Montana Supreme Court reversed the district court.
- The Court held that teacher transfers and assignments that materially affect working conditions fall within “other conditions of employment” and therefore are mandatory subjects of bargaining.
- The Court held the District could not rely on a broad management-rights clause (or the statutory managerial-rights provision) as a blanket authorization to make unilateral changes to mandatory bargaining subjects.
- The Court reinstated the Board’s determination that the District committed an unfair labor practice by refusing to bargain and remanded for further proceedings consistent with the Court’s decision.

## Legal Principles

- Public employers must bargain in good faith over mandatory subjects, including “other conditions of employment,” not only wages and hours.
- Statutory managerial rights and the duty to bargain must be read together; managerial authority does not eliminate bargaining obligations when an employer action materially changes conditions of employment.
- Teacher transfers may become mandatory bargaining subjects when they require teachers to take on substantially different teaching duties (e.g., new subjects, new student populations, or added preparation demands).
- A contractual waiver of bargaining rights must be clear; a generalized management-rights clause that reserves authority except where limited by express CBA terms is not, by itself, a clear waiver permitting unilateral change to mandatory bargaining subjects.
- A unilateral change to a mandatory bargaining subject, without bargaining to agreement or lawful impasse, may constitute an unfair labor practice.

## Conclusion

The Montana Supreme Court held that involuntary teacher transfers and reassignments that materially change teachers’ working conditions are mandatory subjects of bargaining, and that neither statutory managerial rights nor a general management-rights clause authorizes a school district to impose such changes without bargaining; it therefore reversed the district court and reinstated the Board’s unfair-labor-practice ruling.


Bonner School District No. 14 v. Bonner Education Association, 176 P.3d 262, 341 Mont. 97 (2008)