## Facts

- A teachers’ aides and assistants bargaining unit, represented by Mountain Valley Education Association, negotiated an initial contract with Maine School Administrative District No. 43 beginning in June 1990.
- Negotiations were prolonged and included mediation sessions, fact-finding, and interest arbitration.
- A July 9, 1992 arbitration panel issued (1) nonbinding recommendations on wages, retirement payment, and health insurance, and (2) a binding determination that the contract duration would be two school years (1991–92 and 1992–93).
- In September 1992, the District proposed new wage and insurance terms that improved on its prior positions but did not fully match the arbitrators’ nonbinding recommendations; the Association rejected the proposal and countered.
- In November 1992, the District declared a “last best offer” on wages and insurance; the Association requested mediation.
- The District then unilaterally implemented its wage and insurance proposal.
- The Association filed a prohibited practice complaint with the Maine Labor Relations Board alleging (1) unlawful unilateral implementation on wages and insurance, and (2) failure to honor the arbitrators’ binding decision on contract duration.
- The Board found no violation; the Superior Court affirmed; the Association appealed to the Maine Supreme Judicial Court (Law Court).

## Issues

1. Whether Maine’s Municipal Public Employees Labor Relations Law permits a public employer, after a bona fide impasse, to unilaterally implement its last best offer on wages and insurance.
2. Whether the Board’s finding of a bona fide impasse was clearly erroneous.
3. Whether unilateral implementation of wage and insurance terms violated the arbitrators’ binding determination that the agreement’s duration would be two years.

## Decision

- The Law Court affirmed the Superior Court, thereby affirming the Maine Labor Relations Board.
- The Act permits unilateral implementation of a public employer’s last best offer on wages and insurance after a bona fide impasse, subject to continued good-faith bargaining and consistency with pre-impasse proposals.
- The Board’s finding that the parties had reached impasse was supported by the record and was not clearly erroneous.
- The District did not violate the binding two-year contract duration determination because the binding portion of the award did not extend to the disputed economic terms.

## Legal Principles

- During collective bargaining and before impasse, parties must maintain the status quo regarding wages, hours, and working conditions; unilateral changes violate the duty to bargain in good faith.
- After a bona fide impasse, a public employer may implement its last best offer on subjects not fixed by binding interest arbitration, so long as implementation is consistent with its pre-impasse proposals and the duty to bargain in good faith continues.
- Where interest arbitration is binding only as to specified matters (here, contract duration), unilateral action on nonbinding subjects (here, wages and insurance) does not, by itself, violate the binding portion of the award.

## Conclusion

The court sustained the labor board’s application of an impasse exception under Maine public-sector bargaining law, allowing unilateral implementation of wage and insurance terms after a bona fide impasse while preserving the continuing obligation to bargain in good faith and to comply with binding arbitral determinations such as contract duration.


Mountain Valley Educ. Ass’n v. Me. Sch. Admin. Dist. No. 43, 655 A.2d 348 (Me. 1995)