Labor Relations – Disputes and Concerted Activites – Right of Employees of a Public Corporation to Strike

The Los Angeles Metropolitan Transit Authority Act provides that “employees shall have the right to self-organization, to form, join, or assist labor organizations, to bargain collectively through representatives of their own choosing, and to engage in other concerted activities for the purposes of collective bargaining or other mutual aid or protection.” The Transit Authority brought this action to obtain a declaratory judgment that its employees did not have the right to strike. The trial court upheld its contention. On appeal, held, reversed, two justices dissenting. This statutory language has been uniformly construed to include the right to strike. Since this statute dealt only with public employees, the legislature must have intended to grant this right or it would not have unqualifiedly used this language. Moreover, according the employees this right was not an unconstitutional delegation of the state’s authority. Los Angeles Metropolitan Transit Authority v. Brotherhood of Railroad Trainmen, 54 Cal. 2d 684, 355 P.2d 905 (1960).