OPINION Supreme Court of Missouri
David A. Lieb
The Associated Press
Jefferson City — Overturning a 60-year legal precedent, the Missouri Supreme Court ruled Tuesday that teachers and
other public employees have a constitutional right to engage in collective bargaining with their government employers.
Although governments aren't bound to reach work agreements with labor unions, once they do, they cannot simply
back out of the contracts, the Supreme Court said.
The court's 5-2 ruling overturned a 1947 Supreme Court decision that had construed a constitutional right to collective
bargaining to apply only to private-sector employees. The court, by a unanimous decision, also overturned a 1982
decision that governments were free to disregard agreements made with employee unions.
The decision came in a labor dispute involving the Independence School District. But representatives for teachers'
unions and school boards agreed it will have much broader implications.
Missouri has 68,500 teachers in 524 public school districts who could more effectively band together in unions to
negotiate salaries, benefits and workplace rights with local school boards. All told, Missouri has more than 390,000
public-sector employees to whom the ruling could grant expanded collective bargaining powers, according to figures
from the Department of Economic Development.
The president of the Missouri National Education Association, which represents about 33,000 teachers and school
employees, praised the ruling as a "historic decision."
"What this decision does basically is lift the ban on collective bargaining for public employees," said Greg Jung, a fifth-
grade teacher on leave from the Ritenour School District to serve as president of the union.
Some school administrators, however, fear collective bargaining could drive up costs for salaries and benefits,
potentially leaving less money for the classroom.
"This ruling has the potential to have drastic and expensive consequences for school districts and other public
entities," said Brent Ghan, a spokesman for Missouri School Boards' Association.
At least two-thirds of states already grant public employees collective bargaining rights, said Sally Barker, a member of
the Schuchat Cook & Werner law firm.