The Texas Supreme Court has sided with Houston fire fighter and police unions in a contentious pay dispute with the City of Houston.
City of Houston v. Houston Professional Fire Fighters’ Association, Local 341 (21-0518) and Houston Police Officers’ Union, et al. v. Houston Professional Fire Fighter’s Association, IAFF Local 341, et al. (No. 21-0755; decided March 31, 2023) stemmed from a 2017 charter amendment adopted by Houston voters to equalize firefighter compensation with that of police officers (the “pay-parity” amendment). The Houston City Council duly incorporated the amendment into the city’s charter by ordinance. Immediately following the election, the Houston Police Officers’ Union sued the Fire Fighters Association (HPFFA) and the city, seeking a declaratory judgment and injunctive relief against the enforcement of the ordinance. The Union argued that the ordinance was pre-empted by state law and unconstitutional under Art. XI, § 5, Texas Constitution (city charter may not conflict with state law). The city joined the Union’s lawsuit. HPFFA asserted counterclaims against the city for breach of contract and sought mandamus against the Mayor and city officials to compel them to pay firefighters in accordance with the pay-parity amendment. Both sides moved for summary judgment. The trial court sided with Union and City, ruling that state law pre-empted the charter amendment and, as such, the amendment was unconstitutional.
On appeal, a divided panel of Houston [14th] Court of Appeals reversed. The issue before the court was whether the Fire and Police Employee Relations Act (FPERA), which was enacted by the Legislature in §§ 174.001-174.253, Local Government Code, pre-empted the pay-parity amendment. FPERA required firefighter compensation to be “substantially equal to” and “based on” comparable private sector employment, which could be enforced either through collective bargaining or judicial order. The majority held that because FPERA and the pay-parity amendment could be harmonized, “the Legislature’s intent to preempt a particular subject matter [i.e., firefighter compensation]” could not “be discerned with ‘unmistakable clarity’” (citations omitted).
How, then, did the court harmonize provisions linking firefighter compensation to distinctly different benchmarks (private sector compensation vs. police officer compensation)? The majority hypothesized that FPERA and the pay-parity amendment could exist side-by-side but apply differently at different times. This analysis required reading FPERA’s comparable private sector employment standard as a “floor,” which the pay-parity amendment’s comparable police officer standard could freely exceed. In the majority’s words, “[B]ecause the pay-parity amendment does not always foreclose the application of [FPERA’s] standards, [FPERA] does not evidence with ‘unmistakable clarity’ the intent to preempt the pay-parity amendment.” By this reasoning, the majority concluded that there was no “actual conflict” between the two provisions and, consequently, no pre-emption.
In an opinion by Justice Bland, SCOTX reversed. First, the court held that FPERA’s judicial enforcement mechanism, which authorizes a court to review whether the city has satisfied the Chapter 174’s standard of comparable private sector compensation is constitutional because it does not direct a court to establish the level of compensation. Next, the court rejected the city’s argument that the statutory compensation standard was so vague as to be unconstitutional under the nondelegation doctrine. Noting that it has in the past upheld “broad standards . . . when the Legislature cannot conveniently investigate that which it seeks to regulate, or ‘cannot itself practically and efficiently exercise’ its power to prescribe the details,” the court held that Chapter 174’s delegation of authority to courts to determine whether the city complied with the compensation standards did not violate separation of powers.
The court then turned to the city’s assertion of governmental immunity. It rejected the city’s argument that the fire fighters did not negotiate in good faith because they failed to offer a specific private sector compensation standard during collective bargaining. The statute nowhere requires them to do so, the court observed, nor do any such standards need to be incorporated into a final agreement between the parties. But once the parties reach an impasse, the statute requires that the collective-bargaining association request arbitration on a specified list of issues. If the public entity refuses to arbitrate, as the city did here, the association may bring suit for judicial enforcement, as the union likewise did here. Under the statute, consequently, the city’s governmental immunity was waived.
Finally, the court found that Chapter 174’s compensation standard pre-empted the pay-parity amendment to the city charter. In addition to the statute’s specific pre-emption language, the court found that the judicial enforcement mechanism, which requires the court to assess whether the city has met the comparable private sector compensation standard, was ireconcilable with the pay parity amendment’s base pay provision, which tied fire fighter compensation to that of police officers. The court reversed the court of appeals and remanded to the trial court for further proceedings to determine whether the city complied with Chapter 174.
