Rea

I. Introduction

The issue in this case is whether state law requires the Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority (VTA) to bargain with a certain labor union when the bargaining unit the union represents includes supervisory and management personnel. Resolution of the issue turns upon interpretation of two arguably contradictory sections of the Public Utilities Code. Section 100301 states that all questions relating to the collective bargaining rights of VTA employees are to be resolved by application of relevant provisions of the federal Labor Management Relations Act of 1947 ( 29 U.S.C. § 141 et seq.) (LMRA). Section 100309 applies to a subset of employees who transferred to VTA from other public entities in 1995 as a result of reorganizing legislation. This section requires VTA to recognize the employee organizations that represented the transferring employees immediately prior to their employment by VTA. The apparent contradiction between the two code sections is that under the LMRA, an employer may not be compelled to bargain with supervisors and managers, but section 100309 appears to require VTA to bargain with a group of supervisory and managerial employees…