United Teachers v. Los Angeles Unified School District

After the Los Angeles Unified School District (District) approved the conversion of an existing public school into a charter school, the United Teachers of Los Angeles (UTLA) filed a number of grievances claiming that the District failed to comply with provisions of the collective bargaining agreement that concern charter school conversion. Unable to resolve the grievances informally, UTLA sought to compel arbitration pursuant to the collective bargaining agreement. The District argued that the collective bargaining provisions regulating charter school conversion were unlawful because they conflicted with the statutory scheme for creation and conversion of charter schools. Accordingly, the District urged, arbitration of those unlawful provisions should not be compelled.

The trial court agreed and denied UTLA’s petition. But the Court of Appeal reversed, concluding that it was not for the court, on a petition to compel arbitration, to decide whether there was a conflict between the collective bargaining provisions and the charter school statutes. Instead, the Court of Appeal held that the court’s function in adjudicating a petition to compel arbitration was limited to…