State law impacting Missouri's merit system remanded to circuit court

This Feb. 5, 2016 file photo shows Judge Jon Beetem on the bench in Cole County Circuit Court.
This Feb. 5, 2016 file photo shows Judge Jon Beetem on the bench in Cole County Circuit Court.


The Missouri Supreme Court reversed a local judge's order on at-will employment for state workers Tuesday, sending it back to Cole County Circuit Court.

A 2018 state law, SB 1007, removed protections including grievance procedures to protest disciplinary actions and requirements that the state have good cause for termination for most state employees.

Under the law, workers who do not supervise prisoners or residents of state institutions became at-will employees.

A suit to challenge the law was filed by three state employee labor unions that each have contracts requiring merit-system protections for their covered employees. Cole County Circuit Judge Jon Beetem ruled last year that contracts remained in force until they were renegotiated. He said the state's public employee labor policies were enacted in 1965 and worked with the state's 1945 Civil Service Law to create those bargaining terms.

"These systems have long existed in harmony, and the parties have bargained multiple labor agreements over the years that include for 'cause' disciple protections, grievance procedures, and seniority as a determining factor in layoffs, recalls, and transfers," Beetem wrote in his judgment from last September. "If the General Assembly had intended SB 1007 to preclude bargaining over such terms and to trump labor agreements, it surely would have said so. It did not."

The groups that leveled the challenge were the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), the Service Employees International Union (SEIU) and the Communications Workers of America (CWA).

The state quickly appealed the case to the Supreme Court, arguing the state could not negotiate over something the General Assembly had already reversed, while the union groups encouraged the high court to uphold Beetem's opinion.

The Supreme Court's unanimous decision, written by Judge W. Brent Powell, found the state's mandate did not impact collective bargaining, mandate at-will employment or violate the state constitution.

"The State is not permitted to bargain with Unions over terms and conditions of employment that would be inconsistent with at-will employment. These terms and conditions are inconsistent with at-will employment only if they limit the right to terminate employment at any time without cause," Powell's decision read.

The decision said the law mandated that most state employees would be employed at-will, prohibited the state from bargaining with unions over issues that would impact at-will status for non-merit employees, and did not go against the Missouri Constitution's collective bargaining language.

The case was reverted and remanded -- or sent back for further consideration -- to the Cole County Circuit Court "for further proceedings consistent with this opinion."

Spokespeople for the state and for the parties involved could not immediately be reached for comment.

View the full decision at https://www.courts.mo.gov/file.jsp?id=189620.