Today the ABQ Journal reported that the State Supreme Court has ordered the reinstatement of PELRB members John Boyd, who was the labor recommendation, and Duff Westbrook, who was recommended jointly by the management and labor recommendations. The Governor's Office pointed to a 2003 state Supreme Court ruling upholding then Governor Richardson's removal of six appointees to the Judicial Standards Commission. The Union's position, accepted by the Supreme Court was that the Governor lacked authority to remove these board members, because the Office of the Governor was itself involved in adjudication before the PELRB.
At approximately the same time the Governor removed these PELRB members, it also removed Chairman and management recommendation, Martin Dominguez, and Executive Director, Pam Gentry. The suit was brought by the New Mexico Federation of Labor, AFL-CIO and individual unions, and challenged only the removal of these two members, not the Mr. Dominguez or Ms. Gentry. Dominguez has now been replaced by Wayne Bingham, with Bingham, Hurst & Apodaca, P.C., who serves on several local labor boards as well.
The authority to remove Chair Dominguez was affirmed by the Court in dicta. The Governor's office is reported as having acknowledged, since then, that authority to hire and remove the Director resides in the board, not the Governor's Office. It will be interesting to see if Ms. Gentry is, therefore, also reinstated, either by the Governor's Office or by the board.
Although Shane Youtz, attorney for the unions, argued before the Supreme Court that the labor board has been "dark for more than 70 days now," I think most regular practitioners before the board would agree that the board itself is not particularly active unless appeals are pending before it, and there are no or few appeals pending because Ms. Gentry herself had not conducted any evidentiary hearing in the approximate five months she was employed by the board. For more information on this, see my prior post, NM PELRB and Public Sector Collective Bargaining in Review – 2010.
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