holding that the maintenance of stable employment relations between police officers and their employers was a matter of statewide concern
How later courts described this case
- holding that the maintenance of stable employment relations between police officers and their employers was a matter of statewide concern
- also noting that prior to passage of the Act there had been over four hundred public employee work stoppages in Ohio between 1973 and 1980
Written by the judges who cited it.
The opinion
Wright, J.,
dissenting. While I respectfully dissent from the results reached by the majority on the facts of this case, I wish to stress the narrow basis of my reasons. Kettering’s position is persuasive because of its clear and overriding interest in controlling its police command officers, which, in my view, falls within Kettering’s powers of local self-government under Section 3, Article XVIII of the Ohio Constitution.
I believe that municipalities are entitled to deal directly with a limited number of command officers of its police force due to the necessarily paramilitary nature of such a municipal operation. To that extent today’s opinion is an incorrect result.