1. Facts and procedure of the Commission.   The Commission has established the following facts.   The union is the exclusive bargaining representative of a unit composed of all full-time officers under the rank of sergeant employed by the city police service.   The union and the City were parties to a collective agreement at all relevant times.   On 16 September 1996, the Chief of Police advised all commanders to immediately execute a special order.   The union received no dismissal and no opportunity to negotiate this special order, its impact or its implementation. The Labour Relations Board found that the City of Worcester engaged in a prohibited work practice when it did not negotiate the impact of its order requiring police officers to take certain measures to combat school absenteeism.   The city and the International Brotherhood of Police Officers, Local 378 (union), appealed the decision.   The Court of Appeal found that the Board`s decision and order were inadequate because they required the City to negotiate only the effects of the decision, whereas the City also had a duty to negotiate the decision itself.  Worcester v.

Labour Relations Commission, 53 Mass.App.Ct. 106, 756 N.E.2d 1220 (2001).   We have acceded to the City`s request for a reconsideration of the appeal.   For the following reasons, we believe that the City is not obligated to negotiate the decision to assign its police officers duties to enforce school absenteeism, and we uphold the Commission`s order. The special decree recited that the city manager on the 26th. In August 1996, all police officers had been appointed “guardians of the presence having the power to perform the functions provided for by the G.L.c. 76, paragraphs 19 and 20, which include the power to arrest and take to school without a warrant any absent or absent person walking in the streets or in public squares. The special order announced certain mandatory procedures for the interaction of agents with absentees.   Whenever an officer met with a student outside the school grounds during school hours, they should ask if they were actually absenteeism and given the student`s name and school.   The staff member should then contact the dispatcher, who in turn would contact the school to determine the student`s status.2 If the school confirmed school absenteeism, the officer should offer transportation for the student to a student care centre (or, in the case of a vocational student, to a specific administrative office).

  If the student has accepted the offer of transportation, the student must be transported by cruiser (no patrol car) and without restrictions.   A patfrisk should be performed if there were reasonable grounds to suspect that the student was armed, and items in the student`s possession should be kept in the passenger seat.   After transporting the student, the officer was required to submit an incident report that included the student`s name, address, age and date of birth. the location of the contact; and the name of the person to whom the student was given.  In an effort to reduce the City`s otherwise unlimited discretion to set its enforcement priorities without negotiation, the union postulates that the appointment of police officers as legal “gatekeepers of presence” requires them to perform tasks that are not law enforcement functions.4 The union recognizes the nature and purpose of this alleged designation, which is reflected in the special ordinance. A reference is made, false.   The special ordinance lists the exact tasks that police officers must perform with regard to school absenteeism.   These specified tasks, not the complete duties of an “attendance supervisor,” are what the special order requires of them.   The city rejected any misinterpretation of the special order that would give them such functions.5 We therefore examine the content of what the special order now requires of police officers.   This particular order obliges them to take certain specific measures to enforce the laws relating to the examination of the adolescent`s school attendance concerning the absentee status of the young person, to confirm this status by investigating the dispatcher and, if the adolescent actually truants and wishes to do so, to transport the patient to the appropriate centre or office.   These are measures that police officers have already taken at their own discretion when confronted with school absenteeism.   The City`s decision that such action should be taken in all cases of suspected absenteeism is the product of the City`s sole discretion in deciding how to use its enforcement resources to respond to what it deems appropriate in law enforcement matters.

  The Commission correctly concluded that this was a decision on “where public services are to be used”, which fell within “the darkness of management rights” and was not subject to negotiation obligations under G.L.c. 150E, § 6.  This case involves the city`s ability to set its enforcement priorities.   Children of certain age groups must go to school, and parents can be prosecuted and fined if they have not arranged for their child to go to school. .