Pelra

The Public Employee Relations Act, Minnesota Statutes Chapter 179A, regulates the relationship between public employer and employee in Minnesota. PELRA, like other similar statutes in other states, seeks the balance the legitimate desire of labor to organize against the need of the public to maintain essential services. Public labor relations carry over many issues from private employment, but with special public sector wrinkles. Public employees actually have two separate areas of influence over their working conditions. One arises from their rights and obligations as employees of their public employer. The second arises from their voting power as citizens, and their ability to organize powerful political action and lobbying organizations.

Fifty years ago, this was not the case. Public employees were not effectively organized. The teaching profession viewed the union movement with suspicion, and regarded collective bargaining as inconsistent with professional obligations. Public employees lacked the right to strike or to engage in collective bargaining, for national labor laws did not extend their protection to public employees. PELRA now establishes the right of public employees to engage in collective bargaining. It also contains some modest protections for public employees who are not in collective bargaining units.

Public Policy Section 179A.01 articulates the public policy of the state "to promote orderly and constructive relationships between all public employers and their employees." The policy, however:

is subject to the paramount right of the citizens of this state to keep inviolate the guarantees for their health, education, safety, and welfare.

The policy statement continues:

The relationships between the public, public employees, and employer governing bodies involve responsibilities to the public and a need for cooperation and employment protection which are different from those found in the private sector. The importance or necessity of some services to the public can create imbalances in the relative bargaining power between public employees and employers. As a result, unique approaches to negotiations and resolutions of disputes between public employees and employers are necessary. Unresolved disputes between the public employer and its employees are injurious to the public as well as to the parties. Adequate means must be established for minimizing them and providing for their resolution. Within these limitations and considerations, the legislature has determined that overall policy is best accomplished by:

(1) granting public employees certain rights to organize and choose freely their representatives;
(2) requiring public employers to meet and negotiate with public employees in an appropriate bargaining unit and providing that the result of bargaining be in written agreements; and
(3) establishing special rights, responsibilities, procedures, and limitations regarding public employment relationships which will provide for the protection of the rights of the public employee, the public employer, and the public at large.

Administrative responsibilities for PELRA reside with the Commissioner of the Minnesota Bureau of Mediation services. The Commissioner has the power to conduct elections and certify results, to mediate disputes, to establish rules and regulations. The commissioner maintains a list of arbitrators who conduct grievance proceedings and other labor related arbitrations.

Employee Rights and Obligations

Minnesota Statutes Section 179A.06 lists the rights and obligations of public employees. They include:;

Expression of views. An employee has the right to express or communicate a view, grievance, complaint, or opinion on any matter related to the conditions or compensation of public employment or their betterment, so long as this is not designed to and does not interfere with the full faithful and proper performance of the duties of employment or circumvent the rights of the exclusive representative.
Right to organize This includes the right by secret ballot to designate an exclusive representative to negotiate grievance procedures and the terms and conditions of employment with their employer. Confidential employees of the state and the University of Minnesota are excluded from bargaining. Other confidential employees, supervisory employees, principals, and assistant principals may form their own organizations. There are limitations on the rights of confidential and supervisory employees.
Fair share fee. A collective bargaining unit may assess dues on public employees who are not members. The statute establishes a grievance procedure to challenge the amount of these fees.
Meet and Confer Labor law establishes certain decisions which belong to management, and are thus not subject to collective bargaining. Professional employees may meet to discuss terms of employment which would historically not be subject to collective bargaining.
Meet and negotiate. To engage in public employee collective bargaining.
Dues check off. To require the employer to cooperate with dues withholding to the bargaining representative.

Rights and Obligations of Management

Section 179A.07 creates a corresponding set of obligations for management, to recognize the enumerated rights of employees. In addition, it expressly recognizes a zone reserved to management:

Inherent managerial policy. A public employer is not required to meet and negotiate on matters of inherent managerial policy. Matters of inherent managerial policy include, but are not limited to, such areas of discretion or policy as the functions and programs of the employer, its overall budget, utilization of technology, the organizational structure, selection of personnel, and direction and the number of personnel. No public employer shall sign an agreement which limits its right to select persons to serve as supervisory employees or state managers under section 43A.18, subdivision 3, or requires the use of seniority in their selection.

Communication with employees. PELRA seeks to require management to communicate to employees regarding collective bargaining issues through the exclusive representative. But it preserves the right to communicate on other issues:

If an exclusive representative has been certified for an appropriate unit, the employer shall not meet and negotiate or meet and confer with any employee or group of employees who are in that unit except through the exclusive representative. This subdivision does not prevent communication to the employer, other than through the exclusive representative, of advice or recommendations by professional employees, if this communication is a part of the employee's work assignment. This subdivision does not prevent communication between public post-secondary employers and post-secondary professional employees, other than through the exclusive representative, regarding policies and matters that are not terms and conditions of employment.

Labor Law Issues:

Public labor law confronts many of the same issues found in labor law generally. Who belongs in the bargaining unit. How does one resolve disputes among different unions both wanting the right to bargain for a particular class of employees. Are employees properly categorized as professional, supervisory, confidential and so on. Is an issue properly subject to collective bargaining, or does it belong to the exclusive prerogative of management. PELRA establishes some of these units by statute. It creates procedures governing the certification and decertification of collective bargaining representatives and grants the Commissioner authority to investigate election irregularities.

Unfair Labor Practices

To police the labor management relationship PELRA, like other labor laws, creates a list of unfair labor practices. For employers, PELRA lists the following unfair labor practices:

(1) interfering, restraining, or coercing employees in the exercise of the rights guaranteed in sections 179A.01 to 179A.25;
(2) dominating or interfering with the formation, existence, or administration of any employee organization or contributing other support to it;
(3) discriminating in regard to hire or tenure to encourage or discourage membership in an employee organization;
(4) discharging or otherwise discriminating against an employee because the employee has signed or filed an affidavit, petition, or complaint or given information or testimony under sections 179A.01 to 179A.25;
(5) refusing to meet and negotiate in good faith with the exclusive representative of its employees in an appropriate unit;
(6) refusing to comply with grievance procedures contained in an agreement;
(7) distributing or circulating a blacklist of individuals exercising a legal right or of members of a labor organization for the purpose of preventing blacklisted individuals from obtaining or retaining employment;
(8) violating rules established by the commissioner regulating the conduct of representation elections; (9) refusing to comply with a valid decision of a binding arbitration panel or arbitrator;
(10) violating or refusing to comply with any lawful order or decision issued by the commissioner;
(11) refusing to provide, upon the request of the exclusive representative, all information pertaining to the public employer's budget both present and proposed, revenues, and other financing information provided that in the executive branch of state government this clause may not be considered contrary to the budgetary requirements of sections 16A.10 and 16A.11; or
(12) granting or offering to grant the status of permanent replacement employee to a person for performing bargaining unit work for the employer during a lockout of employees in an employee organization or during a strike authorized by an employee organization that is an exclusive representative.

For employees, PELRA prohibits the following unfair labor practices:

(1) restraining or coercing employees in the exercise of rights provided in sections 179A.01 to 179A.25;
(2) restraining or coercing a public employer in the election of representatives to be employed to meet and negotiate or to adjust grievances;
(3) refusing to meet and negotiate in good faith with a public employer, if the employee organization is the exclusive representative of employees in an appropriate unit;
(4) violating rules established by the commissioner regulating the conduct of representation elections; (5) refusing to comply with a valid decision of an arbitration panel or arbitrator;
(6) calling, instituting, maintaining, or conducting a strike or boycott against any public employer on account of any jurisdictional controversy;
(7) coercing or restraining any person with the effect to: (a) force or require any public employer to cease dealing or doing business with any other person or; (b) force or require a public employer to recognize for representation purposes an employee organization not certified by the commissioner; (c) refuse to handle goods or perform services; (d) preventing an employee from providing services to the employer;
(8) committing any act designed to damage or actually damaging physical property or endangering the safety of persons while engaging in a strike;
(9) forcing or requiring any employer to assign particular work to employees in a particular employee organization or in a particular trade, craft, or class rather than to employees in another employee organization or in another trade, craft, or class;
(10) causing or attempting to cause a public employer to pay or deliver or agree to pay or deliver any money or other thing of value, in the nature of an exaction, for services which are not performed or not to be performed;
(11) engaging in an unlawful strike;
(12) picketing which has an unlawful purpose such as secondary boycott;
(13) picketing which unreasonably interferes with the ingress and egress to facilities of the public employer;
(14) seizing or occupying or destroying property of the employer;
(15) violating or refusing to comply with any lawful order or decision issued by the commissioner.

More to Come