High Court: Petitions filed at wrong time
By LAUREN R DORGAN
Concord Monitor
CONCORD, N.H. — A state Supreme Court ruling yesterday threw into question which of two unions represents more than 500 officers at New Hampshire State Prison.
Corrections supervisors and rank-and-file officers voted last year to join the New England Police Benevolent Association, shunting off the State Employees’ Association of New Hampshire, which had represented them previously.
But yesterday, the high court ruled that the SEA was right in its challenge of a Public Employee Labor Relations Board decision on the timing of the Police Benevolent Association’s takeover petitions. The petitions, the court found, were barred because they were submitted at the outset of a new SEA contract and not during the proper window for union changes. The court sent the case back to the state labor relations board for further rulings.
So who represents the employees now?
“To be clear, it’s unclear,” said Glenn Milner, the Concord attorney who represented the SEA in arguing the petitions were invalid.
Milner said it may be apparent tomorrow, after the labor relations board holds a hearing to determine whether the election was valid.
“We’re confident that the election will be declared, on Friday, invalid,” he said.
The Police Benevolent Association’s attorney said in an e-mail that the union is reviewing the decision.
“We are, of course, disappointed that the Court’s decision might open the door for the SEA to attempt to override the employees’ choice,” attorney Peter Perroni wrote. “As the Court has remanded the case to the Public Employees Labor Relations Board, the NEPBA will continue to fight to protect the interests - and the choice - of the hard working uniformed corrections officers.”
Over the past few years, there have been movements to break away from the SEA in several areas of state government, such as the Fish and Game Department and the Public Utilities Commission. Some of the splits were precipitated by conflicts over “fair share” rules, which require all state employees, including nonunion members, to pay dues to the SEA.
The corrections split was important because it was the biggest unit to break away - and because it brought into question the status of SEA President Gary Smith, himself a corrections officer. Last spring, the union’s board examined its bylaws and collective bargaining agreements and found that nothing barred Smith from staying on. Smith was recently re-elected to another two-year term.
Depending on who’s asked, the case is about money, or good representation, or choice, or fairness.
To Paul Cascio, a lieutenant at the state prison and president of the supervisors’ local Police Benevolent Association, the latest move is typical of SEA leadership. He said the former SEA leaders did a poor job of listening to corrections workers, prompting them to switch unions in the first place.
“Here is the SEA turning around and saying, ‘Oh, well, what you have to say is invalid,’ ” he said. “People voted. They don’t want you here. How hard is that?”
Last January, rank-and-file corrections officers voted 191-149 to switch unions, while supervisors voted 52-31.
To Cascio, the vote is all about money. The SEA lost hundreds of thousands of dollars annually when it lost the dues of corrections members.
He was echoed by Ralph Woekel, the president of rank-and-file corrections officers with the Police Benevolent Association.
“One of the main concerns with the people that work in the prison, blue shirts, officers, is we felt as though our issues and concerns weren’t being heard,” Woekel said. “And we wanted a union representative of law enforcement that specializes in that field.”
But Milner said the case is about fairness and following the law. He said the labor relations board’s ruling overturned by the Supreme Court yesterday was “bad law” and needed a reversal.
Much of the ruling concerned the technical matter of when the 2008-09 state employees contract began. That’s because, under New Hampshire law, a union is insulated from being challenged “during the term of the collective bargaining agreement,” except for during a specific window before a contract expires.
The Police Benevolent Association submitted its union switch July 9, 2007, when the new contract was all but signed.
The current contract was finalized June 20, funded by the Legislature on June 27 and ratified by union members July 5, according to the ruling. But it was not signed by the governor and the union president until July 19. The Police Benevolent Association argued that because the petitions were filed before the 2008-09 contract was signed, they were not filed during the term of the collective bargaining agreement.
The SEA disagreed, as did the Supreme Court yesterday.
To Milner, the next time when corrections workers could vote to leave the SEA for another union would be next summer, if the current contract lapses, or in autumn of 2010. Rules from the labor relations board permit union-switching petitions in the period roughly eight to six months before a contract expires - a window that has just expired in the current contract.
“We stand by the freedom and choice, and we’re all about that,” Milner said.
But, he said, the labor relations board made a “bad decision” by permitting the Police Benevolent Association petitions to stand. The SEA, he said, is “looking forward to the next election.”
Copyright 2009 ProQuest Information and Learning