Vermont labor-relations board tells committee it is handling a case backlog and needs more neutrals and staff

The Vermont Labor Relations Board is working through a backlog of cases and needs more neutral board members and staff to keep up with hearings and written decisions, Executive Director Judith Dillon told the House Committee on General & Housing on April 2.

Dillon described the board’s work — from unit and representation petitions to grievances and unfair labor practice cases involving state employees, municipal employees and Vermont State colleges — and said staffing limits have contributed to delays in hearings and written rulings. She told the committee the board resolved 68 matters in the past year but still has older matters on its docket, including one unfair labor practice from February 2022 that has not yet received a written decision. She also said two neutral board members have resigned and the board needs two neutrals in place before a scheduled round of hearings in June.

Why it matters: delays at the VLRB affect employees, employers and unions that rely on the board for timely resolution of representation questions, contract impasse processes and grievance adjudication. Committee members asked for case-level statistics and timing benchmarks so legislators can assess whether additional funding or staffing changes are needed.

Dillon said the VLRB’s full-time staff consists of herself and a part-time clerk; she supervises intake, scheduling and writes the board’s decisions after members deliberate. “I write the decisions,” she told the committee. She described the board members as a six-person panel composed of two labor representatives, two management representatives and two neutrals; each hearing is decided by a three-member panel with one representative from each category. The governor appoints board members, and a selection panel led by the commissioner of labor forwards names to the governor for appointment, Dillon said.

Committee members pressed on the sources of delay. Dillon cited a statutory change to election timelines that reprioritized some case types, a shortage of available court reporters and transcript turnaround time (parties often request transcripts to prepare proposed findings), and recent resignations among neutrals. She said the board tries to grant hearing-date continuances when they are tied to valid reasons such as medical emergencies or active settlement talks, but that moving hearings requires finding three panelists who are available at the same time.

On budgeting and operations, Dillon said there had been a proposal for roughly a quarter-million dollars to add staff and technical capacity, but that proposal was removed from the senate committee’s budget, according to committee staff she cited. The proposal she described would have funded an additional attorney to share legal and decision-writing duties, a part-time web designer and case-management developer, and a clerk with different technical skills to maintain an electronic case management system — work Dillon said the board currently does largely by email and manual tracking. She said the board has some carryover funding that could cover an initial purchase for a case-management system but that ongoing maintenance and the right staff classification remain unresolved.

Dillon confirmed that board decisions are published on the VLRB website; she said last year’s published decisions appear in volume 37 and the office is currently in volume 38. She also said that unit certifications and some administrative items are posted under the collective bargaining heading on the site.

Committee chair (as recorded) asked Dillon to provide specific statistics on caseload age, number of grievances, unfair labor practice cases and time-to-decision; Dillon agreed to provide those figures to the committee staff liaison, Magal Estal Alemayne, for distribution to members.

No formal committee action or vote was recorded during the presentation. Committee members asked clarifying questions about continuances, the appointment process for neutrals and whether the board can implement an electronic docket; Dillon gave procedural answers and offered to follow up with written statistics and scheduling information.

The committee concluded the hearing and said it would resume the next morning with additional presentations related to housing legislation.