Committee delays vote on S.125 amendment that would open some judiciary positions to collective bargaining

The Senate Committee on Economic Development, Housing & General Affairs postponed a decision on whether to concur with House amendments to S.125 after hearing testimony about the bill’s impact on supervisory and managerial positions in the state judiciary.

The bill’s House amendment to Section 5 would remove “supervisory employees” from the judiciary’s list of exempt positions and add a higher decertification threshold — changing the current 30% threshold for decertification to 50% plus one. The committee agreed to delay a final concurrence vote until after a conference committee meeting and to reconvene the committee the following morning at about 9:30 a.m. for a decision.

Terry Corson, state court administrator, told the committee the judiciary has historically exempted supervisory and managerial employees, judicial officers, confidential employees, attorneys and law clerks from bargaining units since 1977 and that the change in Section 5…