VSEA supports S.125 changes on union decertification and judiciary supervisory votes; court administrators oppose removing supervisory exemption

Steve Howard, executive director of the Vermont State Employees Association, told the House General and Housing Committee on April 1 that the VSEA supports S.125 as passed by the Senate and urged the House to accept the Senate version without changes.

Howard said two provisions in the Senate bill are particularly important to his members: allowing supervisors in the judiciary the option to petition for a supervisory bargaining unit election, and increasing the signature threshold required to trigger a decertification election from 30% of the bargaining unit to “50% plus 1.” He said the change to the trigger standard would align Vermont with states such as Hawaii, Massachusetts and Ohio that have adopted a higher threshold.

The change Howard proposed on decertification would affect only the signature threshold to start a decertification election; the underlying election rule governing who becomes the exclusive bargaining agent would still require a majority vote in an election. "We would urge this committee to pass the bill, as it was passed in the Senate," Howard said. "Our members would like to join Hawaii, Massachusetts, and Ohio that have raised that standard to 50% plus 1." He also told the committee the Vermont Labor Relations Board is substantially backlogged, and that lower signature thresholds can lead to repeated election cycles that distract unions from bargaining and representation work.

Attorney Joe McNeal, who has represented the judiciary in collective bargaining matters, and Terry Glazone, the state court administrator, opposed removing "supervisory" from the statutory list of positions exempt from judiciary bargaining units. McNeal said the supervisory exclusion was intentionally adopted when the judiciary collectively bargained under the statute often referred to as JELRA and reflected the longstanding approach in federal labor law under the National Labor Relations Act. He described the exclusion as intended to avoid a conflict of interest for employees whose duties include hiring, disciplining or otherwise supervising staff.

McNeal told the committee: "The exclusion of supervisory employees, was carefully considered during the initial passage of, what became JELRA." He said supervisors exercise managerial duties that could create divided loyalties if they were also bargaining unit members.

Terry Glazone said the judiciary employs about 400 people, of whom roughly 240 are nonexempt and part of bargaining units; by contrast the judiciary currently lists four supervisory positions. "We have 4 judiciary supervisory employees, 4, and we're kind of at a loss as to understand why a separate collective bargaining for 4 employees would be logical or make sense," Glazone said, and asked the committee to retain supervisory employees in the exemption list.

Committee members asked clarifying questions about how the executive branch treats supervisors (where supervisors belong to a supervisory unit across the executive branch) and how certification and decertification processes differ. Witnesses explained that formation of a new unit and decertification are governed by different statutory rules: formation can involve a card-check at 50% plus 1 to certify a new unit, while decertification currently permits a 30% signatures trigger to force an election and then requires a majority vote (described in testimony as 51%) in the election itself.

The hearing included technical clarifications on timing and statute language; committee members noted the effective date tied to specific sections of S.125. No committee vote or formal action on S.125 was recorded during the hearing.

Ending: Committee members indicated they may continue taking testimony and review the Senate-passed text; no vote or amendment was taken at the April 1 hearing.