By REGINALD R. ANKROM

Formerly a state house correspondent for the Illinois State Register, Ankrom was public information coordinator for Lincoln Land Community College in Springfield. He is now in a similar capacity with the state Department of Revenue.

What is organized labor going to do for state employees? New OCB plays key role for agencies under governor

HIS administration was eight months old when Gov. Dan Walker issued his sixth executive order, this one permitting the approximately 65,000 state employees under his direct jurisdiction to organize and bargain collectively. The executive order applies mainly to employees of the 21 executive code departments. Other state employees, including state police, university an community college faculty and staff, employees of the secretary of state and office of superintendent of public instruction, etc., are not covered.

Walker's decision was at once hailed and reviled. It was a payoff to labor for their support of his gubernatorial campaign, some charged. Others believed it was the act of a governor truly concerned with the rights of a significant portion of the state's work force.

Labor organizations disagree

Even leaders of the state's largest public employee organizations differed sharply over the meaning of Executive Order No. 6. "I think it's entirely unnecessary," said William Hardy, the executive director of the 15,000-member Illinois State Employees Association (I SEA). "We already have a decent system for obtaining rights and benefits," Hardy told a reporter the day after the order was issued. "We have met with the legislature and the Department of Personnel for years in meet-and-confer sessions, and that has worked out well. There is no evidence I know of that shows collective bargaining makes state government more efficient or bring employees more rights or benefits."

After the legislature failed to enact collective bargaining legislation for public personnel, Walker issued an order under which wages, hours, and other conditions are negotiable items

But Lawrence Reinold, state operations director for the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), disagreed: "State employees are going to gain the fundamental things that workers in other sectors enjoy: the opportunity to put your voice as a worker in the wages, terms, and conditions of your employment. It opens up the door instead of having unilateral decisions made all the time by management." The 26,000 members of the Illinois Federation (AFSCME), Reinold said, favor collective bargaining.

The governor's action was no real surprise; it was foreshadowed by much activity by organized labor. As early as 1937 the Teamsters sought to represent highway drivers in Cook County. And a group of employees at the Jacksonville State Hospital joined together in the early 1940's to obtain a union charter. The Illinois General Assembly has considered a number of bills on collective bargaining since the first was introduced in 1945. In fact, the state has had a history of bargaining conditions and wages with unions over a period of several years. But there were no guidelines for those negotiations.

Walker: End the confusion

In his executive order, Walker noted that a failure to establish those bargaining procedures had deprived public employees of the rights accorded other workers in Illinois. The right to bargain collectively, he said, would serve both the employee and the public interest, and it would encourage career employment and help keep patronage out of government. According to his staff, Walker believed it was time to end the confusion over the matter of collective bargaining, time to remove it from the almost annual ploys to prevent its enactment into law, and time to determine more precisely what could be bargained for by both the employees and state.

"The key to the governor's viewpoint was to provide protection to the employee and to provide protection to the state when, in fact, collective bargaining was a fait d'accompli," said Andrew Kramer, a young and aggressive Chicago labor lawyer chosen by Walker to be the first executive director of the Office of Collective Bargaining.

"It was the governor's strong conviction that there was a need at this time to do something," Kramer said. "We all recognize that the executive order is a small but significant step. There is a great need to encompass other public employees who are not covered under the executive order and cannot legally be covered under the executive order."

The legislature had gone home in early July 1973, and although bills had again been introduced to deal with collective bargaining, none had left either of the two houses. The governor had awaited a measure, according to Kramer, and when none came, he initiated his own.

There are a number of precedents for guiding collective bargaining

72 Illinois Issues/March 1975

State 'not required to negotiate' merit system; agency policies, programs, functions, and budgets; or decisions on delivery of services or utilization of technology

procedures. More than two million employees of the federal goverment bargain. The states that have at least some statutory provisions for employee negotiations number more than 35, and 15 of these have comprehensive collective bargaining laws.

Neutral third party

Under the governor's order, the Office of Collective Bargaining (OCB) was created to carry out the order's terms, as well as rules and regulations drafted by the Department of Personnel. Established to operate as a neutral third party, the office is responsible for determining appropriate employee bargaining units, certifying bargaining representatives, and protecting the rights of both employees and employers, determining and resolving unfair labor practices, and settling negotiability disputes.

Bargaining units need not be restricted to any particular agency or department of state government, but can embrace a number of agencies where employees do similar work and are in the same or similar classifications. The executive order calls it "community of interest." An employee organization or an employer can petition the Office of Collective Bargaining for recognition of a group as an appropriate bargaining unit. The petition by an organization must be accompanied by the signatures of at least 30 per cent of the employees in the proposed unit. If the proposed unit is appropriate by criteria in the executive order, elections by secret ballot follow.

The organization winning a majority of the votes in those elections is certified by the Office of Collective Bargaining as the exclusive bargaining agent for employees in that unit. Security officers in the Department of Corrections were the first unit to elect a bargaining agent.

AFSCME, the only organization listed on the ballot, won 97 per cent support from among those voting.

The Office of Collective Bargaining can be drawn into the bargaining process in cases of disputes. Negotiable items as defined by the order are: wages, hours, and other conditions of employment within legal and fiscal limitations. Where there are disputes, the director of personnel or any party to the negotiations must notify the OCB within 20 days after the dispute is joined. It is up to the OCB to determine whether a subject or position is negotiable and that determination is binding.

Although the executive order does not rule them out, it says the state "shall not be required to negotiate" the merit and competitive examination systems; policies, programs, and statutory functions of an agency; the budget of an agency; and decisions on standards, scope, and delivery of services or utilization of technology. The same applies to state retirement systems and health and life insurance programs.

Mediation procedures

Mediation is provided for in the rules and regulations of the Department of Personnel governing public employee collective bargaining issued pursuant to the executive order. Either bargaining party can request the state director of labor to appoint a mediator or to furnish a list of mediators from which a mediator can be chosen. Parties at the bargaining table are encouraged to establish their own impasse resolution procedures. But in the event that no agreement has been reached by May 1 of the calendar year, the rules require that an impasse be declared. At that point, the director of labor is required to appoint a mediator. If ,the dispute continues for 15 days after his appointment. either party can request assistance from the Advisory State Impasse Resolution Panel, which includes the director of labor as chairman, the chairman of the Civil Service Commission, and the executive director of the Office of Collective Bargaining.

The panel can order mediation and call up a fact-finder whose findings and recommendations are forwarded to the bargaining parties. If the parties have not settled the dispute within five additional days, the panel can make public its findings and recommendations. If the parties request, the advisory panel can recommend impasse resolution procedures and can appoint an arbitrator to resolve the impasse.

Silent on strikes

The most controversial aspect of any collective bargaining program is whether it provides for a right or prohibition to strike. The provision is not in the governor's order, and with good reason, Kramer believes. "There is no right to strike for public employees in Illinois, absent legislation," he said. "The Supreme Court decided in a case in May of last year [1973] that public employees do not have a right to strike." But the attempt to prohibit strikes, he added, would probably be useless.

"I don't think denying the right to strike works .... Strikes in Illinois occur. We don't have anything granting public employees the right to strike. Obviously, you have to protect the public safety, health, and welfare. I believe that can be done even if you grant a limited right to strike. And I think the experience in Hawaii, the experience in Pennsylvania, the experience in Alaska has shown that granting public employees a limited right to strike has really not disrupted service to the essential functions of the state or municipal bodies."

March 1975 /Illinois Issues/73

The AFSCME's Reinold asserted that a provision permitting strikes was essential. Without the leverage it would provide, state employees would lose much of the intent of collective bargaining, he believes- He said: "I think what people have to understand is that when you're talking about collective bargaining you're talking about an equalization of the parties across the table. The economic power of the boss, be he a public or private employer, is the basic fundamental power he sits there with. There can be no misunderstanding about just what the employer brings to the bargaining table. The boss has not only the responsibility to administer public concern in this matter and see that services continue, he also has to be concerned that if he doesn't approach this in an honest, open, and honorable way, the employees are going to walk out and disrupt those services."

Strike issue overplayed

Reinold believes, however, that the issue of strikes as it relates to collective bargaining has been overplayed. He called it an issue that draws more attention in the press than the far greater number of settlements achieved without problems. He claimed, for example, that some 98 per cent of the contracts across the nation were settled last year without dispute. Of the remaining two per cent, only eight-tenths of one per cent resulted in strikes.

"If you have a bill that includes the right to strike, if it has a mechanism to settle disputes that puts the onus on public management to sit down in an honorable, honest, and open fashion and deal and collectively bargain with the public employee, and if you have a good, comprehensive law that covers that, you won't find strikes," Reinold said.

Reinold's thesis is too simplistic, according to representatives of the Illinois State Employees Association (ISEA). The ISEA has in the past avoided commitments one way or the other. Although there is nothing in the organization's constitution that prohibits strikes by its members, the association reportedly has gone on record against them. Hardy indicated that the question of strikes should be considered more than just a lever to obtain additional benefits in the bargaining process. "I certainly don't respond well to ultimatums, and I suspect that if

Executive Order No.6



Public Employee Colletive Bargaining

The state of Illinois is the largest employer in the State, with 117,000 employees. Slightly more than half of these employees work for agencies and departments subject to the Governor. They do not have collective bargaining rights while workers in the privates sector do. Thus, State employees have been deprived of important rights accorded other works in Illinois.

Experience in private industry, the federal government and other states has demonstrated that constructive collective bargaining leads to operational effeciency and employee well-being. Therefore, the public interest in the orderly and effecient operation of State government will be served by establishing the right of employees to organize and bargain collectively.

Although some State employees now belong to employee unions, there is no procedure for determining what union has the right to represent any state employees, and noe guidelines with regard to the duties and rights of any such union. Establishing orderly labor relations procedures will encourage career employment and help keep patronage out of State government.

The fereral government, as well as other state and local governments, have established collective bargaining right by Executive Order. The Director of Personnel has the duty, under the Personnel Code, "to conduct negotiaitons affecting pay, hours of work or other working conditions subject to this Act." (Personnel Code, § 9 (7) ). To implement this provision, and to discharge my responsibility as Chief Executive to promote the orderly and effecient operation of State government, I hereby order for employees in agencies subject to the Governor: