New Castle County’s blue-collar union ratified a three year contract, which provides for no cost-of-living increases in the next two years. The News Journal’s story on the settlement is located here. T

he agreement was reached after over a year of negotiations and reflects the tough economic times faced by New Castle County and other governments in Delaware. See our earlier post.

Bill Bowser and I will be discussing the state of public sector negotiations on April 16 at our Department’s Annual Seminar.

To register, contact Marie Willey at 571-4751. Cost is $95. Lunch is provided.

The Delaware Public Employment Relations Board (PERB) is in its twenty-fifth year of operation. It administers public labor relations in much the same way as the NLRB oversees the private sector. On January 1st, Deborah Murray-Sheppard became the PERB’s new Executive Director. I recently had the opportunity to speak with her about PERB and the recent changes expanding PERB’s responsibilities.

Q: What’s new at the Public Employment Relations Board?

A: It certainly has been a time of change for PERB. First, is the retirement on January 1 of my friend and mentor, Charlie Long, as Executive Director. He and I have worked as a team for 24 years. Fortunately, he has been working a couple of days a week to ease us through this transition.

In addition to a change at the top, PERB’s responsibility has continued to expand. For example, interest arbitration has been expanded to include virtually all public employers. Also, all State employees now have the right to bargain over wages for the first time.

Q: Can you give us a general breakdown of PERB’s workload?

A: PERB handled about 58 cases from April of last year to the present. Eight of those cases involved traditional unfair labor charges. About 29 cases involved the collective bargaining process, including three requests for binding interest arbitration and, 21 cases involved issues of representation.

Q: Binding arbitration has been one of the most important changes in public labor relations in many years. How’s it been working?

A: Well, the answer to that probably depends on who you’re asking. I can tell you that only a handful of requests actually have gone all the way to a hearing before an arbitrator. Most requests have been resolved through our pre-arbitration facilitation process. Of the three decisions issued by PERB, all three have been in favor of the employer.

Q: What cases are scheduled interest arbitration now?

A: We have only one right now. Certain employees at the Port of Wilmington are scheduled for an interest arbitration hearing in late May. In addition, the state troopers have completed mediation and are participating in our pre-arbitration facilitation process. Recently, two cases were settled by the parties before a hearing. The City of Wilmington was able to reach an agreement with its rank and file police officers and New Castle County was able to reach a tentative agreement with its blue collar workers.

Q: All State employees recently obtained the right to bargain over wages. How has that process been going?

A: We are still working our way through that process. Under the new law, PERB was required to place each state job into one of 12 statewide units. Unrepresented employees are now in a position of requesting that they be represented by a union for purpose of collective bargaining. We now have five such petitions pending. The petitions are in various stages of the process.

Q: What do you see on the horizon for PERB?

A: I think we’ll continue to be very busy. Over 50% of the collective bargaining agreements under our jurisdiction have expired or are about to expire. The volume of collective bargaining going on and the tight economic climate suggests that our services will continue to be in demand.

The PERB’s official website can be accessed here.

Governor Minner has signed House Bill 283 into law.

This bill amends the Delaware Public School Employment Relations Act. As a result, interest arbitration will now be used to resolve impasses in collective bargaining between Delaware public school districts and their organized employees. Binding interest arbitration replaces non-binding “fact finding.”

Under binding interest arbitration, an arbitrator determines the final terms and conditions of employment by selecting one of the parties’ “last, best, and final” offers. This process has been used in negotiations involving other Delaware public entities for several years.

The arbitrator looks at seven factors in determining whether to accept the employer’s or the union’s offer:

(1) The interests and welfare of the public.

(2) Comparison of the wages, salaries, benefits, hours and conditions of employment of the employees with other employees performing the same or similar services or requiring similar skills under similar working conditions in the same community and in comparable communities and with other employees generally in the same community and in comparable communities.

(3) The overall compensation presently received by the employees.

(4) Stipulations of the parties.

(5) The lawful authority of the public school employer.

(6) The financial ability of the public school employer based on existing revenues, to meet the costs of any proposed settlements

(7) Such other factors which are normally or traditionally taken into consideration in the determination of wages, hours and conditions of employment through voluntary collective bargaining, mediation, binding interest arbitration or otherwise

With the exception of paragraph (6) of above, no single factor in subsection, shall be dispositive.

Yesterday, Delaware’s two largest public employers indicated that they were facing fiscal challenges. Governor Ruth Ann Minner announced a hiring freeze to address a $126 million dollar budget shortfall. New Castle County Executive Chris Coons announced a budget proposal requiring the use of $17.2 million dollars of its cash reserves.

The State and the County and other governments are feeling the effects of a softening economy. Since personnel wages and benefits costs make up a large part of their budgets, it is clear that public employees will be asked to make sacrifices as governments struggle to balance their budgets.

Sheldon Sandler and I will be discussing the state of public labor relations in Delaware at our Department’s upcoming Annual Seminar on April 16th. Hope to see you there.