Union security

Union security
Local 1095, AFSCME and Erie Community College, 30 PERB 4707

How much does it take to show that negotiating unit employees did not have “work exclusivity” with respect to a particular work site? If there is a history of work assignments being frequently switched between unit members and non-unit workers, the work is non-exclusive according to a PERB Administrative Law Judge.

Administrative Law Judge Jean Doerr ruled that Local 1095 failed to demonstrate that the union had “exclusivity” with respect to “second shift” security work being performed at an off-campus site of the college because employees of a private security company, Pro Service, had alternated with union members in providing security services at that location for a number of years.

In such cases, said Doerr, the “essential questions to be resolved are (1) has the work been performed exclusively by unit employees? and (2) are the reassigned tasks substantially similar to those previously performed by unit members? One of the points made in the decision was that “the work at issue shifted back and forth between [Local 1095] and Pro Guard from September 1995 through January 1997,” when Pro Guard again took over the entire operation.

Doerr said that given the “ever changing nature of the assignment,” it is difficult to see that [Local 1095] had any expectation that, after again resuming the work in April of 1996, the last “switch,” it would have the second shift assignment for any extended period of time.