CARNAHAN AIDE SEEKS UNION ACCESS INPUT

JEFFERSON CITY -- Gov. Mel Carnahan's chief counsel is circulating a proposed policy for consideration by state department directors that would improve the access labor unions have to state employees.

Among recommendations in a memo from the chief counsel, Mike Wolff, are:

-- Giving time off without pay to employees who are union officials to do union business.

-- Allowing unions to be represented at formal orientation sessions for new employees.

-- Providing names, job classifications and home addresses of most state employees to unions.

-- If 51 percent of a bargaining unit's employees pay dues to a union, requiring the rest to pay the union a "fair-share" fee.

Wolff said Monday the memo was only the draft of a proposed policy statement relating to unions representing state employees. "The governor has not seen it yet, and it will be changed substantially," said Wolff.

The memo, dated Jan. 6 and marked a "second draft," was distributed late last week to news media by David Denholm of the Public Service Research Council based in Reston, Va.

In an advisory that was sent with the copy of the memo, Denholm expressed concern about the plan to "force nonmembers to pay so-called `fair-share' fees as a condition of continued employment." He said the memo is similar to a proposal in the Clinton administration for compulsory union representation fees in federal employment. It was leaked to the Washington Post in early January.

Denholm said that by distributing the memo to news media in Missouri the Public Service Research Council is attempting to head off the policy by alerting the public.

"We obtained a copy of this, and said this is radically different from what is the case now," said Denholm. "Our hope is, if enough people found out about it, it would not happen because this is only a draft proposal. When federal employees learn that there is an effort afoot to force them to pay dues, they are the most vocal and strident opponents. We think that will be the case with Missouri employees as well."

Marc Farinella, Carnahan's chief of staff, said Monday that he and the governor have not yet seen the memo. He said that Wolff "is involved in helping address this issue for the governor's office. It just hasn't gotten here yet; everything is in the draft stages at this point."

Farinella said that under state statutes the governor has the responsibility for drafting such a policy.

"This is something we need to start focusing on, but people should not get too concerned one way or the other about drafts that are out there," said Farinella. "The governor has not reviewed that material and has not made any decisions. These drafts have not been made by me or the governor, and to what extent they reflect the governor's views we just don't know at this point."

In a cover note to the draft of the two-page proposal, Wolff said that an earlier draft drew quite a few comments from department directors and union representatives. "You will note that this draft tends to come down on the side of the unions' position. That is, philosophically, the position of this administration," wrote Wolff.

"However, we do not wish to saddle your agency with policies that you cannot live with. You will notice that we have tried to finesse many of the concerns about particular policies by deferring specific problems to the meet-and-confer process."

Small groups of state employees are members of the Communication Workers of America and the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees. However, the unions are not regarded as collective bargaining units.

Legislation has been introduced over the years to provide collective bargaining for state employees, but has met opposition in the General Assembly. Also, during the eight years of Republican Gov. John Ashcroft, any such legislation would have been vetoed.

Carnahan said last year that he would sign a bill providing for collective bargaining of public employees, only if it had adequate no-strike provisions. However, the governor indicated that was not likely to be part of his legislative agenda.

One of the other pitfalls to such legislation passing is the high fiscal note that would accompany the bill due to higher wages that might have to be paid.

Denholm said representation of public employees is generally not high. He said that in the federal government typically 25 percent actually belong to the union.

Denholm contended that memos like the one at the federal level exposed in the Washington Post and the one prepared by Carnahan's staff are examples of how some elected officials are fearful of being viewed anti-union. Denholm said the influence of unions is diminishing.

Said Denholm: "Politicians are reluctant to appear to be anti-union and bend over backwards to be gentle, but we have a lot of situations like in Missouri where unions have representation rights but very few people actually belong."

He said public employees usually do not fare well when represented by unions because public entities have limits on the amount of money they can provide for personnel costs. Frequently, he said, higher benefits for one group of employees are achieved at the expense of another group of employees within the same bargaining unit.

In the 1994 session of the Missouri General Assembly, Denholm said there are two bills of interest to his group.

HB-991, sponsored by Rep. Henry Rizzo, D-Kansas City, and Rep. Tim Green, D-St. Louis, would impose a comprehensive system of collective bargaining, including an agency shop, binding arbitration and a public employee relations board on all state and local government units in Missouri.

HB-1120, sponsored by Rep. Ron Auer, D-St. Louis, and Green would remove the exclusions of the public education and law enforcement from the present law and convert the "meet-and-confer" relationship to collective bargaining.

Denholm said at the present time no state law covers public education or law enforcement employees. "A law passed in 1968 mandates meet-and-confer relationships in all other employment," said Denholm.

Farinella said he was not sure of Carnahan's timeframe for finalizing his policy.