Prison guards file petitions to oust union

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. -- Members of a group of state corrections officers made the first move toward ousting the labor union that represents them on Wednesday, one day after the union submitted a new contract proposal to the state.

The Missouri Corrections Officers Association, a lobbying organization for prison guards, submitted a petition signed by approximately 2,600 Department of Corrections workers calling for an election to decertify the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees as the official bargaining agent for department employees.

"For 18 years, AFSCME has been certified as our collective bargaining unit, but they have done nothing for us during that time," said Gary Gross, a sergeant at the Tipton Correctional Center in central Missouri and MCOA spokesman.

The State Board of Mediation will review the petition to ensure there are enough valid signatures. About 1,900 signatures, representing 30 percent of the workers in the bargaining unit, are needed for the process to go forward. If that is the case, a decertification election could be held within three to six months.

Negotiators meet

Meanwhile, AFSCME and state negotiators met for the first time Tuesday to discuss a new bargaining agreement to replace the current one, which expires Dec. 31. This will be the first contract for corrections workers under the executive order Gov. Bob Holden signed last summer giving many state employees expanded collective bargaining rights.

State employees have long been allowed to form unions, but collective bargaining was limited to the meet and confer process. Unions could submit proposals, but if the state rejected them the matter was ended. Holden's order allows for binding arbitration to resolve disputes when the state and a union disagree on contract.

AFSCME member Paula Finnley, a corrections officer at the Western Missouri Correctional Center at Cameron in northwest Missouri, said MCOA's decertification effort will not distract the union during its negotiations.

"We have high hopes that decertification will not happen," Finnley said. "We have complete confidence AFSCME will make it through this."

Gross said the association, a year-old group that claims about 2,300 of the state's 4,500 corrections officers as members, more closely reflects the views of department employees than the union.

As an example, Gross cited a bill MCOA pushed in the Legislature this year that would have raised training standards for corrections officers. AFSCME opposed the bill, which was defeated.

"That was a very important issue for corrections officers," Gross said. "After AFSCME opposed us like that, we thought we would be better off representing ourselves."

While AFSCME has fewer members at corrections, about 1,100, it is open to support staffers in addition to officers.

Finnley said that since the governor's executive order AFSCME's numbers have steadily risen. She attributes the membership growth to the expanded ability of the union to provide representation.

"Meet and confer was the same as meet and beg," Finnley said. "Now the state has to actually negotiate and try to give us something."

Bargaining items

Among the items asked for in the initial bargaining proposal presented to the state on Tuesday:

A timetable for full payment of a year's worth of back overtime pay owed to employees.

Giving employees the option of taking comp time in lieu of overtime pay.

That health benefits and the cost of such to employees be subject to negotiation.

A certification procedure to oversee professional standards and pay rates for officers.

The formation of labor-management committees at each facility to deal health and safety issues.

Finnley said rank-and-file workers are more empowered under Holden's order.

"We have more rights than we've ever had before," Finnley said. "It's just a sad thing that people are not seeing the whole picture. Collective bargaining will be great for us."

But Gross is worried that the purported benefits will carry too high a price.

Gross, as an individual, and MCOA, as part of a large coalition of state business and interest groups, are among the plaintiffs in a lawsuit seeking to overturn Holden's order as unconstitutional. A court hearing hasn't yet been held on the lawsuit. Senate President Pro Tem Peter Kinder, R-Cape Girardeau, is leading the effort.

While no state workers can be forced to join a union, the governor's order allows union's to charge non-members so-called "fair share" fees to cover the union's cost of representing them.

"The union has been given the opportunity to take more money from our checks," Gross said. "Meanwhile, the state is failing to pay us for overtime we have worked."

However, officials at the Office of Administration, which is implementing the collective bargaining order, have said fair share fees will not be charged unless a majority of all workers in a bargaining unit -- not just a majority of union members -- agree to it. AFSCME currently represents roughly 17 percent of eligible corrections workers.

mpowers@semissourian.com

(573) 635-4608