By Therese Norton
In Seattle Community College, the American Federation of Teachers, Local 1789 alleged that the College committed a refusal to bargain violation when it unilaterally changed which online Learning Management System (LMS) it used without an opportunity to bargain the decision or the effects of the decision. PERC Examiner Casey King concluded that the decision to change the technology was not a mandatory subject of bargaining and that the College had sufficiently bargained the effects of its decision.
Local 1789 had argued that the change was a mandatory subject of bargaining because it impacted teachers’ hours due to the amount of training required by the new system and it was a benefit to the teachers. Examiner King disagreed, finding that the impact on teachers’ hours was not substantial and that the benefit of an “employer-supported free-to-faculty system” stayed the same.
Local 1789 also argued that the decision was not an essential management prerogative. Again, Examiner King disagreed and found that “how a school chooses to provide an education is at the core of its entrepreneurial control.” In balancing the interests of management and the impact of the decision on teachers’ wages, hours and working conditions, Examiner King concluded that the former outweighed the latter.
Although the decision to change the technology was not a mandatory subject of bargaining, the College still had an obligation to bargain the effects of that decision with the teachers. In this case, the examiner concluded that the College met its duty to bargain the effects of its decision because the parties had a number of opportunities for effects bargaining. Examiner King explains:
[W]hen determining if a union was afforded a sufficient opportunity to bargain the effects, the scope of the analysis is much broader than not agreeing with or liking the proposals one side has presented. Here the employer showed it bargained in several meetings over the effects of the change. It was not required to agree to the union’s proposal.
Because the examiner found that the College had not refused to bargain its decision to change the LMS and that the College fulfilled its effects bargaining obligation, the examiner dismissed Local 1789’s complaint.
Editor’s Note (Chris Casillas): In commenting on the employer’s effects bargaining obligation, the Examiner is correct that the employer is not required to agree to a specific proposal from the union; however, the analysis here, perhaps due to a lack of evidence, is incomplete. The general good faith bargaining obligation governs, regardless of whether bargaining concerns the underlying decision or the associated effects. Under that standard, while it is accurate that this obligation does not impose a requirement to agree on any particular proposal, the employer is obligated to meet at reasonable times with the union, listen to any proposals, and either offer counter-proposals, or a stated rationale for why a particular proposal does not work. The employer, in this situation, apparently did meet with the union, but there is a lack of discussion in the decision as to whether these other elements of good faith negotiations were satisfied. This may be due to a lack of evidence on this point, but this part of the analysis also may be an issue on any appeal from the union.
