Management Rights - AELE's Home Page

Promotions 6-3
list is due to expire in a short time, an employer may be able to
insist on an expedited or truncated (curtailed) bargaining
process.
PRACTICE POINTERS
An argument could be made that the matter of promotions is entirely a
managerial prerogative and, therefore, bargaining is not required.
However, as discussed above, the Labor Relations Commission has
determined that this is not the case. The courts would be likely to impose
some bargaining obligation, even if they determined that promotional
criteria and procedures were an exclusive managerial prerogative. In such
cases the courts probably would still impose an obligation to bargain about
the impact of the proposed change on a mandatory subject of bargaining. 22
The Commission decisions in promotion cases generally do not refer either
to impact or decisional bargaining. However, the remedies awarded and
the dicta of such cases support the proposition that the LRC views such
cases as requiring decisional bargaining.
In the context of changing promotional criteria or procedures, the
distinction may not be terribly significant. It is clear that in either case an
employer must engage in good faith negotiations with the exclusive
representative (union) until reaching either agreement or impasse. In
impact cases, the employer might be able to confine the union’s role to
questions concerning the impact of management’s decision to use a new
testing component, for example. In decisional bargaining, the employer
would have to engage in good faith discussions and keep an open mind to
union-proposed alternatives. As a practical matter, it is likely that virtually
identical topics would be discussed in either context.
Massachusetts Municipal Police Training Committee