Management Rights - AELE's Home Page

Reorganization 9-3
to bargain, and, if requested, negotiate in good faith to agreement or
impasse.
§ 2 SUBSTANTIAL DETRIMENT
The next issue to be addressed is whether the elimination of certain job
duties from the bargaining unit causes it substantial detriment. 18
A review of several LRC decisions will be helpful to illustrate the types of
cases likely to result in adverse Commission rulings. No violation was
found where the City of Boston hired traffic supervisors over the summer
and expanded their duties to encompass issuing tickets and directing
traffic at intersections. 19 Police officers normally performed that type of
work. However, there was apparently enough work to go around. No
officer lost overtime or was laid off and otherwise this work would not have
been performed. The Commission concluded that there was no
substantial detrimental impact on the police officer bargaining unit.
In a case involving the decision to staff firehouses with call firefighters at
night, rather than permanent full-time members of the union, the
Commission found this to be an unlawful unilateral assignment of
bargaining unit work. 20 If the night shifts had not been filled with call
firefighters, the regulars would have been used (as contrasted with the
Boston case above).
While a decision simply to reduce the level of services is a managerial
prerogative, the decision to transfer bargaining unit work previously
performed by a security supervisor to employees outside of the bargaining
unit, without giving the union prior notice and an opportunity to bargain,
was held unlawful by the Commission. 21 Similarly, a Hearing officer
found a violation where the employer transferred to the Executive Director
the supervisory duties formerly performed by the position of maintenance
foreman in a bargaining unit without first affording the union an
opportunity to bargain over the decision. 22
§ 3 SHARED WORK EXCEPTION
The prohibition against unilaterally assigning work does not generally
apply to "shared work" situations. 23 The work will not be recognized as
exclusive bargaining unit work. 24 When work is performed by individuals
both inside and outside of a complaining bargaining unit, the Commission
will not require bargaining unless the union can show a "clear pattern" of
assigning the work to bargaining unit members. 25 When work is shared
by bargaining unit members and non-unit employees, the Commission
has determined that the work will not be recognized as exclusively
Massachusetts Municipal Police Training Committee