Personnel Details
Read through this section to learn about laws related to personnel.
The Trustee Essentials: Responsibilities course covers additional information on this topic. Please consider taking that course to learn more.
Collective Bargaining Units
39-31-101, MCA recognizes and encourages collective bargaining between public employers and their employees.
By statute all public employees have the right to join labor organizations and to bargain collectively through their union representatives. One obvious question that arises is whether library directors are "public employees" as defined in Montana's collective bargaining statutes.
Montana's laws governing collective bargaining define "public employee" as a person employed by a public employer in any capacity,” and “an individual whose work has ceased as a consequence of or in connection with any unfair labor practice or concerted employee action."
Public employee does not mean
“a supervisory employee" - an individual having the authority on a regular, recurring basis while acting in the interest of the employer to hire, transfer, suspend, lay off, recall, promote, discharge, assign, reward, or discipline other employees or to effectively recommend the above actions if, in connection with the foregoing, the exercise of the authority is not of a merely routine or clerical nature but requires the use of independent judgment.
or
“a management official” - a representative of management having authority to act for the agency on any matters relating to the implementation of agency policy. (39-31-103, MCA)
Thus, while library employees who are not in supervisory or management positions are eligible to join a union, supervisory employees and management officials, such as library directors, are excluded from the definition of "public employee," and therefore do not possess the statutory right to join unions and bargain collectively.