[T]he Vermont State Employees’ Association filed a request last week for employees of state’s attorneys offices to vote on forming a union, the latest move in a yearslong fight for collective bargaining rights for more than 100 prosecutors, victim advocates and secretaries.
The VSEA submitted a request to the Vermont Labor Relations Board asking for a vote of 107 state’s attorney’s office staff. The board has two weeks from the filing to decide to either hold meetings or schedule a vote.
The labor board decided in 2014 that state’s attorneys employees, who work for the elected prosecutors in each county, were neither state or municipal workers, and therefore could not claim the labor rights of either group without further legislative action.
A Supreme Court decision two years later overturned that decision, saying that the Legislature clearly intended to give all government employees labor rights enjoyed explicitly by municipal and state employees.
A law passed in 2017 outlined precisely what can be negotiated by state’s attorneys employees once they unionize.
Annie Noonan, labor relations manager at the Vermont State’s Attorneys and Sheriffs Department, said she expected the latest push for a union to be successful.
“Normally a filing means the union feels they have sufficient support to prevail, so I would believe they would not have done so if they did not have the support of employees,” she said of the VSEA.
Noonan, the former labor commissioner, said the State’s Attorneys and Sheriffs Department supported the rights of its employees to self-determine union participation when the 2017 bill was being discussed, and still held that position.
A previous bill forming a union comprising employees at about half of the states attorneys offices across the state died in the Statehouse, with concerns over how negotiations would occur across jurisdictions and how a negotiated contract would change the dynamics of each office.
Ashley Hill, deputy Washington County state’s attorney, said there were still union skeptics both within the offices and among Vermont’s 14 state’s attorney. But she said the combination of stagnant wages, expanding case loads and long hours was driving many of he colleagues to embrace the idea of collective bargaining.
“I know that people are feeling really tired and really frustrated and pretty beaten down by how heavy caseloads are and how little it seems like our work is recognized, especially from the Legislature,” she said.
Under the current system, lawmakers decide the budget for state’s attorneys offices. Each state’s attorney has broad discretion over spending, hiring, firing and salaries for employees.
The formation of a statewide union would likely mean the formation of bargaining committees for state’s attorneys on one side and their employees on the other. The resulting contract would then be sent to the Legislature for approval.
Hill said that deputy state’s attorneys, victim advocates and office support staff simply were not being paid a rate commensurate with their work, and with similar positions in other agencies. As an example, she said deputies were paid $25 a day for being on call, whether they fielded five calls or 15.
“I am incredibly frustrated that the legislature has said our time is worth a dollar an hour,” she said, adding that staffing has not reflected increasing caseloads. “Collective bargaining is really the only way to make sure workers are heard.”
Hill added that a uniform collective bargaining process would also help address issues like gender-based wage disparity that were highlighted by Jane O’Neill, a former deputy state’s attorney in Rutland County who won a $150,000 settlement in a gender discrimination suit.
“My hope is that this erases some of that pay disparity,” Hill said.
The 2017 law on state’s attorneys employees allows them to negotiate wages, benefits, reimbursements, hours, leave, working conditions, overtime compensation, leave, insurance coverage and the the collective bargaining rules. It does not give state’s attorney’s staff the same protections enjoyed by many state employees, leaving hiring and firing largely up to the elected county prosecutors.
VSEA Executive Director Steve Howard called employees of the state’s attorney’s offices the “forgotten stepchild” of state government.
“These folks need to be compensated better, they need a career path and they need more staffing resources,” he said. “Sometimes the difference between getting that and not getting that is having an organization like the VSEA and its resources backing the proposal.”
Howard said that 9 out of 14 state’s attorneys said they supported the right of their staff to be part of the VSEA when responding to a survey seeking the association’s endorsement. If the union vote is successful and collective bargaining moves ahead, he said the VSEA would apply full pressure on the Legislature to get on board.
“At that point, that’s were VSEA will exercise its power and influence and organizational capacity to make sure the Legislature pays attention to this department,” Howard said.
