Mass. General Laws c.150E § 5A

Exclusive representative; powers and duties; payment of cost and fees by non-member; grievances

This is an unofficial version of a Massachusetts General Law. For more information on this topic, please see Law about unions and collective bargaining.

Updates

Added by St.2019, c.73, § 3, effective September 19, 2019

(a)

For the purposes of this section, “exclusive representative” shall mean an employee organization that has been designated as the exclusive representative of employees in a collective bargaining unit as described in section 3.

(b)

Public employers shall provide an employee organization access to members of the bargaining unit that the employee organization exclusively represents. Access shall include, but shall not be limited to:

(i) the right to meet with individual employees on the premises of the public employer during the work day to investigate and discuss grievances, workplace-related complaints and other workplace issues;

(ii) the right to conduct worksite meetings during lunch breaks and other non-work breaks and before and after the workday on the employer’s premises to discuss workplace issues, collective bargaining negotiations, the administration of collective bargaining agreements, other matters related to the duties of an exclusive representative and internal union matters involving the governance or business of the employee organization; and

(iii) the right to meet with newly-hired employees, without charge to the pay or leave time of such an employee, for not less than 30 minutes, not later than 10 calendar days after the date of hire during new employee orientation or, if the employer does not conduct new employee orientation, at an individual or group meeting.

For a school employee, the employer shall notify the exclusive representative of a hiring decision not later than 10 calendar days after the date a prospective employee accepts an offer of employment and shall provide to the exclusive representative the employee contact information identified in subsection (c).

(c)

Not later than 10 calendar days after the date a prospective school employee accepts an offer of employment or after the date of hire for all other public bargaining unit employees, a public employer shall provide the following contact information to the exclusive representative in spreadsheet file format or other format agreed to by the exclusive representative: (i) name; (ii) job; (iii) title; (iv) worksite location; (v) home address; (vi) work telephone number; (vii) home and personal cellular telephone numbers on file with the public employer; (viii) date of hire; (ix) work email address; and (x) personal email address on file with the public employer.

(d)

Home addresses, home and personal cellular telephone numbers, personal email addresses, dates of birth, bargaining units and groupings of employees and emails or other communications between employee organizations and their members shall not be public records and shall be prohibited from disclosure except as provided in subclauses (o) and (p) of clause Twenty-sixth of section 7 of chapter 4.

(e)

The exclusive representative shall have the right to use the email system of a public employer to communicate with bargaining unit members regarding official union-related matters including, but not limited to, elections, election results, meetings and social activities; provided, however, that the use does not create an unreasonable burden on network capability or system administration.

(f)

The exclusive representative shall have the right to use government buildings and other facilities that are owned or leased by government entities to conduct meetings with unit members regarding bargaining negotiations, the administration of collective bargaining agreements, the investigation of grievances, other workplace-related complaints and issues and internal union matters involving the governance or business of the union; provided, however, that the use does not interfere with governmental operations. Meetings conducted in government buildings pursuant to this section shall not be for a purpose prohibited by sections 13 and 14 of chapter 55. An exclusive representative conducting a meeting in a government building or other government facility pursuant to this section may be charged for maintenance, security and other costs related to the use of the government building or facility that would not otherwise be incurred by the government entity.

(g)

Nothing in this section shall diminish the obligations of an employer to comply with a collective bargaining agreement that provides greater access and orientation rights than the rights established by this section.

(h)

A public employer’s failure to comply with subsections (b) to (f), inclusive, shall constitute a violation of clause (5) of subsection (a) of section 10.

Last updated:	September 19, 2019