Public Act 93-0445

SB1360 Enrolled                      LRB093 06075 NHT 06178 b

    AN ACT relating to educational labor relations.

    Be it enacted by the People of  the  State  of  Illinois,
represented in the General Assembly:

    Section  5.  The Illinois Educational Labor Relations Act
is amended by changing Section 7 as follows:

    (115 ILCS 5/7) (from Ch. 48, par. 1707)
    Sec.   7.    Recognition    of    exclusive    bargaining
representatives  - unit determination. The Board is empowered
to administer the recognition of  bargaining  representatives
of  employees of public school districts, including employees
of districts which have entered  into  joint  agreements,  or
employees of public community college districts, or any State
college  or  university,  and  any  State  agency whose major
function is providing educational  services,  making  certain
that   each   bargaining  unit  contains  employees  with  an
identifiable community of interest and that no unit  includes
both  professional  employees  and  nonprofessional employees
unless a  majority  of  employees  in  each  group  vote  for
inclusion in the unit.
    (a)  In  determining  the  appropriateness of a unit, the
Board shall decide in each case, in order to ensure employees
the fullest freedom in exercising the  rights  guaranteed  by
this  Act, the unit appropriate for the purpose of collective
bargaining, based upon but not limited  to  such  factors  as
historical  pattern  of  recognition,  community of interest,
including employee skills and functions, degree of functional
integration, interchangeability and contact among  employees,
common supervision, wages, hours and other working conditions
of  the employees involved, and the desires of the employees.
Nothing  in  this  Act,  except  as  herein  provided,  shall
interfere with or negate the current representation rights or
patterns and practices of employee organizations  which  have
historically   represented  employees  for  the  purposes  of
collective bargaining,  including  but  not  limited  to  the
negotiations   of   wages,   hours  and  working  conditions,
resolutions  of  employees'  grievances,  or  resolution   of
jurisdictional disputes, or the establishment and maintenance
of  prevailing wage rates, unless a majority of the employees
so  represented  expresses  a  contrary  desire   under   the
procedures  set  forth  in  this Act.  This Section, however,
does not prohibit multi-unit bargaining.  Notwithstanding the
above factors, where the majority of public  employees  of  a
craft  so  decide,  the Board shall designate such craft as a
unit appropriate for the purposes of collective bargaining.
    The sole appropriate  bargaining  unit  for  tenured  and
tenure-track   academic   faculty   at  each  campus  of  the
University of Illinois shall be a unit that is  comprised  of
non-supervisory academic faculty employed more than half-time
and   that   includes  all  tenured  and,  tenure-track,  and
nontenure-track faculty of that University campus employed by
the board of trustees  of  that  University  in  all  of  the
campus's   its   undergraduate,  graduate,  and  professional
schools  and  degree  and  non-degree  programs   (with   the
exception   of  the  college  of  medicine,  the  college  of
pharmacy, the college of dentistry, the college of  law,  and
the  college of veterinary medicine, each of which shall have
its own separate unit), regardless of current  or  historical
representation  rights  or patterns or the application of any
other factors. Any decision, rule, or regulation, promulgated
by the Board to the contrary shall be null and void.
    (b)  An educational employer may voluntarily recognize  a
labor organization for collective bargaining purposes if that
organization  appears to represent a majority of employees in
the unit.  The employer shall post notice of its intent to so
recognize for a period of at least 20 school days on bulletin
boards or other places used or reserved for employee notices.
Thereafter, the employer, if satisfied  as  to  the  majority
status  of  the  employee  organization,  shall  send written
notification  of  such   recognition   to   the   Board   for
certification.
    Within  the  20  day  notice  period,  however, any other
interested employee organization may petition  the  Board  to
seek  recognition as the exclusive representative of the unit
in the manner specified by rules and  regulations  prescribed
by  the  Board,  if such interested employee organization has
been designated by at  least  15%  of  the  employees  in  an
appropriate bargaining unit which includes all or some of the
employees  in  the  unit  intended  to  be  recognized by the
employer.  In such event, the Board shall  proceed  with  the
petition  in  the same manner as provided in paragraph (c) of
this Section.
    (c)  A labor organization may also  gain  recognition  as
the  exclusive representative by an election of the employees
in the unit.  Petitions requesting an election may  be  filed
with the Board:
         (1)  by  an  employee  or  group of employees or any
    labor organizations acting on their behalf  alleging  and
    presenting  evidence that 30% or more of the employees in
    a bargaining unit wish to be represented  for  collective
    bargaining  or that the labor organization which has been
    acting as the exclusive bargaining representative  is  no
    longer  representative  of a majority of the employees in
    the unit; or
         (2)  by an employer alleging that one or more  labor
    organizations  have presented a claim to be recognized as
    an exclusive bargaining representative of a  majority  of
    the  employees  in an appropriate unit and that it doubts
    the majority status of any of the organizations  or  that
    it  doubts the majority status of an exclusive bargaining
    representative.
    The Board shall investigate the petition and  if  it  has
reasonable cause to suspect that a question of representation
exists,  it  shall  give notice and conduct a hearing.  If it
finds upon the record of  the  hearing  that  a  question  of
representation  exists,  it  shall  direct an election, which
shall be held no later  than  90  days  after  the  date  the
petition   was  filed.   Nothing  prohibits  the  waiving  of
hearings by the parties and the conduct of consent elections.
    (d)  An order of the Board  dismissing  a  representation
petition,   determining   and   certifying   that   a   labor
organization  has been fairly and freely chosen by a majority
of employees in an appropriate bargaining  unit,  determining
and  certifying that a labor organization has not been fairly
and  freely  chosen  by  a  majority  of  employees  in   the
bargaining  unit  or  certifying  a labor organization as the
exclusive  representative  of  employees  in  an  appropriate
bargaining unit because of a determination by the Board  that
the   labor   organization   is   the  historical  bargaining
representative of employees in  the  bargaining  unit,  is  a
final  order.   Any person aggrieved by any such order issued
on or after the effective date of this amendatory Act of 1987
may apply for and obtain judicial review in  accordance  with
provisions  of  the  Administrative  Review  Law,  as  now or
hereafter amended, except that such review shall be  afforded
directly  in  the  Appellate  Court of a judicial district in
which the Board maintains an office. Any direct appeal to the
Appellate Court shall be filed within 35 days from  the  date
that  a copy of the decision sought to be reviewed was served
upon the party affected by the decision.
    No election may  be  conducted  in  any  bargaining  unit
during the term of a collective bargaining agreement covering
such unit or subdivision thereof, except the Board may direct
an election after the filing of a petition between January 15
and  March  1  of  the  final year of a collective bargaining
agreement.  Nothing in this Section prohibits the negotiation
of a collective bargaining agreement covering  a  period  not
exceeding 3 years.  A collective bargaining agreement of less
than  3 years may be extended up to 3 years by the parties if
the extension is agreed to in writing before the filing of  a
petition under this Section.  In such case, the final year of
the  extension is the final year of the collective bargaining
agreement.  No election may  be  conducted  in  a  bargaining
unit,  or  subdivision thereof, in which a valid election has
been held within the preceding 12 month period.
(Source: P.A. 88-1; 89-4, eff. 7-1-95 (eff. date changed from
1-1-96 by P.A. 89-24).)