Read first time 01/26/2005.   Referred to Committee on Labor, Commerce, Research & Development.

     AN ACT Relating to defining supervisor for public employment purposes; and amending RCW 41.80.070.

BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF WASHINGTON:

Sec. 1   RCW 41.80.070 and 2002 c 354 s 308 are each amended to read as follows:
     (1) A bargaining unit of employees covered by this chapter existing on June 13, 2002, shall be considered an appropriate unit, unless the unit does not meet the requirements of (a) and (b) of this subsection. The commission, after hearing upon reasonable notice to all interested parties, shall decide, in each application for certification as an exclusive bargaining representative, the unit appropriate for certification. In determining the new units or modifications of existing units, the commission shall consider: The duties, skills, and working conditions of the employees; the history of collective bargaining; the extent of organization among the employees; the desires of the employees; and the avoidance of excessive fragmentation. However, a unit is not appropriate if it includes:
     (a) Both supervisors and nonsupervisory employees. A unit that includes only supervisors may be considered appropriate if a majority of the supervisory employees indicates by vote that they desire to be included in such a unit; or
     (b) More than one institution of higher education. For the purposes of this section, any branch or regional campus of an institution of higher education is part of that institution of higher education.
     (2) Notwithstanding subsection (1)(a) and (b) of this section, at an institution of higher education, members of supervisory classes may be combined in the same bargaining unit, regardless of whether the individual members of the bargaining unit may be actually serving as a supervisor at any given point in time, subject to established community of interest standards as applied by the public employment relations commission, and upon the condition that no member of the bargaining unit supervises another member of the unit. The consolidation of employees as authorized by this subsection will be performed by the public employment relations commission under established unit determination procedures. For the purposes of this subsection, a supervisory class is one in which employees holding the classification may be assigned as a supervisor at the employer's discretion without a classification change.
     (3) The exclusive bargaining representatives certified to represent the bargaining units existing on June 13, 2002, shall continue as the exclusive bargaining representative without the necessity of an election.
     (((3))) (4) If a single employee organization is the exclusive bargaining representative for two or more units, upon petition by the employee organization, the units may be consolidated into a single larger unit if the commission considers the larger unit to be appropriate. If consolidation is appropriate, the commission shall certify the employee organization as the exclusive bargaining representative of the new unit.