Corrections officers seek to oust union

JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. -- After nearly two decades of union representation at the Department of Corrections, a group of corrections officers is working to oust the union.

The American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees is the certified bargaining agent for more than 6,300 Department of Corrections workers, though only a minority belong to the union.

The Missouri Corrections Officers' Association, which stresses it is not a union, says AFSCME doesn't represent the views of most officers and wants the union gone.

To that end, the association has gathered more than 3,000 signatures on a petition seeking an election to decertify the union. It plans to submit the petition to the Missouri State Board of Mediation Wednesday.

If the board finds enough valid signatures -- in this case about 1,900, or 30 percent of the workers in the bargaining unit -- then an election could be held in three to six months.

The issue is shaping up as a side battle in the controversy over the executive order signed this summer by Gov. Bob Holden extending collective bargaining rights to about 30,000 state workers in department's under the governor's direct control.

AFSCME says the order will allow the union to better represent its members. The Corrections Officers' Association opposes collective bargaining and has signed on to a lawsuit asking a court to declare the order an unconstitutional usurpation of legislative power by the governor.

Pretend representation

Gary Gross, a sergeant at the Tipton Correctional Center in central Missouri, is the immediate past president of the association and serves as the group's spokesman. Gross says the association was formed in July 2000 by officers who didn't feel AFSCME was doing its job.

"They pretended to be representing us, but they have been in corrections for 18 years and have done nothing for us," Gross said.

Whereas the union is open to both corrections officers and support staffers, the association limits its membership to officers. Of the 4,500 corrections officers at prisons throughout the state, about 2,300 belong to the association. Members pay monthly dues of $10 each.

AFSCME, which has a larger pool of potential members from which to draw, currently has about 1,100 members, who each pay $23 a month in dues.

Gross said the association's purpose is to lobby the General Assembly for better pay, improved retirement and health care benefits and better working conditions.

Union rights

State workers have had the right to unionize since well before Holden signed his executive order on June 29. However, public employee unions were limited to the "meet and confer" process with management. The governor's order allows for binding arbitration to resolve labor disputes, thus giving unions more clout in negotiations.

David Miller, an AFSCME spokesman, says the order has helped boost the union's membership in recent months. Since July 1, AFSCME has added more than 100 members at corrections.

Like the association, AFSCME lobbies lawmakers on issues of importance to members. But its core function is to represent members in disputes with management and push for favorable workplace conditions, Miller said.

"The difference now is under the executive order, there is a more balanced and substantive role to bargaining in a good faith atmosphere and allowing us to resolve differences that may have stopped before because there was no process for moving further," Miller said.

The association is part of the Coalition to Repeal Executive Order 01-09, a group that includes the Missouri State Teachers Association, Farm Bureau and several business organizations. The coalition is one of the plaintiffs in the lawsuit seeking to overturn the collective bargaining order. Senate President Pro Tem Peter Kinder, R-Cape Girar-deau, is the lead plaintiff in the lawsuit.

mpowers@semissourian.com

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