WISCONSIN BLUE BOOK 1989-1990


services. Commissioners and staff members, as grievance arbitrators, issue
final and binding
awards.
   Laws enacted by the 1971 Legislature expanded the commissidn's duties
in the area of public
employment relations. Chapter 124 granted municipal employes theright to
bargain collectively
with their employers and enlarged the list of practices prohibited to both
employers and em-
ployes. Chapters 246 and 247 established compulsory arbitration for police
and fire fighters.
Chapter 245 reduced the size of the majority needed for municipal and state
employes and em-
ployers to enter into agency shop agreements. Chapter 270 established collective
bargaining
units for state employes and added salaries and fringe benefits to the list
of bargaining subjects.
  Since 1978, the commission has been authorized to process final and binding
interest arbitra-
tion cases involving nonuniformed municipal employes and their employers.
  Unit Functions:
  The Staff Director, the commission's principal administrative employe,
supervises all agency
staff.
  The General Counsel reviews all complaint decisions and all election and
declaratory ruling
records; prepares draft decisions for commission consideration; serves as
liaison to the assistant
attorney general who represents the commission; analyzes proposed legislation
that would affect
commission functions; and acts as hearing examiner in complex proceedings.
  The administrative services section provides financial management, procurement,
budget
preparation and monitoring, personnel, payroll, and fringe benefit services.
  The elections officer schedules and conducts elections and referenda.
  The professional section conducts hearings in unfair labor and prohibited
practices, election
unit clarification and declaratory and arbitration cases. A professional
staff member acts as a
trial examiner in unfair labor and prohibited practice cases and issues decisions
that are subject
to commission review. The full commission or any one of the commissioners
may also conduct
such hearings and issue decisions in the name of the commission or the individual
commissioner.
The full commission can review the decision of an individual commissioner.
The professional
staff and commissioners issue formal grievance arbitration awards after a
hearing. They act as
mediators in resolving disputes that arise during negotiation of a collective
bargaining agree-
ment. Both the professional staff and commissioners conduct formal hearings
or informal inves-
tigations to determine whether conditions for final and binding interest
arbitration exist in mu-
nicipal negotiations. Similar hearings or investigations may be conducted
to determine whether
the conditions for fact finding exist in state employment negotiations.
  The reporting and word processing support section provides support services
for the profes-
sional staff and secures and oversees the court reporting activities required
in proceedings and
conducted by the professional section.
  The Council on Municipal Collective Bargaining may study and make recommendations
to the
commission on matters related to collective bargaining.
  Interagency Relationships: The Employment Relations Commission has functions
on the state
level that relate to 2 federal agencies- the National Labor Relations Board
and the Federal
Mediation and Conciliation Service. The commission has no jurisdiction over
labor relations
activity regulated by the labor relations board, but. the federal Labor-Management
Relations
Act of 1947 established some procedures for state-federal cooperation in
mediation cases. It
directed the mediation and conciliation service to avoid mediating disputes
having only a minor
effect on interstate commerce if state mediation services are available.
Since mediation cases are
initiated by employers or empioyes, rather than by the commission, th. determination
of
whether a state or federal agency is called upon in cases involving interstate
commerce is often a
question for the parties involved. As a matter of policy, the commission
avoids involvement in
cases already being handled by federal agencies.
  Although Chapters 101 and 103, Wisconsin Statutes, give responsibility
for some aspects of
labor relations to the Department of Industry, Labor and Human Relations,
the department's
functions do not overlap those of the commission.


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