you good morning with the attorneys who are going to orally are you please step up to the podium and introduce yourself to the court those who are for only going to our you for the treasurer you were for the treasurer for thirteen years in the i think division cremation technology her job is as the name would imply that take care of all things  web and electronic related primarily dealing with email issues problems with the server and so on but she's also a member of the bargaining unit but the bargaining unit the union  agreement and she was at the time that the treasurer filed his petition seeking to remove her from the benefits of that status on the grounds that she was a confidential employee within the meaning of your annoying labor relations in order to be excluded as a confidential employee the employee must be one who in the regular course of his or her duties as authorized to access it's often arise access to information relating to the a review of the employer's collective bargaining policies the information relating phrase has been construed by the supreme court and courts following i mean information that would now the board found that i'm assuring was a confidential because she could be called upon to work with people who are having problems in the treasurer's office with their programs that there are people who work in the treasurer's office who work on projects not surprisingly freighters office and that some of those people use excel documents from this week read the board can see concluded that therefore when she works on an excel document she must see information that's contained in the document and that information very well may be somehow someway related like the bearing of the facts as they hearing demonstrated that sarah in her thirteen years and never seen any collective bargaining documents this was not contested well let me get first brooks look at the first hurdle at least in my mind what's the standard of review that this court must consider here review i would believe it because clearly erroneous clearly erroneous ye revealing of the employees but the bargain strategy so there is never seen any such document no such document was introduced at the hearing and i think a negative inference multi pronged whether or not she's seen it isn't that an immaterial issue not at all i mean here if the issue is did she have authorized access now whether or not she in fact saw these documents or within the last eleven twelve thirteen court case in one thousand nine hundred two if it's such a bad precedent in terms of what the employee has already done as part of her job performance how do you reconcile it with a two thousand a the decision makers there was information that they had were to be talking about we're talking about the same c m s case here support found that there was a confidential employee relationship off well he said that he had many responsibilities he's a member of the treasurer's collective bargaining committee it is the internet's a develop collective bargaining proposals and this lady involved has the right to read all of the emails in the spam folder can access employee under neath laws including those of dan gre decision the board's decision and here you volunteer the we have a clearly erroneous standard here so based upon what she has access has it that it's not physical access that matters it's the employer's desire that you work with the content of this material and her boss listen please that she's not authorized to do that look at the document to see whether that you know of type is right or not that it doesn't make you a company to employ isn't that isn't that premise that it runs against you from your proof in other words  you there they are you that having this access limited to some degree but it's casual in other words that she would open up documents while doing other i keep perform his duties and that then gave her the be regular and if it was a regular in one year in my view case for five years in the nile's case it's not considered regular here there's been thirteen years and there's been no such actual access so the courts have held on the subject but that is not it's not was there any evidence at the hearing as to how long he treasurer's office has relied on x l documents or exile formatted information office or anything like that if i may know there was no such evidence and two when you say budget office the treasurer's office has a lot of budgets many of which have nothing to do with all collective bargaining so there was no testimony that said we use x to develop documents that we're going to present to the union it was no such test it was just money yeah we use  documents you have people who work on budgets many of which exist in the treasurer's office use excel and if she was called upon to work on that cell document you might see something so you know she saw something in other words the eight stay there permanently interviewees is revisited or because of the various budget analysts that are printing out treasury information do they change it morphed into other things well we w good morning arse sharon purcell and half of the respondent all night labor relations board the issue here that was before the board was rather this particular employee mishearing and i say to his confidential within the meaning of the act because she troubleshoots xcel documents this does that's what the board limited its its decision to that these documents were prepared by treasure office employees they may contain collective bargaining information that is provided to the treasurer's office staff members involved in collective bargaining including those on the treasurer's negotiating team mr gr and therefore she has authorized access to documents containing information relating to collective bargaining the board's decision i agree is reviewable for clear air and so it's only if it can be said this decision investigation and its hearing on this which is basically effect finding hearing to find out what the employee does what does the landscape of the business office is because they're going to defer you know workplaces differ  related to fixing bugs putting people in or taking people out of the system just general i do you that occasionally she might know a document to fix something or something like that that was that was not often occurring  so they themselves did not find her because anything regarding the creation of formulations or other things relating to the collective bargaining your honor she doesn't have to have a role in formulating or you know any kind of you know what goes into the document what the testimony was the evidence was that mr gray gets information from employees in the budget and employee office when he's formulating proposals to give to the treasurer in collective bargaining when that's going on and that those employees the accounting of and budget employees use excel spreadsheets and so that information and when he's act the employee has access to the information they act whether or not they're ever going to use that information it's information that would be of interest for work to the union possibly  bargaining and whether or not i would say that if the information shifts if i'm looking at that and i have that information and i can see how the strategies and the goals are shifting and it  doesn't whether or not the information is always there or not it's you have the information and you can it could be of interest to the to the union well let me and since there is it may or may not be thing is is there any indication whatsoever that they're sharing but doesn't i don't doesn't make a difference whether it's a year before bargaining he begins or or you know on the eve of bargaining or whatever it is because this is the employee employers quit the bargaining information so that's the information and the confidential exception to allowing employees to be represented in bargaining brunettes that exception is there because it recognizes that there's an employee there our employees whose job duties will be in the course of their duties whether or not you know it's every it every week every year when only one collective bargaining is happening which gives them advance the potential to have advance notice knowledge of the and it's entitled to him and have certain employees who it knows and can rely on will not have this conflicting loyalty between an employer and a union yeah yeah i mean that's a hallmark of labor relations and it you know there's various factors whether or not she ever did or didn't that's not the point because once again once you did you know the you know the horse kind of has left the barn we already said it basically here is your has a loyalty to the employer as their employer but also has this loyalty to it the right you know the bargaining unit in the representative and so it keeps everybody at the table on the side that there's a they they the if you it gives you the details of what this job description is and what it what it is basically the way i read it a series of i think he issues of how to preserve the system harder how to position and they dropped that from the petition because it's a vacant tenant may never be filled and the boy doesn't you know they don't make sure not to make a determination on something that's not happening is that what you position or not the you know what the court looks at when it's making its when i mean a clarification when it's deciding whether or not you know an employee can be in or out of a union you're looking at what is the situation at the time the petition is filed at the time the position is filed there is an employee in this position doing particular duties and there's a particular you know ways of doing business stepdad office he has and so that's what the board is looking at her duties or goes into them manipulates them as need be and some of them may be you can have collective bargaining information in them whether or not the board never made and i mean the board never considered the  recommendation on any of the of her other duties it didn't miss mr pomerantz explained that the board didn't refer support the board didn't consider it so all we have here is the xcel what he happens with you know anything else and whether or not somebody can fill a position this is only this this particular exception exists as i have explained because all it does is say to thank you because i would like to address a couple of the questions that you had with regard to the cycle for one thing mr gray did testified that they were at the time of the hearing in the middle of negotiations they had just concluded negotiations with the teamsters union this is what they asked me those negotiations in fact are still ongoing so during this entire time of the petition for you know clarification there she's not authorized to read anybody's emails and she thinks she'd get in trouble for it there may have been something along those lines but miss price also testify in the shearing opened up the treasure emails and sent emails for the treasurer out to a collective group out to all employees that was one of the things that the treasurer had them do so i think we have to remember that this is treasurer's position that happens to be in the union it's not a union position we start from this is a treasurer's position so if a person does have to see that kind of information sure they keep their job the part that doesn't stay static is that they stay in the union and again there isn't any testimony that she took information and shared it with the the union but employer isn't required to wait until harm there the discovery of something the order that you're talking about that made there i think what happens your honor is that over those thirteen years the use of the network as in all offices solely done on the network now and then it business sure is one of the two network administrators who actually create the password only she and one other person can access everything i'm sorry that i don't mean to cut you off i do want to draw attention to the cases because i think it's important to recognize the law it's controlling in this event the nile's case is the first sr case in two thousand and eight and you've glenview from two thousand and seven right out of the fourth district you've got both the first in the fourth district talking about the fact that when you've got a position that's been in place for a substantial period this is a position that's been in place for thirteen years the board is supposed to look at what has actually occurred right with the actual access has been and so that is sort of the quantum of proof that's required in the senate and the actual access here has been that she has in fact had access to x l documents all along it's not x l documents the case law doesn't say excell documents it doesn't say word it says collective bargaining material or confidential information right now i have proof that that was what and develop the strategies we also have testimony in money from this prize that the chief budget here and the director of a county news xcel documents do we know was it in made a data raw data was it spelled out with budgets that they deal with on calling property budgets and i cash those kind of things but there's only one treasurer's budget that has personnel items in it so you have yes an absolute line item  person would be a pretty bright line in terms of what the burden of proof is you read just need to bring in evidence that maturing has actually opened up excel documents troubleshooted excel documents containing specifically collective bargaining information regarding budgets or treasury information that's confidential right and i believe that that is not when you look at wilmette and which is a first district case and you look at the state police case which you referred to earlier that's not what those cases say those cases say this these persons have intended by the employer the access is that the employer intends that they have access to these documents and that the test and the authorized access is is equals to intended access to the treasurer here very clearly intend that miss sharing has access to these x documents so if the if the necessity is that we have an employee take the stand and say yes i absolutely saw personnel information and salaries and that's specifically why mr gray testified to the fact that as he was at that time the head of the bargaining team and that's specifically why he talked about how they develop their strategies and the how he works with the director of accounting and the cheap by just here to develop those strategies those aren't just mere statistics at that point that's what we want to put in this column what we want to put those are the kind of documents that he was talking about and he talk about you know conferring with all of these different persons it just so happens that when you're doing budget information you use xcel and the cheap budgetary use this xcel the new director of accounting uses sex out so those would necessarily  that he has to review documents of a confidential nature if you look at the job description here there is no such reference to any such thing and a person has been doing the same thing for thirteen years let me just conclude by saying this the board clearly built this whole case the sole decision around her access to x l documents raid the only person close to collect the bargain ever mentioned so that means there is not sufficient evidence here