Opinion ID: 1928463
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 2

Heading: The Hours Proposal.

Text: As to Item 23, the hours proposal, the parties agree that some of it is subject to mandatory bargaining. Those include the total hours to be included in a workday, the starting and quitting times, and break times. These provisions are not in dispute. The dispute centers on Item 23's restrictions on what jobs may be assigned to employees at certain times during the workday. Under the union's proposal, the workday would be divided into two categories. Active work time and ready work time are defined, and the duties during these respective times are prescribed. Active work time is between 0700 and 1600 on weekdays and 0700 and 1130 on Saturdays. Under the union's proposal, the employer's assignment of duties during active time could include routine station duties, apparatus checks, inspections, training, equipment maintenance, etc. All hours of the workday outside active time could be considered ready time. The proposal then lists the duties that would be assigned during these times, including emergency response[s] and other duties necessary to return to ready status (i.e., reload hose, refill SCBA tanks, refill booster tanks, replace needed equipment, etc.). By attempting to divide the workday in this manner and prescribe what duties would normally be performed during this time, the proposal clearly impinges on the employer's right to direct the work of its employees and cannot be considered a mandatory subject of bargaining. In Charles City, the issue was whether the employees' proposal that grievance commission members be allowed to investigate and process grievances while on the pay clock was a grievance procedure, which is included in the laundry list of mandatory bargaining subjects under section 20.9. The City argued that it was part of an employer's exclusive right to direct the work of its employees. We agreed with the City because a requirement for payment of wages for grievance work did not constitute a grievance procedure under section 20.9. In addition, we said: If the word exclusive in § 20.7 is to have its ordinary meaning relative to the right to direct work of employees, the employer should not be compelled to bargain on a proposal that the employee members of the grievance committee be allowed to utilize work time to investigate and handle grievances rather than produce work for the employer. To require bargaining on processing grievances during work hours without loss of pay to grievance committee members limits the authority expressly granted to the employer under § 20.7. If § 20.7 and § 20.9 are to be harmonized, the proposal must be a permissive subject of bargaining rather than mandatory. Charles City, 275 N.W.2d at 775. We agree with PERB and the district court in this case that the proposal in question would in effect prescribe what duties could be performed during certain times of the day and would therefore impinge on the employer's exclusive right to direct the work of its employees under section 20.7. We affirm on this issue.