Court Opinion

ID: 9736286
Source: CourtListenerOpinion
Date Created: 2023-08-26 18:49:50.133695+00
Date Added: 2024-06-11T18:27:05.525621
License: Public Domain

JUSTICE COOK, dissenting: I respectfully dissent. I would reverse the decision of the Board and accept the ALJ’s recommended order. The State Police have 19 telecommunication centers throughout the state that support police and law-enforcement operations by answering emergency telephone calls from the public and radio calls for service from state troopers and other agencies. The centers dispatch troopers, run criminal histories, and collect and enter data. The telecommunications centers are administered by the Communications Service Bureau. The highest officials at the telecommunication centers are the 19 telecommunication supervisors, who report to but infrequently confer with the 4 regional managers. Two of the telecommunications supervisors actually function as regional managers. Each telecommunication supervisor has between 7 and 22 subordinates, including call-takers and lead call-takers who are usually assigned to shifts the telecommunications supervisor does not work. The telecommunications supervisor oversees all communication operations at the center and trouble shoots. He or she observes call-takers’ and lead call-takers’ compliance with law, policy, procedures, and protocol, and also corrects their errors. The telecommunications supervisor schedules call-takers’ work hours, decides overtime, prepares written reports, mediates employee disputes, evaluates employees, and handles leave requests. Telecommunications supervisors are on call 24 hours a day. The telecommunications supervisor monitors the work of subordinates by using a scanner, sometimes even when he or she is off duty at home. He or she carries a pager and cell phone so that he or she may be contacted when an issue arises. When a telecommunications supervisor hears a call-taker or lead call-taker giving wrong information or observes him or her not conforming to policy, he or she may immediately counsel the individual. The telecommunications supervisor may also transfer a subordinate to a different shift to allow greater monitoring and instruction. A telecommunications supervisor annually evaluates subordinate call-takers and lead call-takers. Telecommunications supervisors make hiring recommendations. Telecommunications supervisors effectively recommend the discharge of trainee employees. The telecommunications supervisor may issue written reprimands, which remain in an employee’s personnel file for two years. In practice, those reprimands have been acted upon by the Assistant Bureau Chief and by Regional Managers. An employee is a “supervisor” if (1) his or her principal work is substantially different from her subordinates; (2) he or she has authority to do things such as “direct” or “discipline” employees; (3) that authority is not of a merely routine or clerical nature, but requires the consistent use of independent judgment; and (4) he or she devotes a preponderance of her employment time to exercising that authority. 5 ILCS 315/3(r) (West 2006). “Preponderance” is not determined by a strictly mathematical test. Whether a person is a supervisor should be defined by the significance of what that person does for the employer, regardless of the time spent on particular types of functions. County of Vermilion v. Illinois Labor Relations Board, 344 Ill. App. 3d 1126, 1136, 800 N.E.2d 875, 882 (2003). The question presented in this case is an important one. There would be a conflict of interest if supervisors, who must apply the employer’s policies to subordinates, are subject to control by the same union representing those subordinates. Freeport, 135 Ill. 2d at 517, 554 N.E.2d at 164. In this case, as in Freeport, if the telecommunications supervisors are not statutory “supervisors,” the telecommunications centers operate “entirely without supervision a large part of the time.” Freeport, 135 Ill. 2d at 522, 554 N.E.2d at 166. In fact, because regional managers only occasionally travel to communication centers for meetings and interviews, the situation here may be more aggravated than that in Freeport. The majority concludes that the principal work of the telecommunications supervisors is not significantly different from that of the lead call-takers. Lead call-takers monitor operations in the telecommunications supervisor’s absence, but otherwise have no oversight responsibility. Lead call-takers do not prepare schedules, prepare written reports, mediate employee disputes, evaluate employees, handle leave requests, make hiring recommendations, issue written reprimands, or recommend the discharge of trainees. Lead call-takers are basically call-takers, members of the bargaining unit. City of Naperville, 8 Pub. Employee Rep. (Ill.) par. 2016, at X—99, No. S—RC—92—15 (Illinois State Labor Relations Board, April 1, 1992) (holding that lead call-takers are members of the bargaining unit because they do not devote a preponderance of their time to supervisory activities). The majority recognizes that call-takers are not supervisors. If the majority is correct that lead call-takers are more like telecommunications supervisors than they are call-takers, then lead call-takers should be considered supervisors, not vice-versa. The majority states that it is “aware of no evidence that telecommunications supervisors have discretion to issue written reprimands.” 382 Ill. App. 3d at 229. The majority is mistaken. I agree with the ALJ that the record evidence establishes that telecommunications supervisors have authority to counsel employees for instances of misconduct and have discretion as to whether they will issue a written reprimand after several repeated instances of misconduct. Written reprimands remain in an employee’s personnel file for two years. “Telecommunications [supervisors exercise independent judgment in issuing written reprimands because they choose between two or more significant courses of action, counseling or a written reprimand.” 23 Pub. Employee Rep. (Ill.) par. 38, at 103 (Illinois Labor Board, State Panel, Administrative Law Judge’s Recommended Decision and Order, March 19, 2007). The Board concluded telecommunications supervisors have no authority to discipline employees because “[t]here was no evidence that the written reprimands authored by the employees at issue [(telecommunications supervisors)], and placed in their subordinates’ personnel files, affected their employment, nor evidence that such reprimands were subsequently used to enhance later discipline.” Written reprimands are just a meaningless ritual? The majority takes a different tack, that higher-ranking officials did not always follow the recommendations of the telecommunications supervisors, that they sometimes imposed more severe punishment. 382 Ill. App. 3d at 229. The fact of the matter is that there would be no discipline absent the recommendation of the telecommunications supervisors. There is no evidence that the recommendations of the telecommunications supervisors were ever ignored, only that higher ranking officials sometimes went beyond those recommendations. The Board’s conclusion that the recommendations had no effect on the subordinates’ employment is clearly erroneous. The subordinates had to be concerned with the views of the telecommunications supervisors, not the views of the regional managers — whom they almost never saw.