The Vermont Statutes Online

Title 3 : Executive

Chapter 028 : Judiciary Employees Labor Relations Act

Subchapter 001 : General Provisions

• § 1012. Employees’ rights and duties; prohibited acts

  (a) Employees shall have the right to self-organization; to form, join, or assist employee organizations; to bargain collectively through their chosen representatives; to engage in concerted activities of collective bargaining or other mutual aid or protection; to refrain from any or all those activities, except as provided in subsections (b) and (c) of this section; and to appeal grievances as provided in this chapter.

  (b) An employee may not strike or recognize a picket line of an employee organization while performing the employee’s official duties.

  (c) An employee who exercises the right not to join the employee organization representing the employee’s certified unit pursuant to section 1021 of this title shall pay a collective bargaining service fee to the representative of the bargaining unit in the same manner as employees who pay membership fees to the representative. The employee organization shall indemnify and hold the employer harmless from any and all claims stemming from the implementation or administration of the collective bargaining service fee. Nothing in this section shall require an employer to discharge an employee who does not pay the collective bargaining service fee.

  (d) The employer and employees and the employee’s representative shall exert every reasonable effort to make and maintain agreements concerning matters allowable under section 1013 of this title and to settle all disputes, whether arising out of the application of those agreements or growing out of any dispute between the employer and the employees.

  (e) Employees who are members of the employee organization shall have the right to automatic membership dues deductions. Upon receipt of a signed authorization to commence automatic membership dues deductions from an employee, the employer shall, as soon as practicable and in any event, not later than 30 calendar days after receiving the authorization, commence withholding from the employee’s wages the amount of membership dues certified by the employee organization. The employer shall transmit the amount withheld to the employee organization on the same day as the employee is paid. Nothing in this subsection shall be construed to require a member of an employee organization to participate in automatic dues deduction. (Added 1997, No. 92 (Adj. Sess.), § 9; amended 2013, No. 37, § 7; 2019, No. 180 (Adj. Sess.), § 5, eff. Jan. 1, 2021.)