The New Hampshire Troopers Association is the exclusive bargaining representative for New Hampshire State Police. In October 2020, New Hampshire’s governor issued an executive order requiring state troopers to wear body worn cameras. In August 2021, Association representatives met with Peter Demas, the State Manager of Employee Relations, and Rudolph Ogden, Assistant Commissioner of the State Department of Labor, seeking to bargain over the implementation and impact of this policy. The governor designated Ogden as the official state negotiator pursuant to state law but reserved for himself the authority to enter into collective bargaining agreements. The Association filed a ULP charge with the state labor board over the state’s unilateral implementation, but later withdrew it when the parties agreed to meet monthly to negotiate.
The policy was enacted on July 22, 2022, with troopers receiving relevant training by the end of June 2022. Between January and September 2022, the parties had about six impact bargaining meetings to discuss the impact of body worn cameras on working conditions. At some point during negotiations, the Association made a proposal for additional leave. On several occasions, the state indicated that it did not have enough information to decide but was willing to continue to meet. In September 2022, Ogden informed the Association that the state did not believe another meeting was necessary, and it would respond to the proposal within two weeks. Later that month, Demas told the Association that the state rejected the proposal but invited the Association to reiterate it during upcoming contract negotiations. He did not reveal whether the decision to reject the proposal was made by the governor or another state representative.
The Association filed another ULP charge alleging that the state failed to bargain in good faith by its delay in responding to the proposal, and by failing to identify who within the state made the ultimate decision. The labor board agreed. At the hearing, Ogden failed to name who from the state decided to reject the proposal. There was no dispute that only the governor was authorized to do so.
The Board explained, “We decline to equate such unnamed decision makers with the Governor. Further, under the applicable bargaining law, the State is not free to substitute unnamed ‘decision makers’ for the Governor in the statutory bargaining process. Since unnamed decision makers have no collective bargaining authority under state law, any action such decision makers might have taken is not the equivalent of action by the Governor and cannot be considered a duly authorized response to the Association’s proposal. This means, after numerous impact bargaining sessions, the State never accepted or rejected the Association’s proposal. However, at some reasonable point in the bargaining process, which in this case had clearly arrived by September, a party with the authority to act is required to notify the other party to the negotiations whether a proposal is accepted or rejected. The State’s failure to do so in this case is a violation of its good faith bargaining obligations.”
Because the Association failed to raise a body worn camera proposal in ongoing contract negotiations, the labor board declined to order the parties to resume impact bargaining over that issue. Despite its finding that the state violated the labor statute, the labor board ordered no remedy.
New Hampshire Troopers Association v. New Hampshire Department of Safety, Case G-0097-31, 2024 WL 1904239 (N.H. Pub. Emp. Lab. Rel. Bd., 2024).