Labor agreements with public bodies must include several protections and limits, including reserving management rights, banning strikes and picketing, and setting rules for paid time and economic-term changes.
*105.585. Labor agreements, limitations on. — Labor agreements negotiated between a public body and a labor organization may cover wages, benefits, and all other terms and conditions of employment for public employees within the bargaining unit and shall be subject to the following limitations: (1) Every labor agreement shall include a provision reserving to the public body the right to hire, promote, assign, direct, transfer, schedule, discipline, and discharge public employees. Every labor agreement shall also include a provision reserving to management the right to make, amend, and rescind reasonable work rules and standard operating procedures; (2) Every labor agreement shall expressly prohibit all strikes and picketing of any kind. A strike shall include any refusal to perform services, walkout, sick-out, sit-in, or any other form of interference with the operations of any public body. Every labor agreement shall include a provision acknowledging that any public employee who engages in any strike or concerted refusal to work, or who pickets over any personnel matter, shall be subject to immediate termination of employment; (3) Every labor agreement shall include a provision extending the duty of fair representation by the labor organization to public employees in a bargaining unit; (4) Every labor agreement shall expressly prohibit labor organization representatives and public employees from accepting paid time, other than unused paid time off that was accrued by such public employees, by a public body for the purposes of conducting labor organization-related activities concerning collective bargaining, including, but not limited to, negotiations, bargaining meetings, meet and confer sessions, and any other collective bargaining-related activity, provided that every labor agreement may allow for paid time off for the purposes of grievance-handling, advisory committees, establishing a work calendar, and internal and external communication; (5) Every labor agreement shall inform public employees of their right to refrain from engaging in and supporting labor organization activity as well as their right to oppose labor organization activity; and (6) Every labor agreement shall include a provision stating that in the event of a budget shortfall, the public body shall have the right to require the modification of the economic terms of any labor agreement. Every labor agreement shall also state that if the public body deems it necessary to modify, upon good cause, the economic terms of any labor agreement, the public body shall so notify the labor organization and shall provide a period of thirty days during which the public body and the labor organization shall bargain over any necessary adjustments to the economic terms of the agreement. The labor agreement shall state that if, at the end of the thirty-day period, the parties have been unable to agree upon modifications that meet the public body's requirements, the public body shall have the right, upon good cause, to make necessary adjustments on its own authority. (L. 2018 H.B. 1413) *Revisor's Note: On June 1, 2021, this section was declared unconstitutional in Missouri National Education Association v. Missouri Department of Labor and Industrial Relations, 623 S.W.3d 585 (Mo.banc). (2020) Provision in section prohibiting picketing of any kind was unconstitutionally broad under free speech protections, and provision was severable from remainder of statute. Karney v. Department of Labor and Industrial Relations, 599 S.W.3d 157 (Mo.banc). (2021) House Bill 1413 enacting section in 2018 held invalid as violation of equal protection clause of Article I, Section 2 of state constitution; section as enacted could not be severed from rest of bill. Missouri National Education Association v. Missouri Department of Labor and Industrial Relations, 623 S.W.3d 585 (Mo.banc).