The deliberations of the Commission to Study the Rights of Public Employees during 1972 resulted in the introduction in the General Assembly of several bills and resolutions relating to the rights of public employees. Those bills and resolutions in the 1973 General Assembly enacted into law have the effect of:

1. including public employers. public employees and any representative of public employees in the State within Virginia's "right-to-work" statute;

2. requiring localities with fifteen or more employees to promulgate grievance procedures and personnel plans for their employees and employees of constitutional officers;

3. requiring the Governor to establish and maintain an employee grievance procedure for State employees, excluding the Department of State Police, local school boards, faculty of institutions of higher learning and employees of the General Assembly; and,

4. expressing the sense of the General Assembly that the public policy requires every public employer to promulgate and implement such rules or policies as will provide to its employees an opportunity to contribute to the development of policies which directly or indirectly affect the working conditions of its employees.

Other legislative proposals which were germinated during the Commission's public hearings in 1972 were not so fortunate and were defeated. Three variations of the so called "meet and confer" bill incorporated as a minority report in the 1978 Commission report were introduced in 1973 (HB 1768, HB 1808 and SB 906), but each was defeated. (See Appendix I for copies of resolutions affecting public employees passed by the 1973 General Assembly.) A more limited bill, House Bill 1891, introduced by Messrs. Thomson, Heilig, Anderson, Woodbridge and Gibb was also defeated in the House ·of Delegates. This bill would have legalized contracts between public employers and public employees that were entered into after the effective date of the bill. House Bill 1891 providing for a Public Labor-Management Relations Act was amended four times during House of Delegates floor debate. The first amendment excluded from the provisions of the Act anyone confirmed, elected or employed by the General Assembly. The second amendment of the engrossed bill would have changed "responsibly to direct" to "the responsibility to direct". The third amendment agreed to would have added a paragraph in the proposed § 40.1-77.3 preventing the recognition of any employee organization as an exclusive agent of employees and guaranteeing that an employee need not be a member of an organization as a condition of employment. The final amendment would have changed "representative" to "duly elected or appointed employee representative". As the bill was being engrossed, Mr. Thomson moved to dispense with a further reading of the bill as required by Section II of Article IV of the Constitution and the motion was agreed to unanimously. The vote on the question "Shall the bill (HB 1891) pass" was 46 for and 50 against.

The Commission felt that much work remained to be done after the 1973 General Assembly session. Specifically, the Commission needed to draft a consensus bill, acceptable to the majority of Virginians, which would legally permit the type of contracts already entered into by public school divisions in Virginia with representatives of teachers and by municipalities with other public employees. Further, the new Code provisions mandating grievance procedures for all public employees on both State and local levels created a need to monitor public employers to see whether each employer was following statutory dictates. Finally, House Joint Resolution 208 for the first time stated as a matter of public policy that every public employer should promulgate rules or policies to provide its employees with an opportunity to contribute to the development of policies affecting their working conditions. The Commission felt that the General Assembly should be informed of the State's progress in promulgating employee participation policies so that informed legislative decisions can be made in the future. Therefore, House Joint Resolution 206 was approved during the 1973 Session of the General Assembly.

Pursuant to the terms of the study directive, Julian F. Carper of Richmond, George R. Long of Charlottesville, Francis V. Lowden, Jr. of Richmond, Frank W. McCulloch of Charlottesville, J. David Shobe, Jr. of Richmond, Delegates Claude W. Anderson of Andersonville, Duncan C. Gibb of Front Royal, George H. Heilig, Jr. of Norfolk, and James M. Thomson of Alexandria continued as members of the Commission. David A. Sutherland of Fairfax was named to replace Benjamin H. Woodbridge, Jr. of Fredericksburg. Senators Coleman B. Yeatts of Chatham and William F. Parkerson, Jr. of Henrico also continued as members. Mr. Thomson was reelected to the Commission's Chairmanship and Senator Parkerson to its Vice Chairmanship.

The Virginia Advisory Legislative Council and the Division of Legislative Services made staff and facilities available to carry out this study; Laurens Sartoris and Steven L. Micas being assigned to assist the members of the study group.

The Commission at its first full meeting in July realized that the most efficient manner to proceed would be to divide the Commission into two subcommittees; (1) the first subcommittee studying suggested amendments to legislation affecting the rights of public employees while; (2) the other subcommittee would study the new State agency grievance procedures and those adopted by the State Board of Education and the State Police and how State agencies are complying with the statutes passed by the 1973 General Assembly.

The remainder of the report is divided into the separate subcommittee reports beginning with the report of the Legislation Subcommittee followed by the report of the Subcommittee on Grievance Procedures.