Your public employee group: elections, dues, books and discipline

It is the bill of rights for members of a bona fide public servants’ group, written as a list of things the group’s constitution and bylaws must contain. Its practical usefulness is exactly there: you can request those two documents — the law gives you the right to a copy — and check them against the list.

Public servants who belong to a bona fide group. The duties fall on the group, which must have promulgated the constitution and bylaws at the time of certification and must comply with what this law provides.

• Being a public servant who is a member of a bona fide group.Verified against the official source

• A copy of the bona fide group’s constitution and bylaws, which the law recognizes as a member’s right.

1. 1

   Step 1: Start by requesting the two documents

   The law recognizes your right to receive a copy of the group’s constitution and bylaws, and to examine the group’s books and financial report at a reasonable time and place, on prior notice. With those documents in hand you can verify everything else.

2. 2

   Step 2: Elections: every three years at most

   Between the constitution and the bylaws there must be provided periodic elections at intervals no greater than three (3) years, by direct, individual and secret vote, for electing its officers. Added to that are guarantees of the right to run for any elective post on equal terms with other members and officers, the right to nominate candidates and take part in the corresponding elections, and the right to participate effectively in the group’s affairs and activities.

3. 3

   Step 3: Members set the dues, and they can be challenged

   Two rights that go together. First, the right to set initiation and periodic dues, and their modification, by secret vote of an absolute majority of members. Second, the right to complain to the Department of Labor and Human Resources when they consider the initiation or periodic dues, or their modifications, unreasonable. That second right is a concrete door outside the group itself.

4. 4

   Step 4: Discipline requires specific charges and a hearing

   The right is to a disciplinary procedure assuring affected members notice of specific charges, time to prepare their defense and a fair and reasonable hearing with ample opportunity to defend themselves adequately. And a separate article closes the circle: groups may take disciplinary action against their members “following only the procedures previously established in their constitution or bylaws,” and only where the affected members have violated valid norms contained in one of those documents.

5. 5

   Step 5: You may sue even if the defendant is your own group

   It is written plainly: the right to bring judicial actions or proceedings before the Department of Labor and Human Resources, the Courts of Justice or Administrative Agencies, even where the agency or bona fide group itself or any of its officers appear as defendants or respondents.

6. 6

   Step 6: Testifying and speaking to a legislator is protected

   The right to testify in any judicial, administrative or legislative proceeding, and to petition the Legislature or communicate with any legislator, “without exposing themselves to any sanction or penalty by the bona fide group.” The closing phrase is what matters.

7. 7

   Step 7: The accounts: two different deadlines

   Do not confuse them. On one hand, the guarantee that a general report of the group’s operations, plus its balance sheet, certified by a certified public accountant, be circulated annually among the membership within sixty (60) days of the close of its annual operations. On the other, the group’s duty to send copies of its duly audited financial reports certified by a certified public accountant within one hundred twenty (120) days of the close, filing them with the Department of Labor and Human Resources — specifically with the Labor Union Services Bureau — and giving copies to members. In addition, every group shall keep books of account accurately and faithfully reflecting its transactions per generally accepted accounting principles, and shall keep for five (5) years the vouchers and documents evidencing them.

The Department of Labor and Human Resources is the door the law names twice: to complain about unreasonable dues and as one of the forums where a member may bring actions. The group’s financial reports are filed with that Department’s Labor Union Services Bureau. If your matter is a labor claim against the employer rather than the group, those are other guides.

• Not requesting the constitution and bylaws: the law gives you a right to a copy and they are the basis for everything else.
• Accepting discipline without specific charges, without time to prepare a defense or without a hearing.
• Accepting discipline for a norm not contained in the constitution or bylaws.
• Believing you cannot sue your own group: the law expressly allows it.
• Staying silent for fear of sanction for testifying or speaking to a legislator: the law protects it.
• Confusing the accounting deadlines: sixty days to circulate them among the membership, one hundred twenty to file them with the Department of Labor.

These are the government pages this guide is based on.

• Departamento del Trabajo y Recursos Humanos (DTRH)

  Departamento del Trabajo

  bvirtualogp.pr.gov

• Department of Labor and Human Resources

  DTRH

  www.trabajo.pr.gov