CONCORD, N.H. -- An out-of-state police union that persuaded employees at the New Hampshire Fish and Game Department and Highway Patrol to leave the State Employees' Association last year now wants to sign up state prison workers.
The New England Police Benevolent Association said it has the necessary support from employees. The union, based in Lowell, Mass., filed a petition with the state this month seeking to represent corrections officers and supervisors.
The petition does not explain why prison staff want to change unions. When Fish and Game and Highway Patrol staff switched last year, employees said they disliked their new contract provision requiring everyone to pay union dues, and they believed they could get better representation from a union focused on law enforcement.
There are at least 650 dues-paying union members at the prison.
SEA President Gary Smith believes the petition, which was filed July 9 with the state Public Employee Labor Relations Board, is illegal. He said it was filed too late to meet this year's deadline and too early for next year's.
Smith said he doesn't believe the union has support from at least 30 percent of the employees, as required.
Smith said he's heard from several prison employees who said they signed paperwork for the New England Police Benevolent Association believing it meant only that they would get more information about what the association could do for them. They have since learned, Smith said, that their signatures were used to reach the required 30 percent support.
Mark Jordan, a corrections officer at the Concord prison and president of the prison's union chapter, said he's heard the same complaints from his co-workers.
"Their signatures were used against their knowledge," Jordan said. "The indication is that there are a lot of people who are very angry."
When the SEA files its challenge to the association's petition on July 24, it will argue that point, as well as its concerns about the deadline. Smith said either of those points should defeat the petition.
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