Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: Good afternoon. Welcome in to the senate government, committee on government operations meeting of Tuesday, 02/10/2026. We have a couple of bills out for a walkthrough today. The first of which is S two sixty four, and we have both, sponsored with us. One is in committee, and we're happy to be joined as well by senator, Isha Ram Tinsdale. And then we'll have, Sophie walk through the, specifics of the bill. Obviously, you know everybody. Senator Morley is not with us today. He'll be back relatively soon. And so welcome in, and maybe you can kinda give us the background on this.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: Yeah. Thank you. For the record, senator Keisha Rutland Southeast, and one of the two lead sponsors of s two sixty four. S two sixty four is a new iteration on a bill and a concept that have been around for several years now. So we the overarching premise is that we have looked at a lot of ways to confer bargaining power, the right to collectively bargain and form a union to lots of different workers in the state. We sometimes have very specific need to grant that permission and authority. And oftentimes when we do that, we we are giving that broad permission, and the labor relations board, our state labor relations board is there to to figure out all of the very fine details. It would take it would consume a lot of our time to do something that's a quasi judicial process, in fact, to figure out who can be part of the bargaining unit, who cannot be part of the bargaining unit, how that affects both labor relations and people's line of of work and their duty to each of the departments they might work in if we're talking about the attorney general's office. So they have a, you know, more more complicated reporting structure than, you know, say, a traditional union where you have a chunk of workers and an employer that you're bargaining with. But it's nothing too complicated for the Vermont Labor Relations Board to figure out. You know, I don't I I hope this doesn't necessarily need a full forty five minutes just from me or or Sophie, although I'm very grateful that Sophie was part of the back and forth with some of the assistant attorney generals who really operated in good faith with the leadership of the attorney general's office to figure out what were legitimate concerns that might need to be spelled out and and parameters created around in the bill, and what simply wasn't it wasn't going to be a fruitful exercise for us as legislators to try and account for in advance, that really would be better left to the Vermont Labor Relations Board. The Vermont Labor Relations Board could ultimately decide there is no way for a union to be formed if x, y, or z aren't satisfied. But that's where it becomes quasi judicial. You know, that's where we're we're deciding whether or not they can take advantage of a right that we are, you know, putting forth to promoters in our constitutional amendment this November about everyone's right to collectively bargain. You know? But the legislature, I believe, should just be empowering this process to move forward and not really make it much more complicated than that. The anything that's more complicated than what you see before us is not really our jurisdiction or nor is it helpful, frankly, for us to try and sort all of that out here. That's why we have a labor relations board.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson]: Okay. Senator Clarkson. So we spent a lot of time on this last year. Yeah. How is this proposal different from what we looked at last year?

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: Let's let Sophie walk through that because she was part of the you know, there were details where it was sort of this is the the last place where it makes sense for the state for the legislature to set some language in in statute, and then the rest is, you know, a matter for the labor relations board. So I I've heard it.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson]: Okay. So Does this defer the decision to the labor relations board after they review all the possibilities of of

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: I mean, this unless when we unless we grant permission for the assistant attorney generals as we have with assistant states attorneys

[Sen. Alison Clarkson]: Right.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: To move forward with their proposal for collective bargaining, they don't have the Got ability to go toward labor

[Sen. Alison Clarkson]: it. So step one is the legislative approval. Mhmm. And step two is going to the labor relations board. Mhmm. Okay. We'll go through this with Stephanie.

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: Yes. Anybody else have questions for And

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: I so I would oh, another witness I would recommend is David McLean, who spoke in our committee and who did a lot of that final work with the AG's office to figure out where their concerns were with how this would unfold and how to put that into draft language.

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: Senator White.

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White]: Thank you, mister chair. So my only question would be just for you as both of you being the bill sponsors. So this was created in conjunction with working with the assistants as well. So you worked, if it was all kind of come together with everyone being aware of the bill, or is there a specific segment of the population of director, assistant, attorney generals who want this? I guess I'm just wondering, like, what's the what's the group of people who you work with to advocate for this?

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: Okay. So and it started as one sentence. Right? So it's been in our committee in in the labor committee for for two biennia as one sentence. Yeah. You know? Should they so choose, essentially, assistant attorney generals have the right to collectively bargain. That turned into a lot of testimony, I think, from the players that might want to testify in here. One thing that I believe we heard on the record is that for many younger assistant attorney generals, they don't really wanna come forward and be vocal necessarily on this bill. They don't wanna be seen as advocating because they have long career trajectories ahead of them. I think it took a lot for David McClain to to become a public advocate for this bill, and you can hear him him speak for that himself in that, you know, he this has been a conversation through many attorney generals. This was it was not start and end with our current attorney general. It's been a long conversation. They never know who's gonna be the leader of that office from from election to election. They are being asked to do more as more things go to court and we attach ourselves to more national court cases. They you know, it's it it once upon a time, it was seen as a stepping stone elsewhere, a feather in your cap, and that meant you might be able to pay less, more work people more hours, you know, but they essentially don't have the ability to negotiate or bargain for their, you know, wages, hours, conditions of work. And that, I think, the more they're asked to do is becoming more of a strain and, you know, it's for them high time that they be able to accomplish this.

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White]: So I guess I was just wondering more, did you work with a specific union to help craft this bill in any way? Identified if they could organize someone?

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: VSCA. Okay.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: I mean, VSCA and AFL CIO have been involved in the language in the past. Okay. It's it's I don't know that it the VSEA would have to speak that to whether it's guaranteed that they would be I mean, don't know that anything's guaranteed, but that they would be part of the same employees union. You know, this will involve complex negotiating tables because some AGs are in the AG's office, some are embedded Now

[Sen. Alison Clarkson]: you're embedded

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White]: in Yeah.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson]: That's kind

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: of what I would say. So their the labor relations board could decide that some assistant AGs are excluded from the union. So or that they have to form their own union. Hence, we end up with, like, a judicial bill for permit. I mean, our committee ends up looking at a lot of permissions or passing it to you when it's state negotiating because it it could be very complicated. Like, this happened with childcare partners, etcetera.

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White]: And is this coming here because you have passed it out of senate economic development and we're hearing about it? Or it's why is it why are we

[Sen. Alison Clarkson]: hearing about it here? We have made a decision to to ask it to move last year as the eye of the fall. And then now it's being introduced as a separate and that's what we agreed to do to introduce it a separate Right.

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White]: Okay. There was some interest in our

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: case. Yeah. That's why we support favorability toward that. Yeah.

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White]: It's like, oh, we had But

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: we wanted to honor that they as AG's office has very complicated relationship with the rest of state government. And if they wanted to make a pitch that was heard differently here, that it was too complicated, they could make that pitch here with a bill that tried to address any remaining concerns that weren't Labor Relations Board concerns.

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White]: Okay. Thank you. That you there's a long runway for this bill.

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: What? Senator Vyhovsky?

[Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: Well, and I I do think it is important, you know, you as well know, not every AAG was spoken to dismiss permission for them to vote to join the union. Would point every AKG would have a vote

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: in doing that.

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White]: Well said. Yeah. And I really appreciate you explaining how the labor board should be. But there's certain things we shouldn't get too deep in on

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: that And could that's where our committee felt we were at a bit of an impasse because we, you know, the labor relations board doesn't move too quickly. It's not seen as overtly political. They have negotiated, you know, they've been part of hard negotiations for the creation of creative bargaining units before or ones that don't look traditional. And so we feel that there's nothing that should preclude this from a labor relate this going to the labor relations board. I would say our committee never felt like this is too much. But given the concern about how how AAGs are embedded in every state agency, we felt it was appropriate for you all to have a look at this and it more be your jurisdiction. I should

[Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: know this, but maybe you do. The AAGs that are embedded in state organizations, they're embedded in state organizations whose employees are unionized.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson]: Yes. Yes. Though they are not. It's not organizations, it's departments in

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: it. Right.

[Sen. Rebecca "Becca" White]: Not. But

[Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: I think, I just, it just sort of occurred to me that, like, we're having the conversation and, like, they're working already. The departments are Yeah.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: They're they're very much left out of bargaining, and they work very hard, long hours alongside many other hardworking state employees, and they have never had the opportunity to even discuss what a bargaining unit would look like.

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: How many assistant attorneys general ever? A lot.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: I wanna say, like, in

[Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: the century. 150. Think about 100.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: Yeah. Yeah. It was it was over a 100 and something like that.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson]: Yeah. More than there were deputy state's attorneys who this is a bit fashioned on. Mhmm. Who we moved to be allowed to join the union if they wanted.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: Right. So you could even hear from, I mean, we have assistant AGs who were states attorneys, who had unionized assistant states attorneys who felt things went very smoothly, who may at least even be willing to speak from that perspective. This is not sort of completely out of the box. And, you know, I think it's incumbent upon us as legislators who passed the constitutional amendment unanimously, even if it hasn't gone to the voters yet, to look at how to enable more collective bargaining rather than be the ones interfering with the drug limiting. Okay.

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: I know your other afternoon committee is mutually engaged this

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: Well, that's true, and then I could come back at 02:15.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson]: That's that's probably the exception.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: Mhmm. Yeah.

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: I'm sorry. That was bad planning on my part, maybe.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: No. It's alright because now I have a before, it was, like, a fifteen minute window, but I don't think you need me with Sophie here.

[Sen. Alison Clarkson]: Oh, okay.

[Sen. Kesha Ram Hinsdale]: And with other people. Yeah, we can understand.

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: Thank you. Thanks. So, Sophie, welcome.

[Sophie Sedatney (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Good afternoon. Sophie Sedatney for the Office of Legislative Council. Do I have permission to share my screen? Sure. Okay. So, yeah, just a couple of things. Originally, was a bill last session that was in Senate Economic Development, and it simply was a one liner that you'll see as we go through this bill. There's some language around who's an employee for purposes of the state employee labor relations act, and it would have just simply added in assistant attorneys general, but it didn't it didn't otherwise address them through the rest of the statute. So just by way of quick background, Vermont has seven different labor relations statutes. The one that I think the legislature most often is dealing with is the State Employee Labor Relations Act or CELRA. That's the one that covers state employees. It covers UVM and the Vermont State Colleges. And then, as noted, it more recently covered state's attorneys' offices and sheriffs. So the purpose of, for this bill, as opposed to the one liner that was in the bill last session, which I believe may also be in here, I'm not sure, was to address sort of through the whole of the estate employee neighbor relations act, assistant attorneys general. So rather than just leaving it open ended, like, would where would SARA needed to be amended to include the the attorney general's office and the assistant attorneys general? So that's essentially what this bill seeks to do. And, it's largely modeled on what happened with the state's attorneys and sheriffs, because that was one of the criticisms, I think, that came up last session was before we've done a you know, the legislature has enacted you know, has addressed a lot of these issues in in statute, and you haven't done that with this one liner of a bill. So this is the thing to correct that. So these initial sections here are all under the State's Employee Labor Relations Act, And again, this goes to, you know, who can collectively bargain onto CELRA, and this would add in the office of the attorney general and their representatives of employees. It would be on the first page. And moving to the second page, Again, this is the definition of a state employee, and again, it would add in individuals employed on a permanent or limited status basis by the office of the attorney general. Then there's just the way statutes get written. So normally for, largely for the state employees, you're exempt from inclusion as a state employee if you're outside of the state classified service, and then it gets listed in the exceptions to that. So the state police, the employees of the offender general, and then this would add in assistant attorneys general because they're excluded from the state classified service. So this just explicitly provides that exclusion. They're accepted from that exclusion. I'm just gonna touch as you go through this. You'll see this is the list of employees who are not able to collectively bargain. And so here under c, it says employed as the legal assistant to the attorney general. So generally speaking with with unions, you can't have supervisors, managers, confidential employees in bargaining units. So this is just an example of the legal assistant to the attorney general would be excluded from a bargaining unit. And as you go through this, again, under f, managerial employees, and then further down here, we've got k, employees, confidential employees. And again, those are decisions that the labor relations board makes. So ultimately, if you have a a unit that comes forward that wants to be certified, the employer will typically be like, well, you know, senator Collamore shouldn't be in it, senator Clarkson shouldn't be in it, and the labor relations board will then look at, well, are they managerial supervisory, or financial employees?

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: So did you have a question here?

[Sen. Alison Clarkson]: No. I just it's Right. They do the review and the and then make a determination.

[Sophie Sedatney (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Right. So so this is and I think senator Ron Hinsdale touched on this. This would allow assistant attorney generals generally Right. To decide whether they want to organize and collectively bargain. It wouldn't require them to do so. It would be a vote or a card check. So if a majority of assistant attorney generals don't think this would be in their best interest, they would, you know, vote no, I don't want to move forward. I don't want to have an election. I don't want a card check. But once once a unit has been identified, then the Labor Relations Board would look at whether it's an appropriate unit, and we'll get into that a little bit as we go through this. So again, under the definition of employer under SRO, this would add in the office of the attorney general, represented by the attorney general or a designee. And so these, again, these are all definitional at the beginning here in section one. Section two, management rights, and again, this is just for consistency purposes, just adding in the attorney general or designee for the office of the attorney general acts as the employer in representing the attorney general's office when doing collective bargaining negotiations and administering the contract. So I'm gonna highlight this language here at the top of page five. The rep this is the current language. The representative shall be responsible for ensuring consistency in the terms and conditions in various agreements throughout the state service and ensuring compatibility with merit system statutes and principles, and shall not agree to any terms or conditions for which there are not adequate funds available. This language, obviously, was originally drafted when it was just state employees that were covered by SARA, and now we've got all these additional folks that are covered by it. But what this language is requiring is that the representatives, so again, just going back up here, we'd be adding in the attorney general or the attorney general's designee, they have to be in a position to be able to ensure that the agreement can be, you know, enacted on. And I think this is something that you might hear about from the attorney general's office, is just going back to what Senator Rav Hinsdale was saying. The attorney generals, the assistant attorney generals are quite complex, and which isn't to say there aren't other very complex organizations that are unionized in the state, but I think this is one of the places where there's going to be a question as to who's actually got that sort of supervisory control over the assistant attorney generals, because right now they report up in different structures in the state. So I just flag that as something that I think will be, you know, need

[Sen. Alison Clarkson]: to be by the agency's office.

[Sophie Sedatney (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Right. And, again, just section three, again, managerial supervisory confident confidential employees are typically excluded. And so this just adds some language and see here that, again, the attorney general can determine which of the positions they believe should be designated as, you know, not being able to be part of a union. And then if there were disputes over that, then that gets resolved by the board. So that's what that language requires at the end of section three. Moving on to section four. This also is included in here just as a similar language included for the state's attorney's offices. This is saying that assistant attorney general shall be part of one or more statewide bargaining units. So, it could be that the labor relations board, assuming, you know, their support from assistant attorney generals to move forward, we want to organize and collectively bargain. It could be that the Vermont Labor Relations Board might make a determination that it is or it is not appropriate to have them all in this in a single bargaining unit. It could be that, you know, if you're working in, I don't know, the Department of Health and Human Services, those, you know, those folks should be in a separate unit. I mean, and that's, again, that all gets determined by the labor relations board. The parties submit briefs. It gets fully briefed as hearings, etcetera. So I just, again, flag that for you.

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: So so I could lines ten, eleven, and 12. Maybe it's just a grammatical differentiation. It it read first when I read it, that they could be in more than one bargaining unit, but I think it it really means that as soon as the board deems appropriate which bargaining unit in other words, the the plural bargaining units doesn't mean necessarily there, a particular individual could be in more than one, it's just when the board says this is the one that seems most appropriate, that's the one that they should be in. Am I reading that right?

[Sophie Sedatney (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Yes, I mean typically you're only in one bargaining unit. So, yeah, this is really just and again, this is mimicking the language that was that is currently in state law for the state's attorney's offices.

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: Sarah Vyhovsky?

[Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: Well, and I imagine, and correct me if I'm wrong, but I am sort of reading the bargaining units would be in the instance like what Saurabhovaran Hindsdale was talking about where maybe the embedded AAGs, it's deemed, it makes more sense for them to be part of that department's bargaining unit.

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: Yeah.

[Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: So it's allowing the broader group to maybe be in different units, but not an individual. Yes? I mean,

[Sophie Sedatney (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I I again, we can talk maybe now is a good time to talk about this. So generally, the Labor Relations Board looks at, there are specific criteria they look at in determining what's an appropriate unit. And it doesn't have to be a perfect unit. The, you know, the the union or the group that's organized, the employees who are interested in in bargaining, what they come up with will generally be given deference by the Labor Relations Board unless it's inappropriate. So in other words, it doesn't have to be the best definition of a unit. But what the board is going to look at is the authority of the employer at the unit level to take positive actions on subject on matters subject to negotiation. And, again, that's where there may be a question as to the authority of the attorney general versus the authority of, you know, directors, commissioners, etcetera, state agencies. The community of interest, so how similar are the interests or how different are the interests of the folks in the group? And I just raised that, senator Vyhovsky, because I think it probably unlikely that lawyers embedded in an agency would be considered to have a community of interest with other people in that agency. Right? But, again, that's something that the board could look at. And then the other piece that the board looks at is something called over fragmentation. So they don't want to have, you know, teeny tiny little units, you know, three people here and two people there and four people over here if there's a way to, you know, have a bigger unit. Just it's just more efficient than if someone's got to negotiate with multiple tiny units. So those tend to be the things that they're going to look at. But again, a unit isn't required to be the most appropriate unit as long as it's an appropriate unit. It doesn't have to be the very last one. Moving on. So this is really, again, now just getting back into just simply adding in. So we're on section five, which is this is the when there's parties reaching impasse of negotiations and they they can't get any further, they've sat around the table and they just can't they can't get the negotiation wrapped up, the way the state employee labor relations act works is there's multiple steps that the parties then go through. So you get to you get to an impasse. You you go to mediation. If the parties can't agree after working with a mediator, then you go to nonbinding fact finding. Mhmm. If the parties can't agree after they've got the fact finder's report, then they go to last best offer, and that can be either in front of the labor relations board or in front of an arbitrator. So this is simply just adding in the attorney general's office to the language around that process. So just a way to look at this as we go through. So, again, this is just saying if if the dispute remains unresolved, then, you know, let's just add the office of the attorney general in here. And, again, the last best offer language. That's just a a graphical fix on line six there. And again, so what's what's this was a relatively recent change that came up in CELRA. It used to be that last best offer. Again, this is a a mechanism to force the parties to get as close together to reach as much compromise as they can. So last best offer is each party puts forward its final best proposal, and the goal is then that the either the board or an arbitrator then picks whichever one is the best. And but there's more recently, there was language allowing the board, if if it considers that neither last best offer is reasonable or or will produce undesirable results, they can pick the fact finder report. So it's just a third option if they don't like either party's decision. So again, I'm just working my way through here. These are all, again, just simply adding in the Office of the Attorney General, just to be consistent through the language of the State Employees Labor Relations Act. This gets into, so we're at page 11, this gets into the funding piece, Right? And, again, this is just to be consistent with with the current language. So just moving back up here to make clear that so if so under 09/25 I I just wanna make sure I got this correct. Nine twenty five I is what we just talked about, the last best offer before the board before arbitration. So if you don't arrive at that, so in other words, if you settle something before that and an agreement gets ratified, then that gets submitted to the governor and the general. So this, again, is just really adding in to make sure it's consistent. So agreements between the office of the attorney general and the certified bargaining units that have not arrived at under the last best offer, etcetera, shall, after ratification by the appropriate union memberships, be submitted to the governor and the general assembly. And this is to do is to make sure that there's sufficient funds. The attorney general shall request sufficient funds from the general assembly to implement the agreement, and then it just goes through, and again, this is just consistent. This is just treating the Attorney General's office the same way as other employers under CELRO. Now starting with section seven, this now is we're not looking any longer at CELRA. This is looking at the language in title three that deals with the attorney general's office. So this is what the authority, the statutory authority that the Attorney General currently has. So the Attorney General may appoint such Assistant Attorney Generals and Special Assistant Attorney Generals as may be necessary for the proper and efficient performance of the department, and with the approval of the governor, fix their pay. And this just adds in the including collective bargaining pursuant to chapter 27, which is the State Employees Labor Relations Act of this title, if applicable, remove them at pleasure and be responsible for their act. So this just adds in, again, this language suggests that the attorney general is responsible for making sure that department functions efficiently, fixing pay, and, you know, hiring and firing of of assistant attorney generals. And, again, this would provide that the attorney general would prepare a funding request to the government and general assembly, you know, to the extent there's additional costs involved related to collective bargaining. And then add some additional language for for the initial contract, like, the first time around, so it would be in session law, would be to submit a funding request. And, if the either through the regular budget or through the Budget Adjustment Act. So that is a quick overview of

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: what's proposed. Was there any sort of fiscal note attached to the funding request? In other words, I think Senator Vyhovsky said there's about a 100 AAGs. If all of them chose to jump into a bargaining unit, and the funding for that has to come from the general assembly, We we had numbers run if members of the general assembly took the insurance that's offered to state employees, what the fiscal impact would be to the budget. Was there anything in this particular bill that mirrored that?

[Sophie Sedatney (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: No. So, I mean, that would be something I assume you could request from the Toronto fiscal office. And then just to clarify, so if you have 50% plus one of the potential bargaining unit is supportive of unionizing Mhmm. Then all of them would be covered by the collective bargaining agreement. It's not as if they can say, I don't you know, that's great, but I don't belong. If if 50% plus one are supportive of it, whether that's through an election or through card check, then all of them would be covered and bound by the contract. Okay. But, yeah, and again, think it would, I mean, obviously, you should request from a joint fiscal office if that would be helpful. But generally speaking, they won't know because nothing's been negotiated as to, you know, what the impact would be, because they don't know what the terms of a potential collective bargaining agreement would be, whether it would be higher wages or a change in the pay rate or I mean, there would be many different things that come up. I don't think health insurance would be one of them because that's already That's already decided, right, they're covered by the state health insurance. So but it would be around things like, you know, pay grades and and salaries and increases

[Sen. Alison Clarkson]: Just as the pay grade. Anyway, obviously, the AG will come in and testify. Yes. The the consistent pay grades would be an interesting as the pay goes, I can't remember if the if the compensation for the assistant AG depends on the compensation in that department or agency that they serve, then obviously they're a crowd that work for the AG directly.

[Sophie Sedatney (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: Yeah. And there was I I remember there made an testimony in the in the last spring around the numbers, where they're located across state agencies, and I think there was information about pay scales and stuff in there, so maybe there's enough information that Draymond's School Office could at least extrapolate out some potential hypothalicums of what that could look like.

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: Any questions for Sonia Sztaztygowski?

[Sen. Tanya Vyhovsky (Vice Chair)]: I don't actually, my question is not for Sonia Sztaztygowski. No. There was someone else in the room that I think can answer it. It was one of the questions that came up, maybe you can answer it, when Senator Romaine Stoke was here, would the FCA be the, I mean, it's the obvious choice, but would that be the only choice, or would

[Sophie Sedatney (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: that be decided by labor group? Well, no, that would be decided by the by the AAGs. So if they if they are interested now, usually, a union will work with a potential bargaining group, right, to inform about what their rights are to get ready for election or card check. So usually there is a union in the background, but, I mean, under the State of the Labor Relations Act, the AAGs could, you know, could choose what union they want to work with. Again, I do believe the VSCA has been, you know, I think last session when the previous bill was under discussion, I think that the VSEA was involved in that. This was not, this draft bill was not done in coordination with the VSA, it was done in coordination, as Sattra Graham Hensdale said, with someone from an AAG. Yep. It turned out that the, it wasn't quite true for sure. I'm sure Tom will jump in if I get it completely wrong.

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: Any other questions? Okay, are you back with us later or not? No?

[Sophie Sedatney (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: I don't think so. That's all for Sorry, Senate okay.

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: Thank you, Sophie. Always good to see you.

[Sophie Sedatney (Office of Legislative Counsel)]: All right, well thank you very much.

[Sen. Brian Collamore (Chair)]: So let me suggest the, committee take a fifteen minute break, and we'll be back, to talk about S-two 97. I believe our committee assistant has provided committee members with an updated agenda. We added a couple more witnesses to that and also some of the girls we're gonna take up later this week. Anyway, let's take a fifteen minute break, and we will be back.