§ 362. Definitions

(a) “agreement” means a contract or other written instrument setting forth mutual promises between the public employer and an exclusive representative which is final and binding;

(b) “arbitration” means the procedure whereby a dispute is irrevocably submitted to a third party voluntarily or involuntarily for a final and binding decision;

(c) “appropriate bargaining unit”, “bargaining unit”, or “unit” means a group of employees, as determined by the Public Employees Relations Board pursuant to section 370 of this chapter, who may band together to elect an employee organization to represent them in the process of collective bargaining;

(d) “certification” means official recognition by the Public Employees Relations Board pursuant to section 372 of this chapter;

(e) “collective bargaining” means the process of negotiations between the public employer and an employee organization to agree in writing on the wages, hours and other terms and conditions of employment;

(f) “dues” means an amount paid by an employee to an employee organization for the rights and privileges of membership therein;

(g) “employee” or “public employee” means any person holding a position by appointment or employment in the service of a public employer, but does not include:

• (1) persons holding elective office;

• (2) political appointees exempt from the classified service by paragraph (8), subsection (b), section 451a of Title 3 of this Code;

• (3) employees of the Legislature;

• (4) judges in the judicial branch;

• (5) Radiologists, anesthesiologists, psychiatrists, pulmonologists and critical care physicians in the Governor Juan F. Luis Hospital and Medical Center and the Roy Lester Schneider Hospital and Community Health Care Center.

(h) “employee organization”, “labor organization”, or “labor union” means any organization of any kind or any agency or employee representation committee or plan, in which employees participate and which exists for the purpose, in whole or in part, of dealing with employers concerning grievances, labor disputes, wages, rates of pay, hours of employment, or conditions of work;

(i) “employer” or “public employer” means the executive branch of the Government of the Virgin Islands and any agency or instrumentality thereof including, but not limited to, the Virgin Islands Port Authority, the Virgin Islands Water and Power Authority, the Virgin Islands Housing Authority, the University of the Virgin Islands, the Economic Development Bank and the Virgin Islands Public Broadcasting System;

(j) “exclusive representative” means an employee organization which has been certified by the Public Employees Relations Board pursuant to section 372 of this chapter;

(k) “impasse” means an apparent inability of the parties involved in collective bargaining to reach an agreement;

(l) “mediation” means assistance by an impartial third party, through interpretation, and presentation of options, to bring the parties to a voluntary resolution of their dispute;

(m) “Public Employees Relations Board” or “PERB” means the Board created by section 364 of this chapter;

(n) “professional employee” means:

• (1) any employee engaged in work (i) predominantly intellectual and varied in character as opposed to routine mental, manual, mechanical, or physical work; (ii) involving the consistent exercise of discretion and judgment in its performance; (iii) of such a character that the output produced or the result accomplished cannot be standardized in relation to a given period of time; (iv) requiring knowledge of an advanced type in a field of science or learning customarily acquired by a prolonged course of specialized intellectual instruction and study in an institution of higher learning or a hospital, as distinguished from a general academic education or from an apprenticeship or from training in the performance of routine mental, manual, or physical processes; or

• (2) any employee, who (i) has completed the courses of specialized intellectual instruction and study described in clause (iv) of paragraph (1), and (ii) is performing related work under the supervision of a professional person to qualify himself to become a professional employee as defined in paragraph (1).

(o) “strike” means the deliberate and concerted action of public employees to neglect to perform their duties, their willful absenting of themselves collectively from their work stations, their collective stoppage of work, or their collective abstinence in whole or in part from the full, faithful and proper performance of their duties for the purpose of inducing or influencing a change in the condition, compensation, rights, privileges, or obligations of their employment;

(p) “supervisory employee” means any individual having authority in the interest of the employer to hire, transfer, suspend, lay-off, recall, promote, discharge, assign, or discipline other employees, or responsibility to assign work and direct them, or to adjust their grievances, or effectively to recommend such action, if, in connection with the foregoing, the exercise of such authority is not of a merely routine or clerical nature, but requires independent judgment.

(q) “Confidential employee” means only those persons who assist and act in a confidential capacity to persons who formulate, determine, and effectuate management policies in the field of labor relations, as determined by the Public Employees Relations Board pursuant to section 370 of this chapter.

(r) “Managerial employee” means only those employees who:

• (i) participate to a substantial degree in formulating and determining policy; or

• (ii) participate to a substantial degree in formulating and determining policy in the area of collective bargaining on behalf of the public employer, as determined by the Public Employees Relations Board pursuant to section 370 of this chapter.