The EEA is the licensed negotiator for all « professional employees », including teachers employed by the Exeter School Board in the Exeter School District, representing approximately 260 teachers and staff throughout the district.   Of these employees, about 155 were employed for the sixth grade, middle and high school, and are affected by the creation of the cooperative district.   The Exeter School Board and the EEA completed a CBA from September 1, 1996 to August 31, 1999. « While each professional association usually negotiates with their respective school board, we have been able to work together to reach this joint agreement for the benefit of all students, teachers and staff in the district, » said Travis Thompson, Chair of the UAS 16 Joint Council. « Due to the unprecedented nature of this pandemic, we thought we needed to respond in an unprecedented way to allow educators to complete their work and support student learning while working remotely. » The tentative agreement also provided for an amended April break, which would take place from Wednesday, April 8 to Friday, April 10.  We believe that all employees in the bargaining unit of the successor cooperative district are subject to the terms of the collective agreement previously negotiated. Legally, the PELRB was wrong to exclude the nine and a half teachers from the cities of the region.   As noted in U.S. Fed Local 298, some changes need to be made after a successor employer has taken over the operation from its predecessor.   See American Fed`n Local 298, 116 N.H. at 668, 366 A.2d at 877.   In this case, the addition of sixth-grade teachers from area cities from a college to a college is one such change.

  Based on our review of the protocol, this change was a prerequisite, if not the underlying motivation, for the approval of the cooperative district.   Therefore, the collective bargaining unit needs to be expanded by nine and a half more teachers.   However, this minor change will not significantly alter the agreement.  Id. at 668, 366 A.2d at 877. The cities of Brentwood, East Kingston, Kensington, Newfields and Stratham (AREA towns) sent their students to the Exeter School District for students in grades seven to twelve under authorized regional enrolment agreements (AREA agreements), see RSA ch.   195-A (1989).   Seventh- and eighth-graders attended Exeter AREA Junior High School, while students in grades nine to twelfth attended EXEter AREA High School.

The cooperation agreement required the co-op council to offer employment to all teachers who teach grades six to twelfth in existing school districts.   As a result, all of the approximately 155 teachers and other professionals represented by the EEA, as well as all of the approximately nine and a half sixth-grade teachers from the towns in the region, were employed by the Cooperative Council as of 1 July 1997.   For example, about ninety-five percent of the cooperative district`s qualified staff were previously employed in the Exeter School District, which was a party of the CBA in question. An important objective of collective agreements is to avoid labour disputes between employers and employees by establishing the terms of the employment relationship.   These are conditions that both parties have accepted, and it is the understanding and expectation of the parties that they respect and are bound by these conditions. « During this crisis, distance learning is a necessary and temporary response that protects the health and safety of our students, members and their families, » said Megan Tuttle, President of NEA-NH. « We are pleased to enter into this agreement to ensure continuity and consistency in the education of our students and to recognize the important contribution of each educator, regardless of their job description. We look forward to achieving the same result in the counties of the state. We first address the question of whether the co-operative district is linked to the CBA as part of the analysis of the respite employer.   The general rule that an ordinary contract binds the non-consenting successors of a contracting party « does not apply to a collective agreement that purports to regulate all aspects of the complex relationship between employer and employee ».   American Fed`n Local 298 v. City of Manchester, 116 N.H.

665, 667, 366 A.2d 874, 876 (1976). Fourth, we consider that the public is served.   In this case, there is perfect symmetry between the municipalities that participated in the AREA agreements and the municipalities that participated in the cooperative district.   In the co-operative district, the AREA towns, which had previously sent students enrolled to the Exeter School District, now have a voice in the administration and administration of the co-operative district.   The only difference is the admission of grade six students to the co-operative district. If the employment relationship does not change much, this continuity promotes the expectations of the parties to the collective agreement and is desirable because it maintains the stability of the employment relationship between the parties. In Hollis/Brookline Cooperative Support Staff Association/NEA-NH & a. v. Hollis/Brookline Cooperative School Board, No. 91-31 (PELRB 1 June 1991), pelrb noted that a cooperative council was linked to a previously negotiated ABC after the school district was transformed from an AREA agreement into a cooperative district.   In this case, the PELRB identified many appropriate factors, namely: employment opportunities for current teaching staff, operations in the same facilities, training of the same student population and continuity of management.

The petitioner, SAU #16 Cooperative School Board (Cooperative Board), is appealing the decision of the New Hampshire Public Employee Labor Relations Board (PELRB) stating that the new Exeter Regional Cooperative School District is bound by the existing collective agreement (CBA) between the Exeter School Board and the Exeter Education Association (EEA).   We affirm in part and in part we overthrow.  It is obvious that during the vote on the conversion of the AREA agreements into a cooperative district, voters in AREA cities were informed of the extent of the financial burden of tuition fees under the AREA agreements.   Prior to the cooperation agreement, all area towns paid tuition fees to the Exeter School District to train their middle and high school students.   Following the conversion of an AREA agreement into a co-operative district, the same staff (formerly employed by the Exeter School Board and now by the Co-operative Board) provide the same services to students in the same communities under the AREA Agreement and the Co-operative District.   Without the approval of the cooperation agreement, voters in cities in the region would still have been obliged to bear the costs of the CBA as included in the tuition fees paid to the Exeter School District under the AREA agreements.   As a result of the facts of this case, the area cities implicitly ratified the cost items within the CBA when they approved the proposal for the cooperative district as a legal issue.   See Sanborn, 133 N.H. at 520, 579 A.2d at 286.

  If the municipalities identical in an AREA agreement vote in favour of conversion to a cooperative district and the cooperative district is a successor employer, the electors implicitly ratify the cost items of the existing CBA, which binds the successor employer.   See RSA 195:6, I (column.1997). In March 1996, voters in Exeter and the towns in the region approved, with effect from 1 July 1997, a proposal to convert the AREA agreements for pupils in grades seven to twelfth into a cooperative district for grades six to twelfth.   See RSA 195:18 (1989 & Supp.1997) (amended 1996);  RSA 195-A:15, I (1989).   The cooperation agreement stipulates that pupils in grades six to eight in Exeter and the towns in the region attend a co-operative college and that pupils in grades nine to twelfth attend a co-operative high school.   The Co-operative District agreed to purchase the Exeter School And College High School and College, including the land, buildings, facilities and equipment. Although the co-operative council correctly argues that the co-operative district is a new entity, see RSA 195:5,:6 (1989) (modified in 1996), the district does not differ so much that the employees, management and educational services of the former school district for middle and high school students cannot be identified.   Although the Co-operative District offers expanded educational services to a larger student population, it is based on the same core of EEA teachers and pupils from middle and high schools in Exeter and the region`s cities.   On the basis of the facts of the present case, the administrative restructuring of the AREA agreements into a cooperative district did not significantly alter the working conditions of the workers. .