(a) Employees shall have the right to self-organization; to form, join, or assist employee organizations; to bargain collectively through representatives of their own choice, and to engage in concerted activities for the purpose of collective bargaining or other mutual aid or protection, and shall also have the right to refrain from any or all such activities, except as provided in subsections (b) and (c) of this section, and to appeal grievances as provided in this chapter.

(b) A State employee may not strike or recognize a picket line of an employee or labor organization while in the performance of his or her official duties.

(c) An employee who exercises the right not to join the employee organization representing the employee's collective bargaining unit shall pay the collective bargaining service fee to the representative of the bargaining unit in the same manner as employees who pay membership fees to the representative. The employee organization shall indemnify and hold the employer harmless from any and all claims stemming from the implementation or administration of the collective bargaining service fee. Nothing in this section shall require an employer to discharge an employee who does not pay the collective bargaining service fee.

(d) All employers, their officers, agents, and employees or representatives shall exert every reasonable effort to make and maintain agreements concerning matters allowable under section 904 of this title and to settle all disputes, whether arising out of the application of those agreements or growing out of any dispute between the employer and the employees thereof. (Added 1969, No. 113, § 1; amended 1971, No. 193 (Adj. Sess.), § 6; 1993, No. 227 (Adj. Sess.), § 28; 2013, No. 37, § 2.)