Category: Legislation

Several bills affecting PERB are awaiting action by the Governor: SB 1085: Requires public employers to grant reasonable leaves of absence to employees to serve as stewards or officers of the union.  The union must reimburse the public employer for all compensation paid to the employee. AB 2305: Brings peace officer unions under PERB's jurisdiction. I previously wrote about the status of this bill here and here. AB 2886: Brings the Orange County Transportation Authority and the San Joaquin Regional Transit District under PERB's jurisdiction. AB 3034:  Brings the supervisory units of the San Francisco Bay Area Rapid Transit District under PERB's…

Yesterday, the Governor signed SB 846 which protects unions and public employers against lawsuits seeking the payment of agency fees collected prior to the Janus decision.  (Click here for the SacBee article on this bill.) The law adds Government Code section 1159 which provides that it is a "complete defense" to such lawsuits if the fees were collected pursuant to state law - which they all were. According to the Legislature, public employees who paid agency fees prior to June 27, 2018—the date of the Janus decision—had no legitimate expectation of receiving that money under any available cause of action. Therefore unions and…

AB 2305 passed the Legislature on August 27, 2018, and currently awaits action by the Governor.  I previously wrote about this bill here.  In short, AB 2305 would eliminate the carve-out for peace officer unions and bring them under the jurisdiction of PERB, while continuing the carve-out for peace officer individuals.  It will be interesting to see what the Governor does since he previously vetoed AB 530, a similar version of the bill. When I first wrote about this bill, one of my complaints was that the supporters of this bill were characterizing it as a codification of existing law based…