Court and Public Employment Relations Board (PERB) decisions, commentary on California public sector labor relations

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PERB Updates Website to Provide Recent Factfinder Reports

Factfinding continues to be of major interest to MMBA employers.  One of the best ways to get a feel for factfinding is to review factfinding reports.  PERB has recently updated the available factfinding reports on its website.  (Click here to view them.)  There are now 14 separate MMBA factfinding decisions available for review.  I know of at least one other completed report and several more are in the works. My understanding is that there have been over 70 requests for factfinding under the MMBA since the enactment of AB 646.  Not all the requests result in a factfinding report since often times the…

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AB 765: Allows All Peace Officers in a Single Unit Under EERA

SB 765 was introduced by Senator Block on February 22, 2013.  As introduced, it was a spot bill making only technical changes to EERA.  On April 1, the bill was amended to add the following to EERA section 3545: (d) Notwithstanding subdivision (e), a district that employs full-time peace officers, as that term is defined in Chapter 4.5 (commencing with Section 830) of Title 3 of Part 2 of the Penal Code, the district and the board shall not prohibit an employee who is a full-time peace officer from joining or participating in employee organizations and negotiating units that are…

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AB 616 and AB 537: Effort Continues to Turn MMBA into EERA/HEERA

AB 616 was introduced by Assemblymember Bocanegra on February 20, 2013.  It was initially a spot bill making technical changes to the MMBA but was drastically amended on March 19, 2013.  As amended, AB 616 would make the following significant changes to the MMBA: Extend the union’s time to request factfinding if there is no mediation to 60 days, instead of 30 days; Allow a party to dispute the declaration of impasse by submitting a challenge to PERB, which would have 5 working days from receipt of the challenge to issue a decision; Adopt EERA’s definition of impasse:  “that the parties to a…

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PERB: Employer Must Clarify Effects Demand Before Rejecting It

Rio Hondo Community College District (2013) PERB Decision No. 2313-E (Issued on 3/21/13) In my opinion this is one of the first major decisions to be issued by the “Brown” Board.  The facts are simple.  The school district informed the union that it intended to install security cameras in its new Learning Resource Center.  The cameras would capture activities such as bargaining unit members coming and going, entering and leaving a break room, and cleaning public areas of the building.  The union requested to bargain over the decision and effects of the decision.  The union stated in its demand to bargain that…

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PERB: Only 1 Shot at Recon

County of Santa Clara (2013) PERB Decision No. A398-M (Issued on 3/08/13) PERB Regulation 32410 allows a party to request that the Board reconsider a decision.  The grounds for a request for reconsideration are generally limited to new evidence that could not have been produced earlier.   Not surprisingly, however, the losing party to a decision often uses a request for reconsideration to take a “second bite of the apple.” So how many times can a party file a request for reconsideration?  Most experienced practitioners know that you can’t file the same motion over and over again just because you don’t…

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