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

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“Clarifying” the rule on effects bargaining

Trustees of the California State University (2012) PERB Decision No. 2287-H (Issued on 10/04/12) The essential facts in this case are not in dispute.  The California State University (CSU) exercised its managerial right to implement a policy governing the provision of mental health services for students.  The union, California Faculty Association (CFA), made a timely demand to bargain the effects of the decision.  CFA identified “workload” as one such effect. CSU implemented the executive order without bargaining because it did not believe the executive order made any changes to the “workload” of union members. The Board agent dismissed the charge…

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NLRB: Employers can’t always demand confidentiality during investigations

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Banner Health System d/b/a Banner Estrella Medical Center and James A. Navarro (2012) ( NLRB Case 28–CA–023438) (Issued on July 30, 2012) This 2-1 decision was issued by the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) on July 30, 2012.  The potential impact of the decision has slowly sunk in for the employer community.  Although the decision itself is not directly binding on the public sector, there is always the possibility that PERB might adopt the decision’s holding under one or more of the public sector statutes that it administers in California. The situation in Banner Health System is one familiar to…

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When is an individual employee’s complaint protected activity?

Jurupa Unified School District (2012) PERB Decision No. 2283-E (Issued on 8/21/12) This case involves a fairly convoluted set of facts. Because my focus is on a single sentence in the decision, the relevant facts are simple: The employee, a teacher, was going through a biannual performance evaluation. The employee claims that her reviews became negative after she sought union assistance in responding to an initial report. On June 21, 2010, the employee filed a written complaint under the collective bargaining agreement (CBA) alleging that her evaluation was not conducted in accordance with the contract. That same day, the employee also joined with other employees in…

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Disrespectful behavior can be protected activity

State of California (Department of Corrections & Rehabilitation) (2012) PERB Decision No. 2282-S (Issued on 8/21/12) This case is a good reminder of what PERB considers to be protected activity when it comes to the behavior of union representatives. The law actually applies to both union and management personnel equally, but since unions don’t have the ability to ‘discipline’ management, these situations almost always arise of the context of management wanting to discipline a union representative for his or her behavior. In this case, the behavior—as far as “bad” behavior goes—was actually pretty mild. The union representative was in a Weingarten-type…

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AB 1606 Signed into Law

On September 14, 2012, Governor Brown signed AB 1606.  AB 1606 amends the fact-finding provision under the MMBA (Gov. Code section 3505.4).  For some background see my prior posts here and here.  As enacted, AB 1606 does two things: The bill provides that mediation is not a prerequisite to fact-finding under the MMBA.  The language used in the bill largely mirrors PERB Regulation 32802. The bill also adds Gov. Code section 3505.4, subdivision (e), which states that, "The procedural right of an employee organization to request a factfinding panel cannot be expressly or voluntarily waived.” Comments:  My understanding is that the sponsors wanted the new subdivision…

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