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

SEIU Local 1000 v. Arnold Schwarzenegger (Alameda County Superior Court Case No. RG09456750) (The decision can be found on the Sacramento Bee’s website here.)By now everyone has heard that an Alameda superior court judge has held that the Governor’s imposition of furloughs on state employees was improper.  For me, the most interesting part of the decision was the judge’s holding that the state’s “labor parity” argument was not rational.  Basically, there are some employees in the state whose salaries are funded from special pots of money such that furloughs do not create savings that the state can spend elsewhere. These employees…

State of California (Department of Personnel Administration) (2009) PERB Decision No. 2085-S (Issued on 12/22/09)Facts:Local 39 and the State of California were parties to a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) covering employees in Unit 13 (Stationary Engineers) that expired on June 30, 2008. The MOU provided that in calculating overtime, “all compensable time (i.e., sick leave, vacation, annual leave, holiday credit, CTO and personal leave) shall be considered as time worked.”On February 19, 2009, the Legislature passed SBX3 8 as part of a comprehensive plan to close the State budget deficit.  Among other changes, SBX3 8 added section 19844.1 to the…

PERB released its annual report for fiscal year 2008-2009 back in October. (The report is available here.) I’ve been remiss in reporting on it; but better late than never. Here are the highlights for 2008-2009:Unfair Practice Charges 868 unfair practice charges (UPCs) were filed in fiscal year 2008-09. This represents a 6.3% increase from the 816 UPCs filed in 2007-08. Since PERB assumed jurisdiction over the MMBA in 2001, UPC filings have been averaging over 800 a year, roughly double the number before 2001.The increase in UPCs for 2008-09 can be largely attributed to the Dills Act and MMBA. The…

State of California (Department of Personnel Administration) (2009) PERB Decision No. 2078-S (Issued on 11/24/09)FactsThis unfair practice charge arose out of bargaining between the State of California (State) and the Stationary Engineers Local 39, International Union of Operating Engineers, AFL-CIO (Local 39) in 2008. Local 39 alleged that the State committed an unfair practice by: (1) failing to make or respond to economic proposals during bargaining; (2) failing to respond to information requests; (3) making bargaining proposals directly to employees; and (4) claiming it had no authority to bargain over economic items after stating at the outset of negotiations that…

I’ve been meaning to write on the issue of furloughs for a while as our firm has been dealing with the issue throughout the state. As I’ve commented publicly, part of the reason we’ve been successful in negotiating furloughs in a number of jurisdictions is because the unions have largely been cooperative.  From the perspective of unions, furloughs allow them to save jobs.  The unions also believe—correctly in my view—that once the economy recovers, it will be a lot easier to end furloughs than it will be to fill positions where people have been laid off.  However, with next year’s state budget…