REPRESENTATION ISSUES; SEVERANCE – In General

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When a petition is filed to sever a smaller unit from a presumptively appropriate Sweetwater unit, the burden is on the petitioner to show that the requested unit is more appropriate. Here the existing unit is not a Sweetwater unit, therefore the standard is whether it is an appropriate unit; p. 10, proposed dec. To determine whether it is appropriate to sever a unit of security officers from the established wall-to-wall classified bargaining unit requires balancing community of interest criteria, the efficient operations of the district, and negotiating history factors in light of the Board's decision in Sacramento City Unified School District (1977) EERB Decision No. 30; p. 9, proposed dec. A unit of college safety officers is found to be appropriate for meeting and negotiating, since: (1) college safety officers share a community of interest separate and distinct from the remainder of the classified bargaining unit; (2) there was no evidence that efficiency of operations would be impaired; and (3) the Board has held that an employer is entitled to a separate unit of security officers; p. 14, proposed dec. The long-standing negotiating history is but one factor to be considered and, in this case, it is given less deference than if the established unit were a presumptively appropriate Sweetwater unit; p. 14, proposed dec.