EMPLOYER INTERFERENCE, RESTRAINT, COERCION, EMPLOYER CONDUCT AFFECTING ORGANIZING, UNION ACCESS; SOLICITATION, AND OTHER UNION RIGHTS – Union Activity During Nonworking Time or in Nonworking Areas

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* * * SUPERSEDED IN PART by State of California (Employment Development Department) (2001) PERB Decision No. 1365a-S, where the Board held with respect to a memorandum issued in response to unprotected activity that an employer must restrict any future prohibition to only unprotected activities and cannot use ambiguous language that may also include protected activity. * * *

Thirty employees conducted the unity break during their morning break in the Long Beach EDD office, they did so in a work area in which approximately 30 other employees were at their work stations on duty. Therefore, the unity break activity did not occur during nonwork time in a nonwork area and EDD may restrict the activity in order to maintain order and production; pp. 10-11. Activities such as the unity break at issue in this case may be restricted by the employer if they do not occur during nonwork time in nonwork areas. In these circumstances, the employer must be given leeway to restrict those activities in order to maintain order, production or discipline. This would include situations in which the employees conducting the activities are on nonwork time, but the activities occur in a work area during a period in which other employees are working; p. 10. The State did not unlawfully retaliate against the employee for his exercise of protected activity when it gave him the October 9 memorandum advising him of the restrictions on unity break activity, because it allowed activity in nonwork areas during nonwork time; p. 11.