EMPLOYER REFUSAL TO BARGAIN IN GOOD FAITH; NEGOTIATIONS; INDICIA OF SURFACE OR BAD FAITH BARGAINING; TOTALITY OF CIRCUMSTANCES – Inflexible Position

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Employer lawfully engaged in hard bargaining by consistently maintaining that it would not agree to economic terms that involved ongoing expenses, and it explained this reason in negotiations. Employer was open to other proposals to use the one-time funds other than a furlough suspension, but union never presented a proposal that would use only one-time funds. Thus, union failed to establish that the County unlawfully insisted on its initial position by taking a “take-it-or-leave-it” attitude. A union’s charge that the county took an inflexible position of only considering one-time use of newly discovered funds is undermined when the union does not propose an alternative for using the one-time money available to the county. All of the union’s proposals were predictably unacceptable to the county because they involved a commitment of ongoing funding, a commitment the county repeatedly explained it would not make at that time.