REPRESENTATION ISSUES; UNIT DETERMINATION/CRITERIA (SEE ALSO WHO IS AN EMPLOYEE?, SECTION 200) – In General/Definition of Appropriate Unit

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MMBA sections 3507 and 3509 together allocate the authority to determine appropriate bargaining units to a public agency that has adopted local rules concerning representation, provided those determinations conform with the statutory mandates of MMBA section 3507.3. PERB’s role in representation issues under MMBA is limited where local rules have been adopted. The County has adopted criteria for unit determination and it should be allowed to apply those criteria to determine if the petitioned-for unit of professional employees is appropriate. Although the County violated MMBA and its local rules by denying the professional employees included in a severance petition the right to be represented separately from non-professional employees, in the current procedural context, it is not PERB’s province to determine the contours of an appropriate professional unit. Case remanded to the County to decide appropriate unit in accordance with its employee relations resolution, provided that it may not create a unit that forces physicians and dentists or any other professional classification into a unit containing non-professional employees when they have petitioned for representation separate from that unit.