EMPLOYER REFUSAL TO BARGAIN IN GOOD FAITH; OTHER PER SE VIOLATIONS – Outright Refusal to Bargain

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605.00000 – EMPLOYER REFUSAL TO BARGAIN IN GOOD FAITH; OTHER PER SE VIOLATIONS
605.01000 – Outright Refusal to Bargain

Where parties tentatively agreed to negotiate “Other Post-Employment Benefits” separate from MOU negotiations and no other evidence was presented as to the importance of that subject or whether the parties’ failure to reach agreement on it contributed in any meaningful way to the breakdown in negotiations, Board declined to disturb ALJ’s finding that negotiations had reached a bona fide impasse as the result of good-faith bargaining. Impasse refers to an overall deadlock in negotiations. An employer may not insist on separating one negotiable subject from all others and then bargain to impasse only as to that subject and impose its proposal, while refusing to discuss other subjects that may form the basis of a possible compromise. Although impasse may result from disagreement over a single subject, that subject must be of such critical and overriding importance to the parties that disagreement on that subject alone causes an overall breakdown in negotiations such that further bargaining over any subject would be futile. (pp. 33-35.)