Headnote for 2610H - 602.02 - Prior Notice and Opportunity to Bargain - California Public Employment Relations Board

EMPLOYER REFUSAL TO BARGAIN IN GOOD FAITH; UNILATERAL CHANGE (FOR NEGOT OF SPECIFIC SUBJECTS, SEE SEC 1000, SCOPE OF REPRESENTATION) – Prior Notice and Opportunity to Bargain

Single Topic for Decision 2610H

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602.00000 – EMPLOYER REFUSAL TO BARGAIN IN GOOD FAITH; UNILATERAL CHANGE (FOR NEGOT OF SPECIFIC SUBJECTS, SEE SEC 1000, SCOPE OF REPRESENTATION)
602.02000 – Prior Notice and Opportunity to Bargain

Like the other PERB-administered statutes, the statutory scheme under HEERA presumes that notice of changes to negotiable matters will be provided “in a meaningful manner at a meaningful time.” (City of Sacramento (2013) PERB Decision No. 2351-M, pp. 29-30.) What constitutes meaningful notice will necessarily vary depending on the circumstances of each case, but, at minimum, an employer must give notice sufficiently in advance of reaching a firm decision to allow the representative an opportunity to consult its members and decide whether to request information, demand bargaining, acquiesce to the change, or take other action. By any measure, the University failed to provide UC-AFT with meaningful notice of the decision to transfer the Young Musician’s Program’s operations to a non-University entity. As early as November 2012, the University’s principal decisionmaker asked the campus general counsel to research two options, “each of which would get [the Program] out from under all the personnel issues without damaging the program.” Despite having decided as early as March 2013 to have the Program separate from the University, a University Labor Relations Specialist advised UC-AFT in April 2013 that the University was “seriously considering whether it should continue with the [Program].” In May 2013, the University informed UC-AFT that it had decided to close the Program, effective June 1, 2013. Throughout these communications, the University made no mention of its plans to subcontract or “transfer” the Program’s operations to a successor organization. By the time UC-AFT learned of the University’s decision to transfer the Program to the successor program (as opposed to simply closing it), the transfer was already well underway. (pp. 45-47.)