EMPLOYER INTERFERENCE, RESTRAINT, COERCION; EMPLOYER INTERFERENCE WITH, RESTRAINT, OR COERCION OF EMPLOYEES – In General; Standards

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400.00000 – EMPLOYER INTERFERENCE, RESTRAINT, COERCION; EMPLOYER INTERFERENCE WITH, RESTRAINT, OR COERCION OF EMPLOYEES
400.01000 – In General; Standards

Notwithstanding similarities with the NLRB’s analysis for interference under National Labor Relations Act section 8(a)(1), the Carlsbad Board expressly rejected the notion of an implied management rights clause in the statute which would immunize managerial decisions from interference liability, and we have found no subsequent decision in which PERB has endorsed the logic of Textile Workers’ Union of America v. Darlington Manufacturing Company (1965) 380 U.S. 263 or held that an employer’s conduct is immune from interference liability, simply because it involves a managerial prerogative. (Carlsbad Unified School District (1979) PERB Decision No. 89.) To the contrary, PERB has continued to recognize an “inherent and substantial distinction” between the property interests of private-sector employers and the manner in which our statutes govern public-sector labor relations. Thus, whether the University’s decision to close and subcontract the Young Musician’s Program was negotiable or a fundamental managerial prerogative has no bearing on whether it interfered with protected rights. Rather, for analyzing an interference allegation under Carlsbad, we ask whether, under the circumstances, the University’s conduct had an actual or reasonably likely adverse effect on the exercise of protected rights, including those of the laid off Program instructors or other University employees. Because a layoff removes employees from the workplace, and may terminate the employment relationship altogether, we conclude that the University’s layoff of Program Instructors involved in protected activity would reasonably tend to discourage the laid off employees from engaging in present or future protected activity, regardless of whether it would likely discourage protected activity by other employees. (p. 65, 67.)