REMEDIES FOR UNFAIR PRACTICES; REINSTATEMENT; BACKPAY BENEFITS – Back Pay; Interest

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1201.00000 – REMEDIES FOR UNFAIR PRACTICES; REINSTATEMENT; BACKPAY BENEFITS
1201.03000 – Back Pay; Interest

The Board crafts make-whole remedies, including “back pay, front pay or other forms of compensation,” as necessary “to make injured parties and/or affected employees whole.” (Sonoma County Superior Court (2017) PERB Decision No. 2532-C, p. 40; see, e.g., Mt. San Antonio Community College Dist. v. PERB (1989) 210 Cal.App.3d 178, 184, fn. 3 [where respondent unilaterally changed employment terms, respondent ordered to pay “to the affected employees the difference in wages between that which they earned and that which they should have earned in the absence of the employer’s unilateral action, minus any mitigation”].)

When a public employer subcontracts operations in violation of a PERB-enforced statute, and the record shows that private sector subcontracted employees are harmed, PERB should order reasonably requested economic remedies tailored to make such employees whole. If the parties develop a sufficient record in compliance proceedings or otherwise, that remedy may include the difference in total compensation, including benefits, between subcontracted employees’ actual compensation and the compensation the public employer pays to comparable employees. Such an order is appropriate even though it necessarily involves approximation. (City of Pasadena (2014) PERB Order No. Ad-406-M, pp. 8, 13-14 & 26-27.) Doing so is generally preferable to “permitting the employer to evade liability because of uncertainty caused by the employer’s own unlawful conduct, and thus leaving an unfair practice unremedied. (Pasadena, supra, Order No. Ad-406-M, p. 26, emphasis in original.)