EMPLOYER REFUSAL TO BARGAIN IN GOOD FAITH; REFUSAL TO PROVIDE INFORMATION – Confidentiality; Privacy

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Where an employer has waived its right to negotiate an accommodation of third-party privacy rights with the union, PERB must determine the extent of any appropriate redactions. In most such cases, the best practice is for the ALJ hearing the unfair practice matter to conduct an in camera review and then order production of the full, unredacted document unless there is clear evidence that doing so would lead to a serious invasion of a significant privacy right, in which case the ALJ’s proposed decision should provide clear direction regarding the narrowly tailored redactions that are allowable. Such redactions typically involve replacing names with descriptive but de-identified placeholders, thereby permitting parties to track the important figures within a given record or across multiple records. (Sacramento City Unified School District (2018) PERB Decision No. 2597, p. 13, fn. 7.)