EMPLOYER INTERFERENCE, RESTRAINT, COERCION, EMPLOYER CONDUCT AFFECTING ORGANIZING, UNION ACCESS; SOLICITATION, AND OTHER UNION RIGHTS – Access - Union Right

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The MMBA affords both employee and non-employee representatives of employee organizations access to areas in which employees work. (County of Tulare (2020) PERB Decision No. 2697-M, p. 18.) A union’s presumptive right of access is subject to reasonable regulation. (Regents of the University of California Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory (1982) PERB Decision No. 212-H, pp. 14-15; State of California (California Department of Corrections) (1980) PERB Decision No. 127-S, p. 6.) It is the employer’s burden to demonstrate that its restriction of a union’s access is reasonable. (Regents of the University of California (2012) PERB Decision No. 2300-H, p. 20, fn. 8.) For an access restriction to be reasonable, the employer must establish two elements: (1) the regulation must be shown to be necessary to the efficient operation of the employer’s business or the safety of its employees and others; and (2) the regulation must be narrowly drawn to avoid overbroad, unnecessary interference with the exercise of statutory rights. (County of Riverside (2012) PERB Decision No. 2233-M, p. 8 (Riverside); see also Lawrence Livermore, supra, PERB Decision No. 212-H, pp. 13-15 & adopting proposed decision at pp. 51-53; Regents of the University of California, University of California at Los Angeles Medical Center (1983) PERB Decision No. 329-H, pp. 4-6 (UCLA Medical Center).) In other words, the inquiry is “whether the regulations established by the employer are properly related to justifiable concerns about disruption of [the employer’s] mission, and whether the rules are narrowly drawn to avoid overbroad, unnecessary interference with the exercise of statutory rights.” (Lawrence Livermore, supra, PERB Decision No. 212-H, p. 15.) (pp. 26-27.)