EMPLOYER REFUSAL TO BARGAIN IN GOOD FAITH; DEFENSES – Hard Bargaining

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Under the totality of conduct test, a party is permitted to maintain a “hard bargaining” position on one or more issues, if the entire course of its bargaining conduct, both at the table and away from it, manifests good faith efforts toward reaching an overall agreement. (City of San Ramon (2018) PERB Decision No. 2571-M, pp. 7-8.) The ultimate question is whether the respondent’s conduct, when viewed in its totality, was sufficiently egregious to frustrate negotiations. (Id. at p. 7.) What the District did here was beyond the bounds of permissible hard bargaining, given its rigid stance on negotiability that effectively led to an early impasse on the Article 13 proposal, as well as its lack of substantive counterproposals and engagement at the bargaining table. (p. 40.)