REMEDIES FOR UNFAIR PRACTICES; FACTORS LIMITING OR TERMINATING LIABILITY – In General

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PERB need not remedy all effects bargaining violations in the same manner. Reinstatement and retroactive back pay need not go hand in hand. (Bellflower Unified School District (2022) PERB Decision No. 2544a, p. 33, fn. 16 [reinstatement and back pay are separate remedies]; County of Riverside (2013) PERB Decision No. 2336-M, p. 16 [same].) While an effects remedy need not include reinstatement, it should at least include retroactive back pay in those circumstances where the employer has violated its bargaining duty but has neither closed a facility nor ceased offering a service. Thus, PERB endorses Transmarine-type remedies (no reinstatement and back pay begins when the parties start effects negotiations and continues for the length of those negotiations or for two weeks, whichever is greater) when the employer’s violation arose from closing a facility or ceasing a service, but not otherwise. (Transmarine Navigation Corp. (1968) 170 NLRB 389 (Transmarine). PERB orders full back pay, typically without reinstatement in those instances where Transmarine does not effectuate the law’s purposes, i.e., in instances other than closing a facility or ceasing a service. Full back pay is the minimum necessary to deter effects bargaining violations and compensate for the loss of a chance to bargain at a meaningful time, which is exceedingly difficult to restore later. Withholding reinstatement, however, eases the employer’s ability to promptly rectify its failure to bargain effects without having to fully restore the status quo. (pp. 28-30.)