EMPLOYER MASS COMMUNICATIONS UNDER SECTION 3553 – In General

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The Prohibition on Public Employers Deterring or Discouraging Union Membership (PEDD) applies to employers subject to any of California’s public sector labor relations statutes, including the MMBA. (PEDD, § 3552(c).) (pp. 4, fn. 5.) The PEDD governs an employer’s obligations before disseminating a mass communication concerning exclusively represented employees’ right to join or support an employee organization or to refrain from doing so. (PEDD, § 3553(b).) Specifically, before doing so the employer must meet and confer with the exclusive representative on the content of the communication. (Ibid.) If the parties do not reach agreement and the employer still chooses to disseminate the communication, then the exclusive representative has the right to draft its own communication and have the employer disseminate the two communications together. (Id., § 3553(c).) PERB broadly construes the word “support,” as used in section 3553(b), to refer to any form of support, whether financial or non-financial. (Regents of the University of California (2022) PERB Decision No. 2835-H, pp. 14-15 & p. 17, fn. 10.) (pp. 58-59.)