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

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An employer must allow an exclusive representative reasonable access to employer property to communicate with bargaining unit employees, distribute literature, investigate workplace conditions, and assess contractual and statutory compliance. (County of San Joaquin (2021) PERB Decision No. 2775-M, pp. 26-39 (San Joaquin).) An employer bears the burden of proving that a restriction on access to its premises is: (1) necessary to safe or efficient operations; and (2) narrowly drawn to avoid overbroad, unnecessary interference with protected rights. (Id. at p. 27.) These principles apply irrespective of whether the person seeking access is a bargaining unit member or a union representative who does not work for the employer. (Ibid.) An employer generally does not afford reasonable access if it infringes on an employee’s ability to engage in protected activity either in a nonwork area or during a nonwork time. (County of Tulare (2020) PERB Decision No. 2697-M, pp. 19-20; Petaluma City Elementary School District/Joint Union High School District (2016) PERB Decision No. 2485, pp. 45-47 (Petaluma).) Even if a workplace includes sensitive areas focused on national defense, acute patient care, or social services, the employer must narrowly tailor its rules and afford access to the fullest degree possible given its unique constraints. (San Joaquin, supra, PERB Decision No. 2775-M, pp. 28, 33-34, 38-39.) In assessing an employer’s claim that it has narrowly tailored its rule to a particularized operational need, PERB considers whether the rule allows access to alternative venues that are a reasonable substitute for the restricted venue. (San Joaquin, supra, PERB Decision No. 2775-M, p. 29.)

Foundational labor law principles under each PERB-administered labor relations statute protect nondisruptive picketing (San Marcos Unified School District (2003) PERB Decision No. 1508, p. 27 (San Marcos USD)), as well as “leafleting to advertise a labor dispute” (Regents of the University of California (2012) PERB Decision No. 2300-H, pp. 3 & 16). As summarized in Petaluma, supra, PERB Decision No. 2485, both unions and employees engage in protected activity when they conduct “peaceful picketing” or “distribution of leaflets or other materials to advertise grievances or solicit support from employees and the public.” (Id. at p. 43.)

Here, the employer’s policy appeared to be a neutral rule in that it bans all solicitation and distribution, whether union or otherwise. But the Board found it unlawful on its face, because it was not limited to patient care areas and prohibited union representatives from engaging in solicitation and distribution in nonwork areas and during nonwork times. The Board also found the policy unlawful as applied, because the employer failed to show that its rules were necessary for safe or efficient operations, and because the record overwhelmingly disproved any possibility that its rules are narrowly drawn to avoid overbroad, unnecessary interference with protected rights. (pp. 28-34.)