REPRESENTATION ISSUES; SEVERANCE – In General

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“While employees have the right to choose which employee organization, if any, they want to represent them, they have no right to choose the bargaining unit in which their classification or position is placed.” (City of Pasadena (2021) PERB Decision No. 2788-M, p. 11; accord Regents of University of California v. Public Employment Relations Bd. (2020) 51 Cal.App.5th 159, 190 [affirming that employees have no “right to choose the bargaining unit in which their classification or position is placed”].) Rather, unit determinations flow from objective criteria, including the principal criterion of finding the largest feasible group with a community of interest. Unit determinations therefore are based on objective facts rather than on employees’ subjective sentiments, which may change from year to year or decade to decade. Otherwise, changing employee sentiments over time would lead to constantly shifting unit structures. Instead, changing employee sentiments can lead to decertification and/or change in which union represents a given unit. The severance inquiry does not turn on employee dissatisfaction. If it did, severance and unit proliferation would be pervasive. (pp. 40-41.)