EMPLOYER INTERFERENCE, RESTRAINT, COERCION, EMPLOYER CONDUCT AFFECTING ORGANIZING, UNION ACCESS; SOLICITATION, AND OTHER UNION RIGHTS – Released Time

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Where MMBA section 3505.3 and similar PERB-administered statutes require employers to provide reasonable release time to a reasonable number of employees, without loss of compensation or benefits, the Board construes “‘loss” as measured against the amount of pay the employee would have earned if the employee had not been released for bargaining. (County of Riverside (2013) PERB Decision No. 2307-M, p. 32 (Riverside I); see also County of Riverside (2018) PERB Decision No. 2573-M, p. 26 (Riverside II) ([“loss of compensation or other benefits” must always be measured against what employees would have received if they had not been released for bargaining].) In sum, the statutory standard—“without loss of compensation or other benefits”—requires that release time and associated benefits at least equals what the released employees would have earned had they not been released for bargaining or another purpose set forth in section 3505.3. However, the statutory standard does not require employees to be paid for time spent in collective bargaining negotiations if that time exceeds the regular work hours they are missing due to negotiations. In other words, section 3505.3(a) holds employees harmless for replacing regular work time with release time but does not mandate that they are better off financially for having done so. Moreover, the same principles apply to release time for bargaining as to other forms of release time that MMBA section 3505.3 protects. (pp. 5, fn. 15 & pp. 9-12, 17.)