Decision 2411E – Berkeley Unified School District

Unlike other labor relations statutes, EERA specifically recognizes the right of employees to be represented by employee organizations of their own choice, not just in their employment relationships, but also in their professional relationships with public school employers; EERA also protects the right of certificated employees to be afforded a voice in the formulation of educational policy; accordingly, the filing of a curriculum complaint in response to concerns about the achievement gap amongst ninth grade students is protected activity.

Advocacy on behalf of a group of employees concerning working conditions is protected activity; the placement of teachers into a peer assistance and review program, a collectively-bargained remedial program for teachers who have received unsatisfactory performance evaluations, is a matter of legitimate interest to employees and therefore an employee’s investigation into the alleged discriminatory placement of teachers into that program is protected activity.

Although an employer’s managerial prerogative to raise performance and professional misconduct issues with employees is beyond doubt, an inference of unlawful motivation is created when such issues are raised in immediate response to the exercise of statutory rights; in such a case, the threat of adverse action becomes closely enmeshed with the protected activity “to a point not well tolerated by the statutory scheme.”

Where attachments to an unfair practice charge are not properly identified, placed in a logical order or cross-referenced in the unfair practice charge or narrative statement of the charge, only those with obvious relevance to the charge allegations will be considered as evidence supporting the charge; while the powers of the Board agent include assisting the party to state in proper form the required information, it is not the Board agent’s responsibility to sift through charging party’s attachments and determine their possible relevance to the charge allegations where the charging party simply provided the Board agent a stack of documents without having made an earnest effort to eliminate duplicates, place them in logical order, ensure their authenticity and identify through labeling and cross-referencing how they are relevant and support the allegations of the charge.

Where attachments to an unfair practice charge are not properly identified, placed in a logical order or cross-referenced in the unfair practice charge or narrative statement of the charge, only those with obvious relevance to the charge allegations will be considered as evidence supporting the charge; while the powers of the Board agent include assisting the party to state in proper form the required information, it is not the Board agent’s responsibility to sift through charging party’s attachments and determine their possible relevance to the charge allegations where the charging party simply provided the Board agent a stack of documents without having made an earnest effort to eliminate duplicates, place them in logical order, ensure their authenticity and identify through labeling and cross-referencing how they are relevant and support the allegations of the charge.