Decision 2424M – City of Inglewood
LA-CE-750-M
Decision Date: June 1, 2015
Decision Type: PERB Decision
Description: The complaint, which named the exclusive representative as the charging party, alleged that respondent violated MMBA when it unilaterally implemented a change in its reclassification policy.
Disposition: Although the exclusive representative withdrew prior to the formal hearing, the ALJ allowed the affected employee to proceed in place of the exclusive representative and amended the complaint on his own motion to allege a violation of a local rule governing reclassification. The ALJ ultimately dismissed the (b) and (c) violations in the original complaint for lack of standing and dismissed the (a) violation in the original complaint and the local rules violation in the amended complaint for failure of proof.
The Board affirmed the dismissal of the complaint and underlying charge but did not adopt the proposed decision as the decision of the Board itself, holding that (1) the affected employee had no standing to pursue a bad faith bargaining complaint even if she had been properly joined; (2) the ALJ had no authority to sua sponte amend the complaint to allege a violation of a local rule; and (3) not all local rules are subject to PERB’s jurisdiction.
Perc Vol: 39
Perc Index: 169
Decision Headnotes
1103.04000 – Amendments
Sua sponte amendments to unfair practice complaints by administrative law judges are not permitted because they are not authorized by PERB regulations, they encroach on the duties and powers of the Office of the General Counsel, they impair the rights of the parties to control the litigation and they raise questions of neutrality; the duty to determine the types of unfair practices for which there is a prima facie showing and the legal theories on which the unfair practice complaint should issue belongs to the Office of the General Counsel, not to the administrative law judge.
1103.07000 – Parties
Once the exclusive representative, the sole charging party identified in the complaint, withdrew from a case involving the alleged failure of the employer to bargain in good faith, the affected employee lacked party status to litigate the matter further; even if the affected employee had been joined as a party, she lacked standing to pursue a bad faith bargaining charge.
1103.12000 – Concurrent or Derivative Violations
An (a) violation generally may be pursued by an individual employee charging party; where, however, the (a) violation is derivative of the (c) violation (bad faith bargaining), the (a) violation cannot be pursued by the affected individual employee once the (c) violation is dismissed; with dismissal of the (c) violation, the derivative (a) and (b) violations automatically fall away.
1104.06000 – Authority of ALJ to Dismiss Complaint on Own Motion
With receipt of the exclusive representative’s withdrawal from matter in which the exclusive representative is the only charging party named in the complaint, the administrative law judge has the authority to dismiss the case sua sponte by notice or order of dismissal; withdrawal from the case by the sole charging party is equivalent to a failure to prosecute.
750.01000 – In General
Not all public agency rules and regulations fall within the definition of local rules subject to PERB’s jurisdiction; a local rule regarding the classification or reclassification of employees is a local rule subject to PERB’s jurisdiction only if it is a procedural rule for resolving classification disputes.