Decision 2428M – Service Employees International Union, United Healthcare Workers West
SA-CO-122-M
Decision Date: June 4, 2015
Decision Type: PERB Decision (Non-Precedential)
Description: Charging party alleged that the employee organization violated the MMBA when it deducted fees from her paycheck without her authorization. Charging party also challenged the constitutionality of MMBA section 3502.5(a) based on Supreme Court’s decision in Harris v. Quinn (2014) 134 S.Ct. 2618. PERB’s Office of the General Counsel declined to address charging party’s constitutional challenge to MMBA section 3502.5(a) based on PERB’s lack of jurisdiction to declare a statute unconstitutional or to refuse to enforce a statute on constitutional grounds absent a determination by an appellate court that the statute is unconstitutional. Based on a payroll deduction authorization form signed by charging party, the Office of the General Counsel concluded that charging party failed to allege sufficiently that the employee organization had deducted membership dues without charging party’s authorization.
Disposition: The Board affirmed the dismissal. The Board concurred that it lacks jurisdiction to declare unconstitutional the statutes it enforces or to refuse to enforce these statutes on constitutional grounds absent a determination to that effect by a California appellate court. The Board also concluded that charging party failed to state with sufficient specificity how the employee organization’s conduct was fraudulent or what portions of the payroll deduction authorization were fraudulently procured. The Board also declined to consider evidence tendered by charging party for the first time on appeal, concluding that charging party had failed to demonstrate good cause for failing to tender the evidence the Office of the General Counsel during the earlier investigation of her charge.
Perc Vol: 39
Perc Index: 177