Decision A455M – County of Solano

PERB Regulations provide that an appeal from an administrative decision will not automatically prevent the Board from proceeding in a case. Pursuant to PERB Regulation 32370, parties seeking a stay of any activity may file a request for a stay with the administrative appeal which shall include all pertinent facts and justification for the request. Except as otherwise provided by PERB Regulations, the Board may order a stay of activity when the ruling or order that is the subject of appeal would be rendered unnecessary or moot, should the Board reverse it. In this case, however, because the administrative determination denied Local 1021’s request for factfinding, there was no ruling or order that would be rendered unnecessary if the Board were to reverse the administrative determination. Accordingly, there was nothing to stay and the Board denied the request.

PERB Regulations provide that an appeal from an administrative decision will not automatically prevent the Board from proceeding in a case. Pursuant to PERB Regulation 32370, parties seeking a stay of any activity may file a request for a stay with the administrative appeal which shall include all pertinent facts and justification for the request. Except as otherwise provided by PERB Regulations, the Board may order a stay of activity when the ruling or order that is the subject of appeal would be rendered unnecessary or moot, should the Board reverse it. In this case, however, because the administrative determination denied Local 1021’s request for factfinding, there was no ruling or order that would be rendered unnecessary if the Board were to reverse the administrative determination. Accordingly, there was nothing to stay and the Board denied the request.

PERB Regulations provide that an appeal from an administrative decision will not automatically prevent the Board from proceeding in a case. Pursuant to PERB Regulation 32370, parties seeking a stay of any activity may file a request for a stay with the administrative appeal which shall include all pertinent facts and justification for the request. Except as otherwise provided by PERB Regulations, the Board may order a stay of activity when the ruling or order that is the subject of appeal would be rendered unnecessary or moot, should the Board reverse it. In this case, however, because the administrative determination denied Local 1021’s request for factfinding, there was no ruling or order that would be rendered unnecessary if the Board were to reverse the administrative determination. Accordingly, there was nothing to stay and the Board denied the request.

The timeliness of an employee organization’s request for factfinding is properly based upon an initial written notice of a declaration of impasse. In situations where an employee organization has provided the employer with a written notice of a declaration of impasse, and it later believes that the parties are no longer at impasse, it is incumbent on the employee organization to withdraw its declaration of impasse. In situations where it is the employer who has provided the employee organization with a written notice of a declaration of impasse, it is incumbent on the employee organization to keep track of the statutory window period and to file its request for factfinding within that period. Employee organizations’ factfinding request was untimely because it was filed more than one year after the organizations initially provided the city with a written declaration of impasse and the organizations never withdrew the declaration. Neither the parties’ post-impasse conduct nor MMBA section 3505.7’s requirement that unions and employers meet and confer prior to the public agency’s adoption of its annual budget revived the employee organizations’ right to request factfinding upon reaching a second impasse in the same round of negotiations.