Board Decisions Summary – December 2021

In December of 2021, the Board issued two decisions. The decision descriptions and dispositions are below.

Order No. IR-63

Employer: Clovis Unified School District

Case Nos.: SA-CE-3040-E and SA-CE-3047-E

Issued date: December 16, 2021

Precedential

Description: A nonexclusive representative engaged in ongoing efforts to organize certificated employees of a school district filed a request for injunctive relief. The nonexclusive representative contends that injunctive relief is necessary to prevent the school district from continuing to hamper its organizing campaign by, among other things, financially supporting and granting preferential treatment to a rival employee organization in violation of the Educational Employment Relations Act (EERA), and sending communications that deter or discourage employee support for the organizing union in violation of the Prohibition on Public Employers Deterring or Discouraging Union Membership (PEDD).

Disposition: The Board granted the injunctive relief request because the nonexclusive representative provided sufficient allegations to find reasonable cause to believe the school district violated EERA and PEDD and an injunction was necessary to preserve the efficacy of any final Board order. The Board found reasonable cause to believe the school district violated—and continued to violate—EERA and PEDD by interfering with the administration of the rival employee organization, providing financial and other material support to the rival organization, and expressing a preference for the rival organization. Injunctive relief was just and proper because the school district’s alleged unfair practices have the foreseeable effect of causing employee support for the nonexclusive representative to vanish during PERB’s adjudicatory process, and an injunction is necessary to prevent a meaningless Board order at the conclusion of that process.


Decision No. 2799-M

Employer: County of Santa Clara

Case No.: SF-CE-1403-M

Issued date: December 20, 2021

Precedential

Description: The complaint alleged that Santa Clara County violated the MMBA by enacting an ordinance which regulates the County’s surveillance technology use before completing negotiations with the Santa Clara County District Attorney Investigators Association over the County Board of Supervisors’ decision to adopt the ordinance and/or the decision’s effects on terms and conditions of employment. The ALJ found that the County had no obligation to bargain over its decision to adopt the ordinance, but the ALJ upheld the complaint’s effects bargaining claim. The Association filed exceptions, primarily contending that the County had a duty to bargain over the ordinance’s definition of the term “surveillance technology” and over its provision establishing criminal misdemeanor liability for misusing County surveillance technology.

Disposition: The Board affirmed the ALJ’s conclusion that the County was not required to engage in decision bargaining but did have a duty to engage in effects bargaining. While the ALJ found that the Association had the right to bargain over the ordinance’s effects on employee workload and safety, the Board concluded that the Association also had the right to meet and confer over the consequences to Association-represented employees found to have misused County surveillance technology. The Board directed the County to: (1) meet and confer, upon request, over all three of the ordinance’s effects; (2) make whole any employees harmed by the ordinance to date; and (3) cease and desist from enforcing the ordinance against Association-represented employees until one of the following conditions is satisfied: the parties reach an overall agreement on each of the specified effects; the parties conclude their effects negotiations in a bona fide impasse; or the Association fails to pursue effects negotiations in good faith.