Notice of Approval of Regulatory Action

This is a screenshot of part of the Office of Administrative Law notice of approval of regulatory action.On December 27, 2019, the Office of Administrative Law approved OAL File Number 2019-1112-01. This rulemaking action implements processes for resolving disputes arising under the Public Employees Communication Chapter (PECC) (Gov. Code, sec. 3555 et seq.) and the Prohibition on Public Employers Deterring or Discouraging Union Membership chapter (PEDD) (Gov. Code, sec. 3550 et seq.), and additionally makes changes to the Board’s existing regulation concerning designation of precedential decisions.

The changes to the Board’s existing regulations concerning designation of precedential decisions marks the enactment of another priority recommendation from PERB’s Case Processing Efficiency Initiative. Under PERB’s current regulations, every decision issued by the Board is precedential, with one exception: the Board may issue a nonprecedential decision only on an appeal from the Office of the General Counsel’s dismissal of an unfair practice charge. This system requires the Board to spend considerable time ensuring that each decision is thoroughly explained and precisely worded—even if the decision adds nothing significant to PERB’s body of law.

With discretion to designate decisions as precedential or non-precedential, the Board will be able to devote more of its resources to cases that truly raise precedential issues, while simultaneously allowing it to rule more quickly on the remainder of the cases on its docket. The system preserves the Board’s error correction function while easing the current burden of writing a precedential decision in most cases. It will also reduce the number of Board decisions constituents would need to digest to stay current with PERB precedent.

The regulations become effective on April 1, 2020 and the text can be found here.