Labor Relations Fundamentals for Community College Districts

A district has the right to regulate, through reasonable time, place and manner rules, the conduct of employees and union representatives. Supervisors should be familiar with, and uniformly apply, all such policies and regulations, including those applicable to outside solicitors and organizations.

EMPLOYERS SHOULD:

 Have a regular system of communicating to employees about issues of importance to the workplace. Deciding for the first time to implement regular system of communication to employees during an organizing drive or labor negotiations is risky and thus normally should be avoided.  Investigate accusations of harassment, intimidation, and other forms of interference by administrators/managers/ supervisors, and take corrective action where such allegations are found to be true.  Regularly communicate to the management team about their obligation, as an agent of the district, to comply with the EERA.  Monitor statements, speeches and other communications to employees to avoid the appearance of intimidation toward employees in the face of protected activity. In considering whether communications could be viewed as interference or intimidation, employers should view the statements within “the totality of the circumstances.”

EMPLOYER REPRESENTATIVES MAY:

 Correct information provided by a union or other source that is inaccurate or untrue.  Place reasonable time, place and manner restrictions on the access of unions or employee organizations in the same manner as they restrict others.

EMPLOYER REPRESENTATIVES MAY NOT:

 Ask employees whether they intend to sign a petition supporting the union.  Threaten employees who support or appear to support the union. Threats are loosely defined under PERB case law. For example, asking an employee what she thinks of the union during an organizing drive was found to be a threat when asked by an administrator who was not liked by the employee. That same action was found not to be a threat when asked by an administrator who the employee liked. This standard is subjective and weight is given to how the employee feels in determining whether conduct is threatening.

Labor Relations Fundamentals for Community College Districts © 2019 (c) Liebert Cassidy Whitmore 14