Opinion ID: 1305042
Heading Depth: 1
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: The memorandum of understanding, once approved by the city council, is binding upon the parties.

Text: (1) The Meyers-Milias-Brown Act, as set forth in Government Code section 3505.1, provides that after negotiations If agreement is reached by the representatives of the public agency and a recognized employee organization ... they shall jointly prepare a written memorandum of such understanding, which shall not be binding, and present it to the governing body or its statutory representative for determination. [4] As we shall explain once the governmental body votes to accept the memorandum, it becomes a binding agreement. The historical progression in the legislative enactments began with the George Brown Act. [5] That act sought in general to promote the improvement of personnel management and employer-employee relations ... through the establishment of uniform and orderly methods of communication between employees and the public agencies by which they are employed. (Stats. 1961, ch. 1964, p. 4141.) It provided, in former section 3505, that The governing body of a public agency [or its representatives] shall meet and confer with representatives of employee organizations upon request, and shall consider as fully as it deems reasonable such presentations as are made by the employee organization on behalf of its members prior to arriving at a determination of policy or course of action. (Stats. 1961, ch. 1964, p. 4142.) [6] During the years following enactment of the George Brown Act public employee unions continued to grow in size [7] and to press their claims that public employees should enjoy the same bargaining rights as private employees so long as such rights did not conflict with the public service. [8] The George Brown Act, originally a pioneering piece of legislation, provided only that management representatives should listen to and discuss the demands of the unions. Apparently the failure of that act to resolve the continual controversy between the growing public employees' organizations and their employers led to further legislative inquiry. Moreover, subsequent enactments of other states, which granted public employees far more extensive bargaining rights, [9] further exposed the limitations of the George Brown Act. Cognizant of this turn of events the Legislature in 1968 enacted the Meyers-Milias-Brown Act. [10] Expressly intending the new law to strengthen employer-employee communication, the Legislature provided for a reasonable method of resolving disputes regarding wages, hours, and other terms and conditions of employment. (Gov. Code, § 3500.) The public agency must not only listen to presentations, but meet and confer in good faith (Gov. Code, § 3505), a phrase statutorily defined to include a free exchange of information, opinions and proposals, with the objective of reaching agreement on matters within the scope of representation prior to the adoption by the public agency of its final budget for the ensuing year. (Ibid.) Section 3505.1, quoted earlier, provides that if agreement is reached it should be reduced to writing and presented to the governing body of the agency for determination. This statutory structure necessarily implies that an agreement, once approved by the agency, will be binding. The very alternative prescribed by the statute  that the memorandum shall not be binding except upon presentation to the governing body or its statutory representative for determination,   manifests that favorable determination engenders a binding agreement. Why negotiate an agreement if either party can disregard its provisions? What point would there be in reducing it to writing, if the terms of the contract were of no legal consequence? Why submit the agreement to the governing body for determination, if its approval were without significance? What integrity would be left in government if government itself could attack the integrity of its own agreement? The procedure established by the act would be meaningless if the end-product, a labor-management agreement ratified by the governing body of the agency, were a document that was itself meaningless. The Legislature designed the act, moreover, for the purpose of resolving labor disputes. (See Gov. Code, § 3500.) But a statute which encouraged the negotiation of agreements, yet permitted the parties to retract their concessions and repudiate their promises whenever they choose, would impede effective bargaining. Any concession by a party from a previously held position would be disastrous to that party if the mutual agreement thereby achieved could be repudiated by the opposing party. Successful bargaining rests upon the sanctity and legal viability of the given word. In applying the Meyers-Milias-Brown Act, the courts have uniformly held that a memorandum of understanding, once adopted by the governing body of a public agency, becomes a binding agreement. (Grodin, Public Employee Bargaining in California: The Meyers-Milias-Brown Act in the Courts (1972) 23 Hastings L.J. 719, 756.) [11] The leading decision, however, is one which although decided in 1970 arose under the earlier George Brown Act, East Bay Mun. Employees Union v. County of Alameda, supra, 3 Cal. App.3d 578. Settling a strike by county hospital employees, Alameda County agreed to reinstate the strikers without loss of any benefits previously earned by those employees. Upon reinstatement, however, the county classified the strikers as new employees, with resultant loss of seniority, vacation, sick leave, retirement and other benefits. Reversing a trial court ruling which declined to enforce the agreement, the Court of Appeal through Justice Wakefield Taylor stated that the George Brown Act required the public agency to meet and confer and listen. ... [T]he modern view of statutory provisions similar to the Brown Act is that when a public employer engages in such meetings with the representatives of the public employee organization, any agreement that the public agency is authorized to make and, in fact, does enter into, should be held valid and binding as to all parties. (3 Cal. App.3d 578, 584.) If, under the more limited provisions of the George Brown Act, which does not specifically refer to an agreement reached by the representatives of the public agency and a recognized employer organization, nevertheless the negotiation and agreement by such parties are valid and binding, we conclude a fortiori that the memorandum of understanding reached under the broader Meyers-Milias-Brown Act is indubitably binding.