Opinion ID: 1298503
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 8

Heading: involuntary payroll deduction of service fee

Text: (14) Education Code section 45061, enacted in 1982, requires school districts to deduct a service fee from the paycheck of each employee required to pay the fee under an organizational security arrangement, unless the employee chooses to pay the fee directly to the exclusive representative. When the present case was decided by PERB, however, that provision was not yet in effect. Cumero contends that until the provision's effective date (Jan. 1, 1983) it was illegal for the district to deduct the service fee from his salary (as provided by the district's agreement with the union) without his consent. PERB held (with one member dissenting) that allowing a dissenting employee to withhold consent for the deduction of his or her service fee would be inconsistent with the mandatory nature of the fee and, further, would enable the employee to circumvent the organizational security arrangement, create unduly burdensome collection problems, and ultimately lead to enforcement of the employment termination provision of section 3540.1, subdivision (i)(2), which makes payment of the fee a condition of employment. The Court of Appeal concluded that in the absence of a statute affirmatively precluding the involuntary payroll deduction, PERB's conclusion that an organizational security arrangement could provide for such deductions was reasonable and correct. Cumero relies on a 1977 Attorney General's opinion (60 Ops.Cal.Atty.Gen. 370) on the consequences of an organizational security arrangement that required nonmembers of the employees' exclusive representative to pay a service fee as a condition to continued employment but contained no provision for involuntary payroll deductions of the fee. The opinion concluded that such involuntary deductions were impermissible because not affirmatively authorized by statute. PERB's present decision disagreed with this opinion of the Attorney General. PERB held that section 3540.1, subdivision (i)(2), which describes an organizational security arrangement as one requiring nonmember payment of service fees as a condition of continued employment, expresses only the limits of permissible negotiations on service fees and does not prescribe termination of employment as the only means of enforcement. Citing that conclusion by PERB, this court held in San Lorenzo Education Assn. v. Wilson, supra, 32 Cal.3d 841, that under an organizational security arrangement making the employee association, rather than the employer, responsible for enforcing the service fee obligation, the association could recover the fees by civil suit in small claims court. Similarly here, PERB upheld the provisions for involuntary payroll deductions of the service fee in the arrangement covering Cumero (fn. 3, ante ) as within the outer limits of section 3540.1, subdivision (i)(2), and therefore permissible. Giving due weight to PERB's statutory construction, we conclude that enforcement of the agreement's provision for involuntary deduction of Cumero's service fee from his salary was proper under the EERA even before such deductions became expressly authorized by Education Code section 45061.