Opinion ID: 1298503
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 5

Heading: organizing and recruiting expenses

Text: PERB held that the union could properly use Cumero's service fee for organizing and recruiting expenses, at least with respect to those employees covered by [the] EERA. (PERB Dec. No. 197, supra, pp. 18-19 [6 PERC ¶ 13065 at p. 232].) It is unclear what PERB intended organizing and recruiting to include. PERB states simply that [t]he goal of all organizing is to bring employees together in pursuit of the common cause. ( Id. at p. 17 [6 PERC ¶ 13065 at p. 232].) (11) As already explained, costs of organizing and recruiting activities are chargeable to nonmember service fees under the EERA only to the extent those activities are normally or reasonably employed to implement or effectuate the duties of the union as exclusive representative of the employees in the bargaining unit ( Ellis v. Railway Clerks, supra, 466 U.S. 435, 448 [80 L.Ed.2d at p. 442]). With that test in mind, we examine various activities that might be deemed included in organizing and recruiting. In this connection, a distinction must be made between (1) the union's written and oral communications with the employees it represents concerning matters within the scope of its representational duties and (2) activities primarily or exclusively aimed at inducing nonmembers to join the union. Thus, if a union representative talks with represented employees, whether or not they are union members, in order to inform them, or exchange ideas, about some of the union's activities and plans for carrying out its representational duties, the union's cost of such communication may be charged against nonmember service fees, regardless of any incidental effect of the communication upon some nonmember's decision whether to become a union member. PERB, on the other hand, would compel nonmembers to contribute to the cost of any union effort to recruit new union members from employees covered by the EERA, on the ground that enlargement of the union's membership, locally and statewide, enhances the union's representational effectiveness for the benefit of members and nonmembers alike. [18] PERB thereby overlooks its own holding, with which we agree, that an objecting nonmember, such as Cumero, should not be required to support activities which are beyond the [union's] representational obligations (PERB Dec. No. 197, supra, at p. 10 [6 PERC ¶ 13065 at p. 231]). PERB and the union argue that increasing the proportionate number of the union's members within the bargaining unit will strengthen its hand at the bargaining table because an elected school board tends to pay more attention to union overtures when the bargaining unit consists mostly or entirely of active members supportive of the union's goals than it would if the unit membership were a passive bare majority. Accordingly, it is argued, intraunit recruiting confers upon the nonmembers a benefit for which they should pay. The EERA, however, does not entitle the union to use the service fees of objecting nonmembers for just any activity which the union, or PERB, believes would benefit those nonmembers, unless the activity is in furtherance of a representational obligation imposed by the EERA. The union has no EERA obligation to persuade the nonmembers in its bargaining unit to become members. On the contrary, the EERA guarantees each employee in the unit the free choice of joining the union, refraining from participation in any union, or joining a rival union which, under proper circumstances, may be able to institute decertification proceedings against the union currently selected as exclusive representative. (§§ 3543, 3544.5, 3544.7.) Any organization is, of course, free to use its own resources in attempting to influence employees in making these choices, and a union's success in recruiting undoubtedly tends to contribute to its effectiveness in bargaining and in further recruitment. The EERA contemplates, however, that such success will be based on voluntarily financed efforts, not on the service fees extracted from objecting nonmembers. PERB and the union contend that nonmembers benefit from union recruitment outside the bargaining unit because of the widespread practice of tying salaries for a particular bargaining unit to salaries in other school districts. The 1977-1978 agreement between the district and the association for the bargaining unit that included Cumero expressly provided that the salary schedule shall reflect a comparison with 10 other districts. Factfinding panels, appointed under the EERA to recommend resolution of a public school employer-union impasse that a mediator cannot settle (§§ 3548, 3548.1), are required to consider a [c]omparison of the wages, hours, and conditions of employment of the employees involved in the factfinding proceeding with the wages, hours, and conditions of employment of other employees performing similar services and with other employees generally in public school employment in comparable communities (§ 3548.2, subd. (b)(4)). This possible relationship between local public school salaries and those paid in other districts imposes no obligation on the union toward the nonmember employees in its bargaining unit to increase the union's membership, or to seek or attain exclusive representative status, in the other districts. Under the EERA, the selection of a particular union as exclusive representative in each bargaining unit is supposed to result from the free exercise (1) by one or more unions of their organizational rights guaranteed by section 3543.1 and related sections, and (2) by employees of their rights to participate or not participate in union activities as they see fit (§ 3543). Only after a union is installed as exclusive representative of a bargaining unit may the union agree with the local school employer on an organizational security arrangement whereby unit employees who have chosen not to join the union are compelled to help finance the union's activities as the exclusive intermediary between them and their employer. But that arrangement cannot be used to make the nonmember employees provide financial support for the union's organizational and representational activities with respect to the employees of another employer. The open process by which a union attempts to earn the loyalties of the employees in other districts is not intended to be skewed by compelling unwilling nonmembers to help pay for those efforts just because they happen to work for a wholly different district in a bargaining unit that is subject to an organizational security arrangement. PERB and the union contend that organizing and recruiting expenses are chargeable to Cumero because the overall size of the union's membership produces two other kinds of benefits. First, it is argued, the effectiveness of the union's lobbying on school-related issues, especially at the statewide level, is enhanced by increasing the size and dedication of the body of union members whom the lobbyist represents. Second, it is said that organizing and recruiting beyond the local bargaining unit provides economy of scale, decreasing the cost per member not only of statewide activity but also of support services to the local unit. Examples of such services, mentioned in PERB's decision (PERB Dec. No. 197, supra, at p. 18 [6 PERC ¶ 13065 at p. 232]), are CTA manuals on such subjects as strengthening teachers' negotiating positions, public relations and media access on collective bargaining issues, and organizing the community in support of collective bargaining demands. As already explained, the union's costs of lobbying or ballot proposition electioneering may be chargeable to the service fees of objecting nonmembers only if the employer enlists the union's help in obtaining or opposing enactment of some measure related to matters within the scope of representation. The possible beneficial effects of augmenting the union's overall membership upon such political cooperation between the union and the employer, or upon the claimed economies of scale in the provision of support services, are too attenuated to cause organizing and recruiting to become a representational obligation chargeable to objecting nonmembers under an organizational security arrangement. (Cf. Ellis v. Railway Clerks, supra, 466 U.S. 435, 451-453 [80 L.Ed.2d 428, 443-446].)