Opinion ID: 1230281
Heading Depth: 4
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Scope of Coverage Under the MMBA

Text: The MMBA was adopted in 1968, after several more modest attempts to regulate labor relations for local government employees. Its stated purpose is to provide a reasonable method of resolving disputes regarding wages, hours, and other terms and conditions of employment.... (Gov. Code, § 3500.) (1) Its principal means for doing so is by imposing on public agencies the obligation to meet and confer in good faith regarding wages, hours, and other terms and conditions of employment with representatives of recognized employee organizations.... ( Id., § 3505.) The duty to meet and confer in good faith has been construed as a duty to bargain with the objective of reaching binding agreements between agencies and employee organizations over the relevant terms and conditions of employment. ( Glendale City Employees' Assn., Inc. v. City of Glendale (1975) 15 Cal.3d 328, 336 [124 Cal. Rptr. 513, 540 P.2d 609].) The duty to bargain requires the public agency to refrain from making unilateral changes in employees' wages and working conditions until the employer and employee association have bargained to impasse; this duty continues in effect after the expiration of any employer-employee agreement. ( San Joaquin County Employees Assn. v. City of Stockton (1984) 161 Cal. App.3d 813, 818-819 [207 Cal. Rptr. 876].) The MMBA explicitly includes attorneys within the scope of its protections. Government Code section 3507.3 states that Professional employees shall not be denied the right to be represented separately from nonprofessional employees by a professional employee organization.... [¶] `Professional employees' for the purposes of this section, means employees engaged in work requiring specialized knowledge and skills attained through completion of a recognized course of instruction, including, but not limited to, attorneys, physicians, registered nurses, engineers, architects, teachers, and the various types of physical, chemical, and biological scientists. (Italics added.) (2) Moreover the MMBA, unlike federal labor law, includes supervisory, management and confidential employees within its scope. Contrary to federal practice, by virtue of the broad definition of `public employee' in section 3501, subdivision (d), which excludes only elected officials and those appointed by the Governor, MMBA extends organizational and representation rights to supervisory and managerial employees without regard to their position in the administrative hierarchy. ( Organization of Deputy Sheriffs v. County of San Mateo (1975) 48 Cal. App.3d 331, 338 [122 Cal. Rptr. 210].) Government Code section 3507.5 permits a public agency to adopt rules for the designation of management and confidential employees, and for restricting such employees from representing any employee organization, which represents other employees of the public agency, but does not prohibit such employees from forming, joining or participating in an employee organization. Thus, under federal labor law, the Attorneys in this case may well have been excluded from union representation because they would be classified as management employees who `formulate and effectuate management policies by expressing and making operative the decisions of their employer.' ( NLRB v. Yeshiva University (1980) 444 U.S. 672, 682 [63 L.Ed.2d 115, 125, 100 S.Ct. 856].) The purpose for the managerial exclusion, as the Supreme Court explained, was to prevent a situation whereby employees would be tempted to divide their loyalty between employer and union. ( Id. at p. 688 [63 L.Ed.2d at p. 129].) The attorneys, or some of them, might have also been excluded under federal law as confidential employees who `assist and act in a confidential capacity to persons who exercise managerial functions in the field of labor relations.' ( NLRB v. Hendricks Cty. Rural Electric Corp. (1981) 454 U.S. 170, 180-181 [70 L.Ed.2d 323, 332, 102 S.Ct. 216].) But under the MMBA neither exclusion is applicable. By choosing to explicitly include supervisorial, managerial, and confidential employees within the realm of the MMBA's protections, the Legislature implicitly decided that the benefits for public sector labor relations achieved by including managerial employees outweighed the potential divided loyalty dilemmas raised. [1] We therefore note at the outset that any argument which contends that MMBA protections should not apply to certain managerial employees because of problems with divided loyalty must be viewed with skepticism, for that argument follows precisely the legislative road the MMBA declined to take.