Opinion ID: 2634751
Heading Depth: 2
Heading Rank: 3

Heading: Review of Employee Discipline Under the MOU's

Text: As noted at the outset, the MOU's at issue here allow the state employees in Units 8, 11, 12 and 13 to challenge disciplinary actions either before the State Personnel Board or by filing a grievance before a four-member Board of Adjustment. Employees in Units 11, 12 and 13 who are dissatisfied with a Board of Adjustment decision can challenge that decision through arbitration. (Unit 8 employees can pursue arbitration only if the Board of Adjustment fails to reach a decision.) Have these MOU's, as the trial courts and the Court of Appeal concluded, altered review of state civil service disciplinary actions in such a way as to violate section 3, subdivision (a) of article VII of the state Constitution providing that the State Personnel Board shall ... review disciplinary actions? We address that question below. For simplicity's sake, we will refer to plaintiffs collectively as the State Personnel Board, and we will refer to the employee unions and the Department of Personnel Administration collectively as defendants.