Local public employee organizations: impasse procedures.

The Meyers-Milias-Brown Act contains various provisions that govern collective bargaining of local represented employees, and delegates jurisdiction to the Public Employment Relations Board to resolve disputes and enforce the statutory duties and rights of local public agency employers and employees. The act requires the governing body of a public agency to meet and confer in good faith regarding wages, hours, and other terms and conditions of employment with representatives of recognized employee organizations. Under the act, if the representatives of the public agency and the employee organization fail to reach an agreement, they may mutually agree on the appointment of a mediator and equally share the cost. If the parties reach an impasse, the act provides that a public agency may unilaterally implement its last, best, and final offer. Existing law further authorizes the employee organization, if the mediator is unable to effect settlement of the controversy within 30 days of his or her appointment, to request that the parties' differences be submitted to a factfinding panel. This bill would instead authorize the employee organization to request that the parties' differences be submitted to a factfinding panel not sooner than 30 days or more than 45 days following the appointment or selection of a mediator pursuant to the parties' agreement to mediate or a mediation process required by a public agency's local rules. The bill would also authorize an employee organization, if the dispute was not submitted to mediation, to request that the parties' differences be submitted to a factfinding panel not later than 30 days following the date that either party provided the other with a written notice of a declaration of impasse. The bill would specify that the procedural right of an employee organization to request a factfinding panel cannot be expressly or voluntarily waived. The bill would also specify that its provisions are intended to be technical and clarifying of existing law.