In the wake of the landmark decision of Janus v. AFSCME (readMastagni Law Blog Post RE: Janus v. AFSCME), Governor Brown signed SB 866
into law. The legislation was incorporated into the recently enacted state
budget. The new law authorizes employee organizations to request payroll deductions and requires public employers to
honor such request. Significantly, the new law requires agencies to honor the organization's dues deductions request based on the organization's certification of individual employee authorizations and to direct employee requests to cancel or change deductions for employee organizations to the employee organization, rather than to the public employer. SB 866 applies to the vast majority of employers covered by
PERB.
Specifically, the SB 866 makes several changes to the
union dues deduction process including:
1.
Employers must allow for payroll deductions for
union dues;
2.
Any request to begin dues deductions or cancel
dues deductions must be made to the union, and not the employer;
3.
The union is responsible for letting the
employer know the amount of dues deductions for employees;
4.
The employer must accept the information
provided by the union on dues deductions for employees;
5.
If a union states it has written authorization
for begin deductions, it is not required to provide the employer a copy of the
individual authorization unless a dispute arises about the existence or terms
of the authorization;
6.
The union must indemnify the employer for any
claims made by employees as a result of the payroll deductions;
7.
If an employer “chooses to disseminate mass
communications to public employees or applicants to be public employees
concerning public employees’ rights to join or support an employee
organization, or to refrain from joining or supporting an employee organization,
it shall meet and confer with the exclusive representative concerning the content
of the mass communication;”
8.
If the parties cannot reach agreement and the
employer decides to go ahead with its proposed mass communication, it must also
distribute a communication of reasonable length provided by the union.
SB 866 became effective immediately after Governor Brown
signed it into law on June 27, 2018.
