In Boling v. Public Employment Relations Board,
the high court evaluated whether a ballot initiative transferring newly hired
city workers to a 401(k)-style retirement savings plan, in lieu of a traditional
pension plan, required the city to meet-and-confer with various unions. Since 1984 our Supreme Court has held that a charter amendment proposed by the governing body of a public agency is subject to the MMBA's bargaining requirements prior to its submission to the voters if it adversely impact compensation or benefits. (People ex rel. Seal Beach Police Officers Assn. v City of Seal Beach). Mayor Sanders's sought to evade Seal Beach through the artifice of spearheading a voter initiative. Until this week, the Supreme Court had not determined whether voter initiatives are subject to meet and confer;
This seminal
case involved Proposition B, a ballot measure placed on the June 2012 ballot by a group called San Diegans for Pension Reform to amend the San Diego city charter to provide 401(k)-style retirement benefits instead of defined benefit pensions to newly hired employees. However, San Diego Mayor Jerry
Sanders was instrumental with the measure passing. The Mayor proposed the
initiative in November 2010 and even spoke of his support for it at his State
of the City address on January 2011. In fact, Mayor Sanders met with community
groups but refused to meet with unions representing municipal employees, deputy
city attorneys, and firefighters. The initiative passed with 65.81 percent of
the vote.
After
Proposition B passed, union members filed suit alleging that Mayor Sanders
improperly placed the initiative on the ballot without first bargaining with
affected unions as required under the Meyers-Milias-Brown Act (“MMBA”). In
response, the City argued that the Mayors’ support was “merely that of a
private citizen.”
In
rejecting the City’s argument, the California Supreme Court ruled that: “allowing
public officials to purposefully evade the meet-and-confer requirements [of
MMBA] by officially sponsoring a citizens’ initiative would seriously undermine
the policies served by the statute: fostering full communication between public
employers and employees, as well as improving personnel management and
employer-employee relations.” The
Here, the San Diego Mayor tried to have it both ways acting on behalf on the City to push an initiative to divert pension obligations to other spending priorities, while claiming to do so as a private citizen in order to avoid long-standing bargaining requirements. Had the Court ruled otherwise, public officials would have been incentivized to circumvent their obligation to negotiate over pension initiatives through the contrivance of acting as a private citizen while exploiting the advantages of their elected office.
Here, the San Diego Mayor tried to have it both ways acting on behalf on the City to push an initiative to divert pension obligations to other spending priorities, while claiming to do so as a private citizen in order to avoid long-standing bargaining requirements. Had the Court ruled otherwise, public officials would have been incentivized to circumvent their obligation to negotiate over pension initiatives through the contrivance of acting as a private citizen while exploiting the advantages of their elected office.
