Dills Act Does Not Prevent Legislature from Modifying MOU’s Prior to Impasse
June 13, 2013 by Adrian Barnes
The law firm of Beeson, Tayer & Bodine provides this summary of a public sector labor law finding on union bargaining agreements that are in conflict with California legislation. BT&B attorneys provide expertise to help both public and private sector labor law unions defend their rights. A California appeals court has ruled that state employees in certain bargaining units were not entitled to receive two paid holidays contained in their memoranda of understanding once those holidays were removed from the list of paid holidays by Government Code section 19853. The case is California Association of Professional Scientists v. Brown.
Section 19853, operative February 20, 2009, removed Lincoln’s Birthday and Columbus Day from the holidays to which state employees are entitled. Section 19853 provides, however, that if a conflicting memorandum of understanding (MOU) was executed on or after February 20, 2009, the terms of the MOU, rather than the terms of section 19853, will control. Several unions representing members of bargaining units covered by MOUs in place prior to February 20, 2009, which identified Lincoln’s Birthday and Columbus Day as paid holidays, filed a lawsuit against the state. Each of the relevant MOUs expired prior to February 20, 2009, but, under the Dills Act, the MOUs remained in effect after that date. The plaintiff unions sought, among other things, declaratory relief establishing that the relevant provisions of their expired MOUs were not superseded by section 19853.
At trial, Plaintiffs relied on sections 3517.8 and 3517.6 (parts of the Dills Act). Section 3517.8 provides in pertinent part: “If a[n MOU] has expired, and the Governor and the recognized employee organization have not agreed to a new [MOU] and have not reached an impasse in negotiations, . . . the parties to the agreement shall continue to give effect to the provisions of the expired [MOU], including, but not limited to, all provisions that supersede existing law . . . .” (§ 3517.8, subd. (a).) Section 3517.6 states in pertinent part: “In any case where the provisions of [over 100 code sections, including section 19853] are in conflict with the provisions of a[n MOU], the [MOU] shall be controlling without further legislative action.” (§3517.6, subd. (a)(1).)
The trial court determined that “section 3517.8 requires that [the state] give effect to [the expired MOUs between the state and [plaintiffs]] . . . until such time as the parties reach impasse in negotiations for a new [MOU] and the state implements a provision contrary to the parties’ agreement in [the expired MOUs].” The trial court further found that section 19853 did not expressly limit supersession to those MOUs enacted after February 20, 2009, rather it provided that it could be superseded by an MOU executed after that date and said nothing about whether it could be superseded by an MOU enacted before that date. Accordingly, the trial court found that, pursuant to section 3517.6, the expired MOUs that were still in effect and pursuant to section 3517.8 superseded the provisions of section 19853 which removed Lincoln’s Birthday and Columbus Day from the list of paid holidays.
On appeal, the decision was reversed. The appellate court agreed with the state that “[t]he trial court’s interpretation of section 19853 . . . contradicts the plain language of the statute [and] contravenes the legislative [purpose] to effectuate an immediate cost savings by eliminating the holidays and premium pay.” The court noted, in particular, that section 19853 prior to its amendment in 2009, had provided that where the holidays listed in section 19853 were in conflict with provisions of an MOU, the MOU would control. As the court explained, if section 19853 as amended were read to permit MOUs to control when they conflicted with section 19853 regardless of whether they were executed before or after February 20, 2009, it would render irrelevant the Legislature’s amendment to the supersession provision to include the February 20, 2009 limitation. Similarly, the court noted that because the Legislature had “expressly identified MOUs executed or amended on or after February 20, 2009, as superseding section 19853 in the event of a conflict,” this implied that MOUs executed or amended before that date were excluded from the category of MOUs that could supersede section 19853. Finally, the appellate court explicitly addressed section 3517.6, noting that it could not be reconciled with section 19853. Under the former, an MOU enacted prior to February 20, 2009, would supersede section 19853 where there was conflict, under the latter it could not. The court held that because the 2009 amendment of section 19853 was a later enactment, it superseded section 3517.6.
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