Labor Relations: The Meet and Confer Process

interest arbitration over the sole issue of the terms of union access to new employee orientations. 131

If binding interest arbitration is provided for in a local charter, the covered agency is not required to engage in impasse fact-finding otherwise required under the MMBA. 132

d. Exhaustion of Impasse Procedures After any required impasse procedures have been utilized, it is up to the legislative body to take such legally authorized action as it may deem appropriate, or to take no action and thereby leave compensation and employment terms unchanged. For a discussion of unilateral implementation, see Section 3(C) of this workbook.

S UBJECTS OF B ARGAINING

S ECTION 2

A. T HE C ONTRACT AND P AST P RACTICE

1. T HE M EMORANDUM OF U NDERSTANDING (MOU) Government Code section 3505.1 provides that “if a tentative agreement is reached by the authorized representatives of the public agency and a recognized employee organization… the governing body shall vote to accept or reject the tentative agreement within 30 days of the date it is first considered at a duly noticed public meeting… [i]f the governing body adopts the tentative agreement, the parties shall jointly prepare a written memorandum of such understanding.” Once the governing body approves the MOU, it becomes binding on both parties. 133  An MOU, once adopted by the legislative body, is a labor agreement that contractually binds the parties. 134  The fact that the agency was motivated to ratify an MOU because of a strike, legal or illegal, does not make it void. 135  Where one party to the MOU materially breaches it (e.g., breach of no strike clause), the other party is entitled to rescind it. 136  A broad “no strike clause,” is insufficient to establish a waiver of the right to engage in “sympathy strikes” (i.e. refusal to cross a picket line). 137  Fiscal emergencies will likely not authorize agencies to abrogate the financial provisions of MOUs unless the emergency was so extreme that the agency would be forced to cease operations if the contractual monetary obligations were not deferred. 138  In Chapter 9 bankruptcy, a debtor may be able to reject an unexpired labor agreement if the debtor shows that (1) the agreement burdens the estate, (2) after careful scrutiny, the The Effects of MOUs

Labor Relations: The Meet and Confer Process ©2019 (s) Liebert Cassidy Whitmore 22