Section 3521 Of Chapter 10.3. State Employer-employee Relations From California Government Code >> Division 4. >> Title 1. >> Chapter 10.3.
3521
. (a) In determining an appropriate unit, the board shall be
governed by the criteria in subdivision (b). However, the board shall
not direct an election in a unit unless one or more of the employee
organizations involved in the proceeding is seeking or agrees to an
election in such a unit.
(b) In determining an appropriate unit, the board shall take into
consideration all of the following criteria:
(1) The internal and occupational community of interest among the
employees, including, but not limited to, the extent to which they
perform functionally related services or work toward established
common goals; the history of employee representation in state
government and in similar employment; the extent to which the
employees have common skills, working conditions, job duties, or
similar educational or training requirements; and the extent to which
the employees have common supervision.
(2) The effect that the projected unit will have on the meet and
confer relationships, emphasizing the availability and authority of
employer representatives to deal effectively with employee
organizations representing the unit, and taking into account such
factors as work location, the numerical size of the unit, the
relationship of the unit to organizational patterns of the state
government, and the effect on the existing classification structure
or existing classification schematic of dividing a single class or
single classification schematic among two or more units.
(3) The effect of the proposed unit on efficient operations of the
employer and the compatibility of the unit with the responsibility
of state government and its employees to serve the public.
(4) The number of employees and classifications in a proposed unit
and its effect on the operations of the employer, on the objectives
of providing the employees the right to effective representation, and
on the meet and confer relationship.
(5) The impact on the meet and confer relationship created by
fragmentation of employees or any proliferation of units among the
employees of the employer.
(6) Notwithstanding the foregoing provisions of this section, or
any other provision of law, an appropriate group of skilled crafts
employees shall have the right to be a separate unit of
representation based upon occupation. Skilled crafts employees shall
include, but not necessarily be limited to, employment categories
such as carpenters, plumbers, electricians, painters, and operating
engineers.
(c) There shall be a presumption that professional employees and
nonprofessional employees should not be included in the same unit.
However, the presumption shall be rebuttable, depending upon what the
evidence pertinent to the citeria set forth in subdivision (b)
establishes.