BILL ANALYSIS Ó
SENATE PUBLIC EMPLOYMENT & RETIREMENT BILL NO: SB 259
Gloria Negrete McLeod, Chair
Hearing date: March 21, 2011
SB 259 (Hancock) as amended 3/14/11 FISCAL: YES
EXPANDS THE DEFINITION OF EMPLOYEE OR HIGHER EDUCATION
EMPLOYEE UNDER THE HIGHER EDUCATION EMPLOYER-EMPLOYEE
RELATIONS ACT
HISTORY :
Sponsor: United Automobile, Aerospace, and Agricultural
Implement Workers of America (UAW), Local 2685
Prior legislation: None
SUMMARY :
Would expand the right, under the Higher Education
Employer-Employee Relations Act, for student employees at the
University of California, California State University, and
Hastings College of Law to be covered by collective
bargaining.
BACKGROUND AND ANALYSIS :
1)Existing law :
a) establishes the Higher Education Employer-Employee
Relations Act (HEERA) which provides a statutory
framework to regulate labor relations between the
University of California (UC), the California State
University (CSU), and Hastings College of Law and their
employees;
b) establishes the Public Employment Relations Board
(PERB) as the State agency that has broad authority to
enforce the HEERA with regard to labor relations
activities of the UC, CSU, and Hastings College of Law;
c) defines "employee" as any employee of the Regents of
Michael Bolden
Date: 3/14/11 Page 1
the UC, the Directors of the Hastings College of Law, or
the Trustees of the CSU under the HEERA;
d) provides that the PERB may find a student employee
whose employment is contingent on his or her status as a
student is an employee only if the services he or she
provides is unrelated to his or her educational
objectives, or that those educational objectives are
subordinate to the services he or she performs and that
coverage under the HEERA would further the purposes of
the HEERA, and
e) allows employee organizations, as defined, to
represent specified employees concerning grievances,
labor disputes, wages, hours and other terms and
conditions of employment.
1)This bill :
a) makes findings and declarations regarding student
employees working for HEERA employers; states the intent
of the Legislature to expand the definition of
"employee" under the HEERA, and maintain collective
bargaining rights for student employees who currently
have those rights;
b) would eliminate the existing condition for
determining whether a student employee is an "employee"
for purposes of the HEERA, and
c) would establish a new condition that student
employees whose employment is contingent upon their
status as students are employees or higher education
employees for purposes of the HEERA.
COMMENTS :
Over the past fifteen years, the application of statutory
conditions by the PERB and UC to determine whether a student
employee is an "employee" under the HEERA has resulted in
some student employees being considered "employees" while
others have not been granted this status. This bill seeks to
eliminate the current statutory conditions and provide that a
Michael Bolden
Date: 3/14/11 Page 2
student employee whose employment is contingent upon his or
her status as a student are employees or higher education
employees for purposes of the HEERA.
1) Arguments in Support
Citing PERB's decision in Regents of the UC & Association of
Student Employees, UAW, et al (1998) (PERB Order No. 1301-H),
the sponsor, states that the PERB determined that under the
current statutory language, UC's 12,000 Teaching Assistants
(TAs), Readers, and Tutors had bargaining rights but, the
Research Assistants (RAs) did not.
"The exclusion of student RAs from HEERA coverage creates a
continuity problem because students go in and out of the TA
bargaining unit during the five to ten years they are at UC.
When they are TAs, Readers, or Tutors, they have a union
contract with rights and benefits. When they are employed as
RAs, they are not covered by a contract and many of their
rights and benefits disappear. They lose child care
subsidies, family leave, workload protections, job security
rights, contractual redress for non-discrimination, health
and safety, grievance and arbitration, and much more."
Moreover, "a majority of student employees at UC, Hastings
and CSU have already been granted the opportunity to choose
collective bargaining under HEERA and this bill will maintain
those rights."
Finally, the sponsor adds that "student employees who work
jobs equivalent to RAs at CSU are covered under HEERA by
voluntary agreement between the UAW and CSU."
2) SUPPORT :
United Automobile, Aerospace, and Agricultural Implement
Workers of America (UAW), Local 2685, sponsor
American Federation of State, County and Municipal
Employees, AFL-CIO, Local 3299 (AFSCME)
California Labor Federation (CLF)
Michael Bolden
Date: 3/14/11 Page 3
California Nurses Association (CNA)
Committee of Interns and Residents/Service Employees
International Union (CIR/SEIU)
University Council-American Federation of Teachers
(UC-AFT)
University Professional and Technical Employees, CWA,
Local 9119 AFL-CIO (UPTE-CWA)
3) OPPOSITION :
None to date
#####
Michael Bolden
Date: 3/14/11 Page 4