BILL ANALYSIS Ó
AB 1834
Page 1
ASSEMBLY THIRD READING
AB 1834 (Williams)
As Amended April 24, 2014
Majority vote
HIGHER EDUCATION 8-4 APPROPRIATIONS 12-5
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|Ayes:|Williams, Bloom, Fong, |Ayes:|Gatto, Bocanegra, |
| |Fox, | |Bradford, |
| |Jones-Sawyer, Medina, | |Ian Calderon, Campos, |
| |Quirk-Silva, Weber | |Eggman, Gomez, Holden, |
| | | |Pan, Quirk, |
| | | |Ridley-Thomas, Weber |
| | | | |
|-----+--------------------------+-----+--------------------------|
|Nays:|Chávez, Achadjian, Olsen, |Nays:|Bigelow, Donnelly, Jones, |
| |Wilk | |Linder, Wagner |
| | | | |
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SUMMARY : Expands the definition of employees under the Higher
Education Employer-Employee Relations Act (HEERA) to include
students whose employment is contingent on their status as
students, specifically to Graduate Student Researchers (GSRs).
EXISTING LAW establishes HEERA to provide a statutory framework
to regulate labor relations at University of California (UC),
California State Univeristy (CSU), and Hastings College of Law
and their employees; provides the Public Employment Relations
Board (PERB) authority to enforce HEERA; defines "employees"
under the HEERA and authorizes PERB to find a student employee
whose employment is contingent on his or her status as a student
as an employee only if the services he or she provides is
unrelated to his or her educational objectives, or 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. (Government Code Sections 3560-3599)
FISCAL EFFECT : According to the Assembly Appropriations
Committee, assuming that the approximately 12,000 GSRs at UC
choose to unionize, UC will incur the following costs:
1)Bargaining. One-time costs in the low hundreds of thousands
of dollars for bargaining sessions and travel.
AB 1834
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2)Contract Administration - including training staff regarding
contract terms, grievance management, handling unfair labor
practice charges, responding to union information requests,
and conducting labor management meetings - could be in the
range of $1 million annually systemwide. UC estimates a cost
of about $1.7 million systemwide to administer its contract
with postdoctoral scholars, stating that this is a newer
bargaining unit than that for teaching assistants, and that
newer units generally require greater administration.
3)Compensation Increases. To the extent that collective
bargaining, in and of itself, results in overall compensation
increases for GSRs, systemwide costs would increase by about
$2 million annually for each 1% of across-the-board
compensation increase.
4)Union Dues. If collective bargaining were to result in UC
covering the cost of union dues, UC estimates an annual cost
of $2. 3 million based on current GSR systemwide payroll costs
and United Auto Workers (UAW) dues rate. (The UAW represents
UC postdoctoral scholars and teaching assistants.)
Some of the above costs might be absorbable, and will likely
decline over time. Given years of tight budgets, however, it is
not likely that current UC administrative resources could simply
assume the entirety of this new responsibility.
In terms of funding, much of the above costs could be covered
from the grants and contracts that fund much of UC's research,
which in addition to funding the direct costs of the research,
include an allowance for recovery of indirect costs like
contract administration and other related overhead expenses. UC
indicates, however, that indirect costs are typically higher
than research sponsors are willing to pay and that recovery of
such costs varies among research sponsors. UC reports that
rates negotiated with federal agencies are among the highest,
but are still estimated at 5% to 18% below the true indirect
costs of conducting the research. To the extent the above costs
are not covered within the amount provided in grants and
contracts, they would be covered by the General Fund and student
fee revenue.
COMMENTS : PERB's decision in Regents of the UC & Association of
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Student Employees, UAW, et al (1998) (PERB Order No. 1301-H)
determined that under the current statutory language, UC's
12,000 Teaching Assistants (TAs), Readers and Tutors had
bargaining rights because their employment is not contingent
upon their status as students, but GSRs did not. Student
employees equivalent to GSRs at CSU are covered under HEERA by a
voluntary agreement with CSU. According to the author, GSRs
"work at UC for 5 to 10 years while pursuing degrees. They
frequently move in and out of the TA bargaining unit, since they
are often employed as both teaching and research assistants.
The movement between these jobs creates a lack of continuity.
When student employees work as GSRs their contractual rights for
workload protections, job security, grievance and arbitration
procedures, family leave and other rights disappears. This bill
extends the right for the 14,000 GSRs at UC to choose to bargain
collectively under HEERA. SB 259 (Hancock) of 2012, was
substantially similar to this bill. SB 259 was approved by the
Legislature but subsequently vetoed by the Governor.
Analysis Prepared by : Laura Metune / HIGHER ED. / (916)
319-3960
FN: 0003613