BILL ANALYSIS �
AB 1655
Page 1
Date of Hearing: March 28, 2012
ASSEMBLY COMMITTEE ON PUBLIC EMPLOYEES, RETIREMENT AND SOCIAL
SECURITY
Warren T. Furutani, Chair
AB 1655 (Dickinson) - As Amended: March 20, 2012
SUBJECT : Public employees: rights.
SUMMARY : Enacts the Public Employees' Bill of Rights Act
(PEBRA) which provides various rights and protections to
non-excluded state civil service employees and requires that any
adverse action taken against a state employee be initiated and
the investigation completed within one year of discovery of the
cause for discipline. Specifically, this bill :
1)Enacts the PEBRA for the purpose of informing state employees
of their rights and terms of employment.
2)Defines "employee" as a state civil service employee that is
not an excluded employee.
3)Requires employers to provide each employee with a job
description, including his or her scope of duties, salary, and
benefits information, as specified.
4)Prohibits an employee's work from being standardized, as
specified, and from unreasonable quotas being imposed on the
employee.
5)Prohibits an employer from unreasonably preventing an employee
from using daily rest and lunch periods as well as other
earned leaves.
6)Prohibits an employee from being compelled to perform extra
work, as specified.
7)Specifies that a state civil service employee will have
priority in filling specified positions over contractors.
8)Requires time and a half to be paid for overtime worked.
9)Specifies that employees have a right to a safe and healthy
working environment and that grievances relating to this right
will have priority.
AB 1655
Page 2
10)Prohibits employers, excluded employees and contractors from
discriminating against a state civil service employee.
11)Prohibits reprisals against any employee for exercising his
or her rights under the PEBRA, the Ralph C. Dills Act, or the
California Whistleblower Protection Act.
12)Specifies that employees have the right to sue the employer
for violations of the federal Americans with Disabilities Act,
the federal Age Discrimination in Employment Act, the federal
Family and Medical Leave Act, the California Family Rights
Act, and the Fair Labor Standards Act.
13)Specifies that an employee is entitled to fair and
progressive discipline and that any preventive or corrective
actions must be in accordance with guidelines published by the
Department of Personnel Administration.
14)Requires the employer to honor the Memorandum of
Understanding (MOU) covering the employee.
15)Establishes specific rights for professionally licensed state
civil service employees related to professional judgment and
performance and merit evaluations and authorizes the formation
of peer review committees for professional staff to provide
input regarding workplace operations.
16)Requires that any adverse action taken against a state
employee be initiated and the investigation completed within
one year after discovery of the cause for discipline.
17)Requires notice of adverse actions based on fraud,
embezzlement, or the falsification of records to be served
within one year after the discovery of the fraud,
embezzlement, or falsification, rather than the current three
years, in order to be valid.
EXISTING LAW:
1)Contains the Public Safety Officers Procedural Bill of Rights
Act (POBOR) prescribing various rights of public safety
officers, as defined, with regard to representation,
discrimination, discipline, and interrogation, as specified.
Firefighting personnel, with the exception of a fire
AB 1655
Page 3
department's arson-investigating unit, are not covered by
POBOR.
2)Contains the Firefighters Procedural Bill of Rights Act
establishing various rights of firefighters, paramedics, and
emergency medical technicians, as specified, with regard to
political activity, interrogation, punitive action, and
administrative appeals.
3)Contains the Bill of Rights for State Excluded Employees
prescribing various rights and terms and conditions of
employment for "excluded" employees, defined as state
supervisory, managerial, and confidential employees, who are
all exempted from statutes providing full collective
bargaining rights.
4)Authorizes an appointing power to take adverse action against
a state employee for specified causes, and establishes
administrative procedures for review of an adverse action by
the State Personnel Board. An adverse action against a state
employee is required to commence within three years of the
cause for discipline, or in the case of fraud, embezzlement,
or falsification, within three years after the discovery of
the activity.
FISCAL EFFECT : Unknown.
COMMENTS : According to the author, "Currently, state employee
rights and work conditions may be bargained for an included
within an MOU. Unfortunately not all bargained for working
conditions are uniformly enforced or understood across all
departments and agencies, which negatively impacts employee
morale and undermines expectations of public employees. In turn
employer - employee relations tend to be unsettled and unstable.
"Statutorily defining an employee's rights will help ensure that
essential working conditions are met, enhance and clarify the
expectations of employees and management alike, and improve the
working relationship between rank and file workers and state
managers, which in turn results in improved worker
productivity."
Opponents state that AB 1655 would, "?place into law new
employees rights and other provisions that are normally subject
to collective bargaining. At a time when creating and
AB 1655
Page 4
maintaining jobs in the state should be paramount, AB 1655 would
incur significant cost, in the range of several hundreds of
thousands of dollars annually statewide, for employers to deal
with tighter timeframes for serving notices and completing
investigations related to adverse actions."
This bill is similar to AB 920 (Portantino) of last year and AB
1744 (Portantino) of 2010 which were both held in the Assembly
Appropriations Committee.
REGISTERED SUPPORT / OPPOSITION :
Support
American Federation of State County and Municipal Employees
(Co-Sponsor)
Service Employees International Union, Local 1000 (Co-Sponsor)
Union of American Physicians and Dentists (Co-Sponsor)
California Association of Psychiatric Technicians
California Attorneys, Administrative Law Judges and Hearing
Officers (If amended)
Opposition
California Chamber of Commerce
Garden Grove Chamber of Commerce
Southwest Riverside County Legislative Council
Analysis Prepared by : Karon Green / P.E., R. & S.S. / (916)
319-3957