The State Worker

This in from the nascent Police Officers of California, the group trying to break off from CSLEA to form its own bargaining unit:

"We call for CAUSE / CSLEA to agree to hold a global election vote. If cops don't want out of CSLEA then a PERB conducted global election will prove that," said Bob Orange, President of P.O.C. "However, we are confident that Peace Officers want their own union."

The release, which you can read by clicking here, also quotes CSLEA President Alan Barcelona: "It is fortunate that our Constitution permits us to bill [Park Rangers & Game Wardens] attempting to sever the bargaining unit for the substantial litigation costs before PERB, so that those costs will not have to be paid by our members."

And POC says, CSLEA alleged petition card fraud.

We've blogged about the severance movement in CSLEA. It's a contentious issue that dredges up divisions from 20 years ago when CSLEA was known as CAUSE.

The POC release prompted us to get in touch with CSLEA Manager and Chief Counsel Kasey Clark. We asked him the following questions:

Any sense of how much it has cost/will cost CSLEA to litigate this?

What impact, if any, is this having on contract talks?

Here is Clark's response:

Hey Jon--

Once again, I don't know that this is really a public interest story. I think POC is under the impression the press is giving them credibility.

As you have indicated previously, the POC founders are disgruntled with the severance process which consists of three phases:

(1) the proof of support phase which took POC three separate severance petition filings (the first two were dismissed due to insufficient proof of support) over the course of a year:

(2) the PERB litigation phase which consists of evidentiary hearings to determine whether the facts as applied to the legal authority proves that the proposed unit, i.e. one consisting of a large variety of different peace officer classifications, is more appropriate than the current make-up of Unit 7; and

(3) if, in the unlikely case PERB were to grant the petition for severance, an election to determine which organization the severed employees would like to represent them, which could be CSLEA, POC, any other labor organization who successfully intervenes, or no representation.

POC wants CSLEA to stipulate to the severance of the unit in order to avoid Step 2. However, ten of the twelve CSLEA Affiliate Boards which represent peace officers (with the exception of the affiliates representing Parks and Fish and Game) took a position of opposition to the severance because they recognized the severance was not in the best interests of their members ...

As for the fraud issue, this has been a concern of ours for some time. Presently the proof of support process has little protection to guard against fraud in the signature gathering process. In order to be valid, the card must have the name of an employee in an eligible position in the unit, be signed, and dated within one year from the filing of the petition.

PERB only conducts a cursory review to identify patent fraud, i.e. a number of cards appear to have an identical signature style. CSLEA is not privy to the cards and has no opportunity to examine them for fraud. PERB's cursory review apparently did not result in an indication of patent fraud.

Given that POC was coming up on a year since they began obtaining cards, there was a real potential that unless the third petition filing was accompanied by adequate proof of support, cards would begin expiring and POC would have to go back to those who signed cards and get them to sign a second card. This would likely be a major uphill battle as some Unit 7 peace officers who initially supported the move, have become disenchanted given POC's inability to submit a valid petition ...

.... CSLEA has the legal right to pay its costs in defending the action from dues that would otherwise be payable to the two affiliates who have supported the severance.

... when the severance campaign was initiated in September 2007, it had the potential to interfere with bargaining. However, the financial crisis has effectively eliminated any affect ...

CSLEA's litigation costs are being borne by the affiliates who pressing for severance. I would estimate the attorney's fees and costs on each side to be somewhere between $50K and $100K depending on how many days it actually takes to put on the case and how many witnesses will be called to testify, which will require travel and expense reimbursement.

Click here to read the full text of Kasey's responses to our questions.