The Abridged version:
- California’s largest state worker union, representing nearly 100,000 employees, plans to hold an unfair practice strike Wednesday.
- Both the union and a private lawyer whose firm has represented the state say employees aren’t obligated to notify their supervisors if they plan to strike.
- The union and the lawyer also weighed in on whether state workers can face discipline.
Thousands of state workers are facing a choice this week about whether to participate in what would be the Service Employees International Union Local 1000’s first strike in history on Wednesday.
Yet ahead of the planned Oct. 21 strike against what California’s largest public employee union calls unfair bargaining tactics by Gov. Gavin Newsom’s administration, some state workers are grappling with practical questions: What do I tell my supervisor about my absence? What do I put on my timesheet? Can I get in trouble for skipping work to strike?
What Local 1000 members will do come Wednesday is a question with high stakes. The threat of a strike has already created pressure on CalHR, the department that represents the administration in union dealings, amid ongoing mediation between the sides over Local 1000 members’ next contract.
When Local 1000 members last authorized a strike a decade ago, the sides quickly reached a deal and avoided a work stoppage.
But if the strike actually occurs this time around, it could mean thousands of state workers —including some who interact directly with the public, such as Department of Motor Vehicles and Employment Development Department workers — will be gone Wednesday, and the public could notice.
A strike would also represent the latest escalation during several contentious months of negotiations between the Newsom administration and Local 1000. The work stoppage builds on an unfair practice claim the union filed against the administration in July, and last week the sides filed new unfair practice charges against each other with California’s labor referee, the Public Employment Relations Board.
The board didn’t grant the Newsom administration’s request to halt the strike.
As the strike date approaches, we asked the local, the Newsom administration and a labor and employment lawyer for their views on what state workers need to tell their supervisors about going on strike.
CalHR did not respond to Abridged’s questions by time of publication.
Here’s what the union and the lawyer said:
No obligation to tell
The union and the employment lawyer agreed that individual employees don’t have to notify their supervisors of their plans to strike.
“It’s totally voluntary if you want to tell your supervisor,” the union’s chief negotiator, Bobby Dalton G. Roy, said Friday.
“The union has noticed the state about this strike, we’ve been in line-pass negotiations to talk about it, so they’re very well aware,” Roy added.
California labor law doesn’t require workers to give managers a heads-up about their absence, according to Alec Tyra, senior counsel at Kronick Moskovitz Tiedemann & Girard and an expert in labor and employment law.
“None of those (California labor relations) statutes have an advanced notice requirement to provide plans about it,” Tyra said.
Tyra’s firm represents CalHR in some matters involving Local 1000, but isn’t currently representing the department on the issue of Wednesday’s planned strike, the lawyer said.
He added that his views don’t represent the law firm’s or CalHR’s.
The possible strike has been on the Newsom administration’s radar for weeks, at least since Local 1000 announced in early October that its members had authorized the work stoppage.
The union and the administration also met about which health and safety employees ought to be exempt from striking, according to unfair practice charges both sides filed earlier this month.
Last week, the labor relations board decided not to grant the Newsom administration’s request to block the strike, which was based on the administration’s claim that the union hadn’t adequately specified which essential workers would be excused from the work stoppage.
“By any measure the SEIU planned (strike) is lawful,” Tyra said Monday.
What about timesheets?
Though state workers aren’t required to alert their supervisors about striking, they may be wondering how a strike day would show up on their timesheets — and what the consequences, if any, might be.
The best approach is for each state worker to work with their individual supervisor about what to put on their timesheets, Roy said.
“Different departments have different timekeeping systems and personnel software … So their advice has to come from their department and from their supervisors,” the chief negotiator said.
It’s possible an employee could end up being marked AWOL — or absent without leave — if they strike Wednesday.
An AWOL day on one’s timesheet can feel alarming to state employees due to California’s AWOL statute, which says that “Absence without leave, whether voluntary or involuntary, for five consecutive working days is an automatic resignation from state service, as of the last date on which the employee worked.”
As Wednesday’s action is a one-day strike, it shouldn’t present any risk on that front, Roy said.
“No one should be getting anywhere near that five-day resignation situation. No one should be losing their job over this,” they said.
If you do end up with an AWOL day on your timesheet, “don’t panic,” Local 1000’s strike FAQ says.
“Your department may not have a specific code for strike-related absences and may instruct you to use AWOL,” the guidelines say.
“A timesheet code is not discipline. A lawful Unfair Practice Strike is protected concerted activity, and management may not unlawfully discipline or retaliate against employees for protected participation,” the guidelines say.
Tyra agreed that generally, regardless of specific timesheet codes, the state can’t retaliate against an employee for participating in a legal strike.
“If you were to mark them as AWOL and then use that as a basis to take discipline, that would be an unfair practice charge,” he said. “You are disciplining an employee for engaging in a protected union activity.”
Less obvious consequences, such as suddenly taking away or piling on an employee’s responsibilities after a strike, can also lead to unfair practice charges by public unions, Tyra said.
“If somebody was working on a project that was high-profile, they engage in union activity and they’re taken off that project, that employer very well could have violated state labor law,” he said.
At the same time, “there may be perfectly justified reasons why that action would need to be taken by the employer. Just because it happens in close proximity to a protected activity does not automatically mean it was for that,” Tyra added.
If a state worker faces such treatment over Wednesday’s strike, Local 1000 will support them, Roy said.
“The general advice is to know that we have a right to take this action,” they said.
“And even after that, if any supervisors or anybody tries to do anything, the union is still in your corner.”
Where will state workers strike this week?
State workers plan to hold a strike line outside multiple state buildings in Downtown Sacramento and across the city and state Wednesday.
Strike locations include the California Secretary of State’s office at 11th and O streets, the May Lee State Office Complex near North 7th Street and Richards Boulevard, and the California Natural Resources Agency near 7th and P streets.
A strike line is also planned at CalHR’s 1810 16th St. building, and workers plan to march from it to the Capitol Annex Swing Space at 1 p.m.
