FAQs
How did the district receive a list, with names, of ICUE supporters and non supporters?
- When educators form a union and want that union to be officially recognized as the “union of record” by both the district and the state, the union must file for recognition with the Public Employee Relations Board (PERB) by submitting two things:
- An outline of which group of educators the union aims to represent (called a bargaining unit).
- Petition signature from 50% +1 of the educators in that bargaining unit (called proof of support). Importantly, this list of signatures is provided only to PERB, and is not typically shared with the employer.
- To ensure accuracy, PERB
- Cross checks the union’s submitted bargaining unit description with an official employee list provided by the district.
- Sometimes in this process there can be discrepancies between the union and district lists.
- For example, the district’s list could sometimes still include retired educators who no longer work there, which would impact the union’s 50%+ 1 petition signature (proof of support) submissions.
- In our current circumstance, ICUE disputed the district’s list for this reason.
- Upon learning that ICUE was contesting the list the district had provided to PERB, we, in response, filed a legal request for information to the District of all the data ICUE submitted to the district.
- Upon receiving the district’s response to our information request, we learned that ICUE not only sent PERB a list highlighting the names of employees who had signed for ICUE, but also sent this confidential information directly to the District, thereby providing the District with a list showing, with full name and job title, the full time educators who had signed ICUE cards – and those who had not..
- Best practice in these circumstances is that names/job titles/contact information of those who signed the petition are kept confidential, and disclosed only to PERB, and certainly not shared with the employer.
- This is a commonly understood process because PERB is tasked with verifying the union’s submitted proof of support against the district – provided list of the union’s proposed bargaining unit.
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