What is HEERA?
California's Higher Education Employee Employer Relations Act (HEERA) is the law passed by the California State Legislature which gives UC employees the right to decide whether or not they want to unionize and have collective bargaining as the sole means of determining their wages, hours and working conditions.What is the PERB?
The State of California's Public Employment Relations Board (PERB) is the administrative agency charged with implementing and overseeing the provisions of HEERA. PERB makes determinations about which units are appropriate for collective bargaining; conducts elections to determine whether employees in a given unit want to be unionized and engage in collective bargaining; and investigates, holds hearings, and makes decisions on whether or not unfair labor practices have been committed.What is a Collective Bargaining Unit (CBU)?
Under HEERA, a collective bargaining unit is a group of titles with a sufficient "community of interest" that a union can reasonably represent as a unit- particularly in the negotiation of employees' terms and conditions of employment. HEERA provides that, with some exceptions, collective bargaining units at the University are organized into systemwide units. This means that all employees in a specific collective bargaining unit, across all the UC campuses, are considered to be one unit. Other units (Skilled Crafts units for example) are considered a local, single campus unit.What is a typical negotiation process?
After a union is elected to represent a collective bargaining unit, the University and the union engage in a negotiation process to reach an agreement (or contract) on the terms and conditions of employment for represented members of the unit. Every agreement has a duration period, meaning that the agreement expires after a specific date and the parties have to negotiate a new agreement. This next negotiation process is called "successor" bargaining because the parties are negotiating for an agreement that will succeed the current one. In some cases, agreement includes a provision called "re-openers." This means that the parties have agreed that they will re-negotiate only certain portions, or Articles, even though the agreement does not expire until a future date.To get an overview of what the current status is for bargaining on a particular Collective Bargaining Unit Agreement: Negotiations Summary
Where can I get more information on Collective Bargaining?
You can find out more about the processes for elections, decertifications and the history of collective bargaining at the UCOP Labor Relations Web site.