PERB Annual Report: HEERA Still Most Contentious

PERB's Annual Report for 2006-2007 is now available on its wesbite.

In fiscal year 2006-07, 823 unfair practices charges were filed with PERB, compared to 1012 the year before; a 19% decrease. Interestingly, that decrease was due mostly to the number of unfair practice charges filed under HEERA, which went from 328 in 2005-06, to 92 in 2006-07.

Despite the drastic decrease in the number of unfair practice charges, higher education still remains the most contentious of the public sector arenas based on the number of unfair practice charges compared to the number of employees covered under each Act.

Consider, according to PERB's 2006-07 annual report, 71 charges were filed under Dills, 343 under EERA, 92 under HEERA, and 297 under MMBA. The number of employees covered under each Act is (roughly): 125,000 under Dills, 675,000 under EERA, 100,000 under HEERA, and 1,000,000 under MMBA.

Based on these figures, the number of unfair practice charges filed per 10,000 employees is: 5.68 under Dills, 5.08 under EERA, 9.2 under HEERA, and 2.97 under MMBA. Thus, HEERA generates almost 2 to 3 times the number of unfair practice charges as the other acts.