Schwarzenegger

In these mandamus proceedings, the Attorney General and the union representing the lawyers in his office, among others, assert that the failure of the collective bargaining process under the State Employer-Employee Relations Act (SEERA; Gov. Code, § 3512 et seq.) has caused a compensation crisis compromising public service and threatening the Attorney General's ability to uniformly and adequately enforce the law. Twenty-eight years ago the dissenters in Pacific Legal Foundation v. Brown (1981) 29 Cal.3d 168 [ 172 Cal.Rptr. 487 , 624 P.2d 1215 ] ( Pacific Legal Foundation ) perceived a conflict between the mandate imposed upon the State Personnel Board (SPB) to enforce a civil service system "based on merit" and the collective bargaining process mandated by SEERA. (29 Cal.3d at pp. 203-209 (dis. opn. of Richardson, J.).)

Suggesting the dissenters were prescient, the union argues "[t]he end result of an unfettered application of the collective bargaining system is that the legal professionals in Bargaining Unit 2 are being grossly under-compensated compared to those in other civil service job classifications" to the detriment of merit principles. The union asks this…