California Department of Human Resources v. Service Employees International Union

This appeal arises from the interplay of federal court orders, public employee labor agreements, legislative approval of those agreements, and purportedly binding labor arbitration.

The Department of Personnel Administration (DPA) 1 negotiated with the Service Employees International Union, Local 1000 (Union), representing certain medical employees of California’s Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation (CDCR). This produced two similar memoranda of understanding (the MOU’s) increasing tire salary ranges for some Union employees by certain percentages, effective January 1, 2007. The Legislature and Governor approved these MOU’s in September 2006.

*1423 In October 2006, the federal court ordered an increase in those same salary ranges by a larger amount than the MOU’s, effective retroactively to September 1, 2006.

. DPA declined to apply the MOU salary increases on top of the Plata increases, generally taking the view that they had been superseded by the larger Plata increases. The Union filed a grievance, contending that the MOU increases had to be applied to whatever salary ranges were extant on January 1, 2007, and therefore should be calculated on top of the…