Higher Education Employee Relations Act
Employee and Labor Relations (ELR) provides direction and advisory services to campus management in administration of collective bargaining agreements and the State Higher Education Employee Relations Act (HEERA).
HEERA
The Public Employment Relations Board (PERB) administers the Higher Education Employer-Employee Relations Act (HEERA). PERB conducts representation elections and makes decisions regarding Unfair Labor Practice charges filed by employees, labor organizations and the university.
The law protects employees from reprisals, discrimination, coercion or interference with their exercise of HEERA rights. This includes the right to form, join and participate in the activities of employee organizations of their own choosing for the purpose of representation on all matters of employer-employee relations and for the purpose of meeting and conferring over those matters. Employees also have the right to refuse to join employee organizations, pay membership dues or to participate in the activities of these organizations.
Employees who are managerial or confidential within the meaning of HEERA, and some student employees, are excluded from the law's coverage. Supervisory employees have some rights to union representation under HEERA; however, the law prohibits collective bargaining of supervisors' terms and conditions of employment.
UC Collective Bargaining History
Under HEERA, a bargaining unit is a group of titles with a sufficient "community of interest" (e.g. similar working environment, occupational category, level of education) that a union can reasonably represent the employees in the unit—particularly the negotiation of the employees' terms and conditions of employment.
After the enactment of HEERA in 1979, PERB made a number of determinations about appropriate units at the University of California and conducted representation elections.
UCR Unionized Units |
|
|
For information about the Bargaining units and their contracts, please visit Union Contracts & Representative Contacts / Collective Bargaining Agreements |
The full texts of the collective bargaining agreements between the University and these unions are available in the Employee & Labor Relations Union Contracts and Representative Contacts. HEERA prohibits the University from negotiating directly with represented employees ("direct dealing") or consulting with any academic, professional or staff advisory group on any matter within the scope of representation.
Negotiation Process
HEERA requires that in negotiating contracts the parties engage in good faith negotiations to try to resolve their differences and to attempt to achieve a signed contract. In the event the parties cannot reach agreement, HEERA provides intervention through an impasse procedure.
This procedure includes mediation and fact-finding. If mediation fails, the mediator can elevate the issues to fact-finding. In the fact-finding process, the parties present their respective positions on the unresolved issues that are designated by law as mandatory subjects of bargaining to a three-member fact-finding panel.
The panel issues recommendations for resolving the differences between the parties. If the parties cannot reach agreement at the conclusion of fact-finding, the recommendations become available to the public.
UCR Employee Relations (EREL) Code Chart
Definitions under Higher Education Employer Relations Act HEERA
Title Categories |
|
Manager |
Any employee having significant responsibilities for formulating or administering policies and programs |
Confidential |
An employee required to develop or present management positions for collective bargaining, and/or an employee whose duties normally require access to information which contributes significantly to the development of such management positions. |
Supervisor |
An employee must supervise the appropriate amount of FTEs and have the appropriate level of authority for decision making in areas such as hiring, performance evaluation, work assignment, reclassification and merit opportunities, disciplinary actions and complaint/grievance resolution. The employee must not be on a short-term supervisory assignment and must perform work that is predominately different than those being supervised. At UCR, a supervisor designation requires the supervision of 2.0 career FTE, unless an exception is granted by Human Resources. For a definition of a supervisor, please refer to the Supplemental Guides for Supervisor Classes. |
Non-HEERA
|
Individuals who supervise less than 2.0 career FTE or supervise casual-restricted appointments still needs to be identified for training purposes. These individuals should be identified in People Soft with a code of “S” in the Special Training Required field that is located in the UC Position Data screen (follow the path beginning at Organization Developments). Please refer to the following table below to determine the correct EREL code. |
UCR Employee Relations (EREL) Code Chart
EREL CODES |
||||
| EREL CODE |
Category |
Usage |
HR/LR |
Dervived |
| A | Manager/ Non-Confidential |
Must:
|
U | |
| B |
Manager/ |
Must:
|
Yes | U |
| C |
Supervisor/ |
Must:
|
Yes | S |
| D |
Supervisor/ |
Must:
|
Yes | S |
| E | All Others/ Non Confidential |
Use for employees who do not meet the “Manager,” “Confidential,” or “Supervisor definition. | C | |
| F |
All Others/ |
Must:
|
Yes | U |
| G | Not covered by HEERA (out of state) |
|||
| H | Students in academic titles covered by HEERA |
Must:
|
C | |
| I | Students in academic titles not covered by HEERA |
Must:
|
U | |
| J | Excluded from Coverage |
Any employee where an agreement is reached between UC and the union about any specific exclusion from a bargaining unit (for example, DX Physician working very low % of time). | ||
| X | Not Applicable Contingent Worker |
An employee that is a contingent worker at a location (introduced as part of the UCPath project). | ||