City of Monterey Park, CA EMPLOYEE RELATIONS

Any employee having significant responsibilities for formulating and administering city policies and programs including but not limited to the chief executive officer and department heads; and

Any employee having authority in the interest of the city to hire, transfer, suspend, lay off, recall, promote, discharge, assign, reward, or discipline other employees, or having the responsibility to direct them or to adjust grievances or to effectively recommend such action if in connection with the foregoing, the exercise of such authority is not of a merely routine or clerical nature, but requires the use of independent judgment;

For sworn uniformed personnel of the police department, any employee of the rank of sergeant or above;

(4)

For personnel of the fire department, any employee above the rank of engineer;

(5)

For personnel of other city departments:

(A)

Finance Department. Any employee classified as accounting and budget officer, purchasing agent/business license officer, or higher;

(B)

Community Development Department. Any employee classified as plan checker or higher;

(C)

Engineering Department. Any employee classified as associate civil engineer or higher;

(D)

Street Department. Any employee classified as public works maintenance supervisor or higher;

(E)

Water Department. Any employee classified as water utility supervisor or higher; and

(F)

Recreation and Parks Department. Any employee classified as park supervisor or higher.

(Prior code § 2251; Ord. 1259 § 1, 1969; Ord. 1289 § 6, 1971; Ord. 1397 § 1, 1975; Ord. 1458 § 1)

§ 2.32.030 City responsibilities and rights.

To insure that the city is able to carry out its statutory functions and responsibilities, the following matters will not be subject to the terms of this chapter, but shall be within the exclusive discretion of the city: the right to manage the city, the right to direct the work force, to select and determine the number and types of employees required, to assign work to employees in accordance with the requirements determined by the city, to establish and change work schedules and assignments, to hire, transfer and to promote or to lay off employees for lack of work and for all other legitimate reasons, to suspend, discipline or discharge for just cause, to expand or diminish services, to subcontract any work or operations, to determine and change methods of operations, to determine and change at its sole discretion the number of locations, relocations and types of operations and the processes and materials to be employed.

(Prior code § 2252; Ord. 1259 § 1, 1969)

§ 2.32.040 Employee groups.

In order to be recognized for the purposes of this chapter, an employee organization must represent a majority of the employees in an employee group.

The city has investigated and studied the work assignments and interest of all city employees. The city has made conclusions based on this study that there are three separate and distinct employee groups and that the acknowledgement of these groups will be most conducive to harmonious employer-employee relations and to the efficient operation of the city. The three separate employee groups so acknowledged are:

All sworn police department employees, excluding all nonsworn employees;

All firemen;

All other employees of the city.

Supervisors, management and confidential employees may be members of any employee group if they so desire and may be represented thereby (subject to employee organization bylaws and/or constitution), but may not represent employees of any of the above employee groups on matters within the scope of representation.

(Prior code § 2253; Ord. 1259 § 1, 1969)

§ 2.32.050 Petition for recognition.

Any organization representing employees that seek recognition as the majority representative of the employees in one of such acknowledged employee groups shall file with the city council a petition containing the following information:

Name and address of the employee organization;

Names and titles of its officers;

Names of authorized employee representatives and their authorities and responsibilities;

(4)

A copy of the employee organization's constitution or bylaws which shall contain a statement that the employee organization has as one of its primary purposes representation of the employees in their employment relations with the city.

(Prior code § 2254; Ord. 1259 § 1, 1969)

§ 2.32.060 Recognition of majority representatives.

The city council shall certify that any employee organization is the recognized employee organization for such group based on Section 2.32.050 and reasonable proof (including an election if necessary) that the organization represents a majority of the employees a such employee group.

Nothing herein shall prohibit any employee from appearing in his own behalf in his employment relations with the city.

The recognition by the city of any employee organization shall not be subject to challenge by any group and/or individual or by the city, before an elapsed time of twelve months from the last date of recognition.

Professional employees may seek separate recognition through a professional employee organization. A "professional" is an employee engaged in work predominantly intellectual and varied in character as opposed to routine mental, manual, mechanical or physical work; involving the consistent exercise of discretion and judgment in its performance; or such a character that the output produced or the result accomplished cannot be standardized in relation to a given period of time; requiring knowledge of an advanced type in a field of science or learning customarily acquired by a prolonged course of specialized intellectual instruction and study in an institution of higher learning as distinguished from a general academic education or from an apprenticeship or from training in the performance of routine mental, manual, or physical processes; or any employee who has completed the courses of specialized intellectual instruction and study described above and is performing related work under the supervision of a professional person to qualify himself to become a professional employee as defined herein.

(4)

Nothing herein shall prohibit any city employee the right to organize and join any organization of their choice or to refuse or refrain to join or participate in the activities of employee organizations.

(Prior code § 2255; Ord. 1259 § 1, 1969)

§ 2.32.070 Meet and confer.

The city representatives and representatives of recognized employee organizations shall "meet and confer in good faith" as set forth in Section 3505 of the Government Code on all matters relating to wages, hours and other conditions of employment within the employee representation unit as set forth under Section 2.32.040, except that the city representatives shall not meet and confer on any subject preempted by federal or state law or by city ordinance, nor with respect to the city's civil service rules and regulations or on other subjects as set forth under Section 2.32.030.

(Prior code § 2256; Ord. 1259 § 1, 1969)

§ 2.32.080 Disposition of failure to agree.

Any failure to agree (impasse) as defined in Sections 3500 et seq., of the Government Code, will be settled in the following manner:

A mediator or conciliator shall be selected by mutual agreement between the city representative and the affected recognized employee organization. If, however, said parties cannot agree on such a person, then he or she shall be chosen by the city council within a reasonable period of time after the parties have failed to agree on such a person. The person so selected shall meet with the parties within a reasonable period of time to aid in a voluntary adjustment of the "failure to agree."

The mediator or conciliator shall make no findings of fact or public recommendations or positions. His power will be strictly limited to his efforts to aid the parties to a voluntary accord. The costs of such person shall be borne equally by the parties.