If the 1930s was a key moment for the American Labor Movement, the late ‘60s and ‘70s was a major milestone for the California Labor Movement.

In 1968, the Meyers-Milias-Brown Act gave California’s municipal, county and local special district employees the right to collectively bargain. Then, in 1976, California lawmakers passed the Educational Employment Relations Act, which established collective bargaining for the state’s K-12 public schools and community colleges.

Bit by bit, California added expanded collective bargaining for public employees. There was the Ralph C. Dills Act of 1978, which established collective bargaining for state government employees. In 1979, the Higher Education Employer-Employee Relations Act added collective bargaining for California State University and University of California employees. 

Much as the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) oversees union petitions and complaints at the federal level, California law has established the Public Employment Relations Board (PERB), which does so for public employees in the state. 

Like the NLRB, the PERB is a five-member quasi-judicial agency that adjudicates disputes between parties which are subject to it. 

Members of the board are appointed by the governor, and serve a five-year term. 

Where the NLRB has fallen to dysfunction, frequently becoming non-responsive to union petitions and complaints, the PERB remains a strong and active voice for workers in the state. 

This is why California workers need Assembly Bill 288, the Right to Organize Act. 

AB 288 protects the voice of workers from getting snuffed out by union-busting billionaires like Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk. 

The bill, which is currently working its way through the California Senate after passing with bipartisan support out of the Assembly, gives PERB the authority to adjudicate private sector union grievances if, and only if, the NLRB is unable or unwilling to do so. 

AB 288 respects the supremacy of federal law, and it protects workers from the worst corporate abuses. Because justice delayed is justice denied. 

In Solidarity, 

Lorena Gonzalez