AB 340: Employer-employee relations: confidential communications.

Existing law that governs the labor relations of public employees and employers, including including, among others, the Meyers-Milias-Brown Act, the Ralph C. Dills Act, provisions relating to public schools, and provisions relating to higher education, and provisions relating to the San Francisco Bay Area Rapid Transit District, prohibits employers from taking certain actions relating to employee organization, including imposing or threatening to impose reprisals on employees, discriminating or threatening to discriminate against employees, or otherwise interfering with, restraining, or coercing employees because of their exercise of their guaranteed rights. Those provisions of existing law further prohibit denying to employee organizations the rights guaranteed to them by existing law.

This bill would also prohibit a local public agency employer, a state employer, a public school employer, a higher education employer, or the district public employer from questioning any employee or employee representative a public employee, a representative of a recognized employee organization, or an exclusive representative regarding communications made in confidence between an employee and an employee representative in connection with representation relating to any matter within the scope of the recognized employee organizations representation. The bill would also prohibit a public employer from compelling a public employee, a representative of a recognized employee organization, or an exclusive representative to disclose those confidential communications to a third party. The bill would not apply to a criminal investigation or when a public safety officer is under investigation and certain circumstances exist.