Public employees are generally aware of their employers' duty to "meet and confer in good faith." This section discusses what that phrase means and under what circumstance public employers are required to meet and confer with associations over conditions of employment.

This material focuses on city and county employers and the requirements under the Meyers-Milias-Brown Act. (Gov. Code '3500-3510). Other public employees are covered under similar statutory schemes, such as the Educational Employment Relations Act which covers California=s public school employees, and the Dills Act which covers most other state employees. In addition to their rights under the MMBA, EERA or the Dills Act, depending on their employer (state or local), firefighters also may have additional bargaining rights under Labor Code '1960-1963.

The enactment of the MMBA created a mandatory collective bargaining system for California local government employers. Once a unit of employees has been recognized as a bargaining unit, the public employer has a duty to meet and confer in good faith and to endeavor to reach agreement on matters within the scope of bargaining or scope of representation.

"Meet and confer in good faith" is defined in Section 3505 of the Government Code which states that "meet and confer in good faith means that a public agency, or such representatives as it may designate, and representatives of recognized employee organizations, shall have the mutual obligation personally to meet and confer promptly upon request by either party and continue for a reasonable period of time in order to exchange freely information, opinions and proposals and to endeavor to reach agreement on matters within scope of representation. . ." After the employer and association have bargained to impasse, local impasse rules come into play as to settling the dispute. Economic issues may now go to binding arbitration. A full discussion on binding arbitration is discussed in the Negotiations section.

A major question often litigated is, determining what falls within the "scope of representation", thereby requiring the public employer to meet and confer over it. Government Code '3504 reads: "[T]he scope of representation shall include all matters relating to employment conditions and employer-employee relations, including, but not limited to, wages, hours and other terms and conditions of employment, except, however, that scope of representation shall not include consideration of the merits, necessity or organization of any service or activity provided by law or executive order."