Gov. Code, § 3543 · Article 4. Rights, Obligations, Prohibitions, and Unfair Practices
Gov. Code, § 3543
Text — As published in the Legislative Counsel's database, tables dated October 18, 2026 (pubinfo_2025.zip)
(a) Public school employees shall have 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. Public school employees shall have the right to represent themselves individually in their employment relations with the public school employer, except that once the employees in an appropriate unit have selected an exclusive representative and it has been recognized pursuant to Section 3544.1 or certified pursuant to Section 3544.7, an employee in that unit shall not meet and negotiate with the public school employer. If the exclusive representative of a unit provides notification, as specified by subdivision (a) of Section 3546, public school employees who are in a unit for which an exclusive representative has been selected, shall be required, as a condition of continued employment, to join the recognized employee organization or to pay the organization a fair share services fee, as required by Section 3546. If a majority of the members of a bargaining unit rescind that arrangement, either of the following options shall be applicable:
(1) The recognized employee organization may petition for the reinstatement of the arrangement described in subdivision (a) of Section 3546 pursuant to the procedures in paragraph (2) of subdivision (d) of Section 3546.
(2) The employees may negotiate either of the two forms of organizational security described in subdivision (i) of Section 3540.1.
(b) An employee may at any time present grievances to his or her employer, and have those grievances adjusted, without the intervention of the exclusive representative, as long as the adjustment is reached prior to arbitration pursuant to Sections 3548.5, 3548.6, 3548.7, and 3548.8 and the adjustment is not inconsistent with the terms of a written agreement then in effect, provided that the public school employer shall not agree to a resolution of the grievance until the exclusive representative has received a copy of the grievance and the proposed resolution and has been given the opportunity to file a response.
Notes and commentary — not statutory text
History
Amended by Stats. 2008, Ch. 179, Sec. 83. Effective January 1, 2009.
Source of truth
- Edition
- As published in the Legislative Counsel's database, tables dated October 18, 2026 (pubinfo_2025.zip)
- Official file
- https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/codes_displaySection.xhtml?lawCode=GOV§ionNum=3543.
- Text hash
- sha256 ddcfe244d0b90d6995c53afa6507f74eeef08b936287231512d0c8f70c1507fb
- Composed by
- compose_ca.py 2026-10-22: the Legislative Counsel's CAML content files read by a tokenizer (caml_readers.reader_a); an independent xml.etree reading (caml_readers.reader_b) agrees on every section
This section cites
Provisions in this library that the text above cites, as it prints each citation. A range cited as “ss. 61.13-61.16” links its first and last provisions.
Government Code
- Gov. Code, § 3540.1Printed as Section 3540.1
- Gov. Code, § 3544.1Printed as Section 3544.1
- Gov. Code, § 3544.7Printed as Section 3544.7
- Gov. Code, § 3546Printed as Section 3546
- Gov. Code, § 3548.5Printed as Sections 3548.5, 3548.6, 3548.7, and 3548.8
- Gov. Code, § 3548.6Printed as Sections 3548.5, 3548.6, 3548.7, and 3548.8
- Gov. Code, § 3548.7Printed as Sections 3548.5, 3548.6, 3548.7, and 3548.8
- Gov. Code, § 3548.8Printed as Sections 3548.5, 3548.6, 3548.7, and 3548.8
Cited by 3 provisions
Provisions in this library whose text cites Gov. Code, § 3543. Each shows the citation as that text prints it.
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