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Gov. Code, § 3553 · Chapter 11. Prohibition on Public Employers Deterring or Discouraging Union Membership

Gov. Code, § 3553

Verbatim from the official edition

Text — As published in the Legislative Counsel's database, tables dated October 18, 2026 (pubinfo_2025.zip)

(a) This section shall apply only when an employee organization has been recognized or certified by the governing body of the public employer or the Public Employment Relations Board as the exclusive representative of employees in a bargaining unit.

(b) If a public employer chooses to disseminate mass communications to public employees or applicants to be public employees concerning public employees’ rights to join or support an employee organization, or to refrain from joining or supporting an employee organization, it shall meet and confer with the exclusive representative concerning the content of the mass communication.

(c) If the public employer and the exclusive representative do not come to agreement on the content of a public employer’s mass communication covered by this section, and if the public employer still chooses to disseminate the mass communication, the public employer shall distribute to the public employees, in addition to, and at the same time as, its own mass communication, a communication of reasonable length provided to the public employer by the exclusive representative. The exclusive representative shall provide the public employer with adequate copies of its own mass communication prior to distribution.

(d) This section shall not apply to a public employer’s distribution of a communication concerning public employee rights that has been adopted for purposes of this section by the Public Employment Relations Board or the Department of Human Resources.

(e) For purposes of this section, a “mass communication,” means a written document, or script for an oral or recorded presentation or message, that is intended for delivery to multiple public employees.

Notes and commentary — not statutory text

History

Added by Stats. 2018, Ch. 53, Sec. 14. (SB 866) Effective June 27, 2018.

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&sectionNum=3553.
Text hash
sha256 aa9f9c6f3893be8d6158fd9d460b62d73b966080f9fd055e9d65cbaebb04aacd
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

Procedural information only. Not legal advice and not a substitute for the advice of an attorney. Confirm the current text with the official publisher before relying on it.