Oregon Employment Relations Board Clarifies Standard For Duty to Provide Information

Under the Public Employee Collective Bargaining Act (PECBA) a public employer has a duty to provide information to a union, when that information is to assist the union in bargaining or enforcing the bargaining agreement. In AFSCME Local 3581 v. State of Oregon, Real Estate Agency, the Board reaffirmed that there need not be a pending grievance for that obligation to arise. Rather, as long as the request clearly indicates that the information is of probable or potential relevance to a grievance, then a union need "not need to identify a specific action upon which a grievance would be filed nor a specific set of facts which, in the view of the [employer], would support the Union's request for information." Thus, this case makes clear that employers who resist requests based upon the lack of a pending grievance or what they regard as an acceptable rationale for a grievance, do so at their peril.