EVS LIVES MATTER

“The true measure of any society can be found in how it treats its most vulnerable members” — Mahatma Gandhi.

They keep calling it “bidding.”
If pressed, they call it the “new bidding style,” as if this were a cosmetic update and not a fundamental rewrite of how seniority works.

Names don’t control legality. Contracts and outcomes do.

And under our contract, what’s happening does not hold up.

Article 13 Does Not Say What They Are Claiming It Says

Article 13 governs bidding procedures. It does not eliminate transparency, suspend disclosure, or authorize management to ask employees to commit to assignments without knowing the material conditions attached to them.

There is no language in Article 13 that permits withholding information about duties, workload, schedules, physical demands, or operational expectations. There is no language converting seniority-based bidding into a speculative exercise. We posted the link below.. go ahead and take a look for yourselves.

AFSCME 3299 SX – ARTICLE 13

If the parties intended to replace informed bidding with guesswork, that intent would be explicit. It is not.

What is happening now is not “clarified” bidding. It is altered bidding.

Article 2 Is the Line They Crossed

Article 2 is not optional. It requires bargaining over changes that affect hours, wages, and working conditions.

This “new bidding style” changes all three.

It changes how employees access work.
It changes the risk tied to exercising seniority.
It changes the real-world conditions employees end up working under.

You cannot strip information out of a bidding process and pretend the conditions stayed the same. Article 2 does not allow that kind of sleight of hand. We posted it below so you can see for yourselves- we are not making this up.

AFSCME 3299 SX – ARTICLE 2

Calling the change “procedural” does not make it non-substantive. The contract looks at impact, not how it is spun by it’s enforcers.

Why This Directly Collides with Disability Protections

Now here’s where this goes from improper to unlawful.

Under disability law, including the ADA and California’s parallel protections, employers are prohibited from maintaining systems that disproportionately harm employees with disabilities or medical limitations — even if the policy appears neutral.

This is called disparate impact.

Senior employees are far more likely to:
• have medical restrictions
• have physical limitations
• rely on predictable duties to remain accommodated
• use seniority to avoid reinjury

When bidding occurs without disclosure of material job conditions, those employees are forced into an impossible position: gamble their health or surrender their contractual rights.

That is not equal access. That is structural exclusion.

And it is triggered by the way Article 13 is being “misinterpreted”, combined with the refusal to bargain required by Article 2.

HEERA and PERB Don’t Allow This End-Run

As a public-sector employer, unilateral changes that erode negotiated protections violate HEERA and are squarely within PERB’s enforcement authority.

PERB has been clear: employers may not do indirectly what they cannot do directly.

You cannot eliminate seniority protections by redesigning the process so that seniority becomes dangerous to use. You cannot hollow out Article 13 while pretending Article 2 doesn’t apply.

That is textbook overreach.

From Contract Right to Manufactured “Performance Problem”

Here is the predictable result of this setup:

An employee bids in good faith under Article 13.
Material information is withheld.
The assignment conflicts with known limitations.
The employee struggles.
Documentation begins.
A decades-long career is reframed as a deficiency.

That outcome is not accidental. It is the foreseeable consequence of changing the system without bargaining and without regard for protected status.

Getting Older Is Not Cause. Aging Is Not Misconduct.

No employee should spend the final years of their career defending themselves against problems created by a process that violates the spirit and letter of the contract.

No one should be pushed out under the appearance of “performance” when the real issue is that transparency was removed and protections were stripped.

That is not good faith management. That is administrative targeting.

Final Thought

Article 13 does not authorize this.
Article 2 forbids implementing it without bargaining.
Disability law condemns its impact.
HEERA and PERB do not tolerate the workaround.

They can call it the “new bidding style.”

But when a process predictably harms senior and disabled employees, the contract and the law call it exactly what it is — and neither is impressed by rebranding.

#Don’tBelieveTheHype