## Facts

- The Claremont Police Officers Association was the recognized employee organization representing City of Claremont police department employees.
- In May 2000, the police department implemented a one-year pilot “tracking program” to determine whether officers were engaging in racial profiling.
- When an officer stopped a vehicle or person without issuing a citation or making an arrest, the officer had to radio the department with stop information, including the person’s race.
- After the pilot ended, the City’s police commission found the collected data insufficient and appointed a subcommittee and advisory panel to prepare a further study.
- The Association later objected that adopting a more formal stop-data collection program required the City to meet and confer in good faith under the Meyers-Milias-Brown Act (MMBA).

## Issues

1. Whether the City’s decision to implement a stop-data collection program to investigate racial profiling, and the reporting requirements imposed on officers, fell within the MMBA “scope of representation” requiring the City to meet and confer.
2. Whether, and under what standard, the implementation of a fundamental managerial or policy decision can be a negotiable subject even if the underlying decision is not.

## Decision

- The California Supreme Court reversed the Court of Appeal and upheld judgment for the City.
- The Court held the MMBA distinguishes between (a) nonnegotiable fundamental managerial or policy decisions and (b) implementation measures that may be negotiable depending on their effect on employment conditions.
- The Court applied the balancing test from *Building Material & Construction Teamsters’ Union v. Farrell* to the program’s implementation requirements.
- The Court concluded that neither the decision to study racial profiling through stop-data tracking nor the challenged reporting requirements triggered a duty to meet and confer.

## Legal Principles

- The MMBA requires a public employer to meet and confer in good faith only over matters within the statutory “scope of representation” (wages, hours, and other terms and conditions of employment).
- Fundamental managerial or policy decisions are excluded from the “scope of representation” and are not subject to mandatory bargaining.
- Implementation of a fundamental policy decision is negotiable only if, under the *Building Material* balancing test, the impact on employees’ wages, hours, or working conditions outweighs the employer’s interest in unencumbered policymaking and operational control.
- A work-related effect alone does not make a managerial policy or its implementation a mandatory bargaining subject; the effect must be sufficiently direct and significant under the balancing analysis.

## Conclusion

The court held that a city’s stop-data tracking program adopted to investigate racial profiling—including associated reporting requirements—was outside the MMBA’s mandatory meet-and-confer obligations because the program reflected a fundamental policy choice and its implementation did not substantially burden negotiable employment interests under the governing balancing test.


Claremont Police Officers Ass’n v. City of Claremont, 39 Cal. 4th 623 (Cal. 2006)