Factfinding: What Happens Next

Mediation ended without a deal, so MTA’s contract dispute with Modesto City Schools has been released to factfinding. This two-minute video explains what happens next.

What factfinding means for you

• Who decides the facts. A three-person panel. MTA selects one member and the District selects another. PERB, the state’s Public Employment Relations Board, selects the chairperson, unless both sides agree on someone else. (Gov. Code § 3548.1.)
• What the panel weighs. The law says the panel “shall consider, weigh, and be guided by all the following criteria.” Among them: the public interest and the District’s financial ability, how our pay and working conditions compare in comparable communities, the cost of living, and our overall compensation. (Gov. Code § 3548.2(b).)
• The report is advisory. If the dispute is not settled within 30 days after the panel is appointed, or a longer period both sides agree to, the panel makes findings of fact and recommends terms of settlement, “which recommendations shall be advisory only.” The report goes to both sides privately first, and the District “shall make such findings and recommendations public within 10 days after their receipt.” (Gov. Code § 3548.3(a).)
• Advisory is not meaningless. In a 1983 case involving MTA itself, PERB said “the statutory impasse procedures are exhausted only when the factfinder’s report has been considered in good faith, and then only if it fails to change the circumstances and provides no basis for settlement or movement that could lead to settlement.” (Modesto City Schools (1983) PERB Dec. No. 291, pp. 32–33.)
• A settlement is still possible. The two sides can still reach an agreement during factfinding.
• This is not a strike. Release to factfinding does not, by itself, authorize a strike. Any potential strike involves separate union decisions and legal requirements.