Legal Question in Employment Law in California
Can I be forced to take a promotion as a public employee? I'm an engineer for a local municipal water district. Management laid off one of the other engineers, my boss (District Engineer) is retiring, and another technician has on leave with cancer. I am being asked to perform the duties of all of these employees as a function of a new managerial position that is being created with all of these job duties including mine which are well beyond anyone's ability to handle. Can I say no and if do, can they tack on the duties of these other positions onto my own job classification? If I am forced to do these duties anyway (which I already am in many cases), what constitutes working "out of class"? I'm not a member of the union at work, but I'm told the MOU applies to non association employees also.
1 Answer from Attorneys
It is impossible to answer your question without reviewing the MOU. Unless it is prohibited by the MOU, however, and since you have an MOU you presumably are not civil service, they can do it.