CCPOA.org - The PEACEKeeper :: The (Copy) Cat's Out of the Bag

The (Copy) Cat's Out of the Bag:

CCPOA fights for fair retro raises for supervisors; CCSO is forced to watch from the sidelines
by Robert Dean, CCPOA Supervisory Vice President

The Copy Cat's Out of the Bag

CCPOA supports its supervisory members in aggressive and innovative ways every day. When the state gave compensation adjustments to rank and file for the period July 1, 2005, to Dec. 31, 2006, but refused to do the same for supervisors, CCPOA sprang into action.

We requested to meet and confer in January 2007, just after Alexander "Buddy" Cohn issued an arbitrator's award showing that rank and file salary had been miscalculated since July 1, 2005. Cohn's two arbitrations awarded rank and file employees salary corrections equal to 3.125 percent of their pay from July 1, 2005, through Dec. 31, 2006. The Department of Personnel Administration did not provide the same benefit to supervisors, though supervisors got the raise on a forward basis on Jan. 1, 2007, just as rank and file did.

Under California Government Code Section 19849.18, the state has an obligation to provide the salary and benefit changes to supervisors that are generally equivalent to what the rank and file receive. Since that law was passed, the state has adjusted salaries for supervisors each time the rank and file got a change, even if the raises lagged for some months. This time, the state did something new and unfair.

They changed their interpretation of the law. Now, instead of adjusting salaries change for change, the state announced that it simply had to evaluate whether compensation changes were generally equivalent over time. Here, the state concluded that supervisors already earned more than rank and file, so supervisors did not need a retroactive adjustment in line with the Cohn Award.

When evaluating whether to give the retro raise to supervisors, the state looked at past benefits given to supervisors - regardless of the arbitration and before the arbitration was decided. The state said that because supervisors had received a POFF contribution and 85/80 health benefits in 2005 and 2006 when rank and file did not receive them, they did not want to provide a generally equivalent change to supervisor compensation when the rank and file got the retro raise in 2007. The problem with this thinking is that the state awarded those benefits to supervisors regardless of the outcome of the arbitration, and more than a year before the arbitration was decided. It seemed inequitable and CCPOA believes it violates the law.

CCPOA's supervisory representatives met with the state between February and April 2007 to discuss the impact of the Cohn Award on supervisors. However, when the state refused to budge from withholding retroactive application of the 3.125 percent, CCPOA ended negotiations and filed appropriate grievances with DPA. When the grievances were denied, CCPOA filed a lawsuit on June 20, 2007, in San Francisco Superior Court.

CCPOA expected the state would be our adversary in this proceeding, but we were surprised by some late-in-the-game moves by the California Correctional Supervisors Organization (CCSO) to copycat our fight. Fast forward to January 2008, after CCPOA had been litigating the case for half a year. CCSO announced it was filing its own lawsuit and "it was slowly moving through the judicial arena," according to their newsletter. Somehow, no papers were actually filed in Sacramento Superior Court until March 23, 2008. (CCSO had stated on its website in early summer 2007 that it had filed a lawsuit.)

Now, fast forward to May 2008. Less than one week before our trial, CCSO attempted to join our lawsuit by filing a motion to intervene in San Francisco Superior Court. If CCSO had been granted the right to intervene in the lawsuit, CCSO could have piggybacked on CCPOA's work, and could have delayed our trial for as much as a year.

With help from Gregg Adam of Carroll, Burdick & McDonough, CCPOA successfully defeated CCSO's motion and also defeated a second motion CCSO made on the morning of the first day of trial. In each case, the judges found that CCSO had simply waited too long, and CCPOA's trial should proceed on its own.

CCPOA completed the testimony portion of the trial in front of Judge Suzanne Ramos Bolanos on May 22, 2008, in San Francisco Superior Court, after examining witnesses such as DPA's Chief of Labor Julie Chapman and Labor Relations Officer Frank Marr. Closing briefs were submitted in late June. The judge will read the papers and then issue a decision in the case when she is ready. There is no specific timeline by which she must render her verdict.

This differs from a jury case in which the jury stays and deliberates until it reaches a verdict. Here, the judge thinks about the legal issues in the case and writes an opinion on her own schedule. CCPOA will keep members posted on any news in the case when the judge makes her decision.

On June 13, 2008, CCSO suffered another setback in its case when a judge ruled for the state and stayed the CCSO case, freezing all proceedings until the judge decides CCPOA's case. Even after CCSO lost its motion to intervene in the CCPOA case, CCSO sought to continue its own case in Sacramento Superior Court. The court ruling held in part that "[d]epending on the outcome of the San Francisco [CCPOA] action, Plaintiff [CCSO] may seek leave to amend the complaint and pursue the action and/or defendant [State] may seek to dismiss the action on the grounds that it is moot." The amendment mentioned is CCSO's attempt to change the suit from representing all supervisors to just representing its own members.

But enough about CCSO. CCPOA will keep members posted as soon as there is any news from the court. We are hopeful the result will bring justice to all of our hardworking supervisors employed during the retro period.

Print This Page

Back to Volume 25, Issue 5

Back to PEACEKeeper Main Page