Northern California County Settles Layoff Violation

Friday, April 15, 2011

In February 2011 the Union was approached by a Northern County employee who believed that they were laid off incorrectly in the summer of 2010. This employee had a document from the County that showed that the employee was going to be laid off and that the employee had no bumping rights. Per the County Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) this employee was given the option of taking a voluntary demotion to another department in the County in lieu of being laid off. This new job was not only less pay, it was only half time. Th employee opted to take the voluntary demotion( better to have some job, than no job at all). Per the MOU the Union was to be noticed on all layoff’s and this was not done by the County in this case.

The employee began the new job in June 2010 and was grateful for the job until it was learned that another worker in the old department had recently been promoted to the old position. This position was not offered to the laid off employee. The Union immediately filed a grievance on several violations of the MOU involving layoff procedures. Although the initial grievance was denied, two months later the County offered the employee a settlement offer. The County paid the employee over $7,400 in exchange for the employee dismissing the grievance(calculated on wages the employee lost in the eight month period).

The employee is now working the equivalent of a full time job for two different County department’s and was very happy with the settlement and the fact that her ordeal was over.