Members Ramp Up For Contract Campaign

Priorities: Health Care, Wages & Member Involvement

At the beginning of this year, Del Norte County rang in 2007 by telling its employees that the solution to increasing health care costs was a 5% COLA coupled with a 5% deduction from their gross pay. The county insisted that this was a "push" and that they would cancel each other out. 

Management presented this plan during their "road show" in a way that made county workers feel like their health care would be taken away if they did not give up the proposed 5% increase. The net result of this new "plan" turned out to be an actual drop in the employees' take home pay.  The average county employee found that the deduction was not 5%, but closer to 6.5% or more —  a pay cut disguised as a “raise.”  Amid fears of losing health coverage and no other alternative offered by the County, the membership reluctantly accepted the plan.  At the same time, Crescent City’s Daily Triplicate reported that one of the county's top bureaucrats snapped up a $20,000 raise.
 
Wages for Del Norte County workers are well below market value, with its Road Department dead last among California counties. During affiliation negotiations between SEIU and DNCEA, the County's management offered a 10% COLA in what members perceived as an attempt to keep SEIU out of Del Norte County.

The members weren’t fooled, accepting the COLA but overwhelmingly voting to affiliate with SEIU anyway. The County claims it is aware that workers salaries "are below market and (that) the Board of Supervisors has taken a very strong stance to provide salary increases." Our newly elected bargaining team welcomes the opportunity to hold both County management and the Board of Supervisors to their word by negotiating a new contract, a revised health plan, and bringing wages for all county workers up to par.