SEIU Local 521 presses Madera County for unpaid standby pay in three-employee grievance

SEIU Local 521 told a Madera County administrative hearing that the county violated Section 14 of the parties' memorandum of understanding by failing to pay standby pay to three former or current fire-department shop employees: parts assistant Ashley Diaz and mechanics Jeremy Whitten and Roy Minnick.

The union sought back pay and a prospective order to require the county to follow the standby provision moving forward. The county disputed the claim, arguing the grievance was procedurally defective and, on the merits, that the shop workers were not assigned mandatory standby under the contract.

The union's opening statement summarized the claim: "Did the county violate section 14 of the SEIU 521 ... memorandum of understanding, standby pay, when it failed to pay the grievance for Ashley Diaz, Jeremy Whitten, and Roy Monich ...? If so, what is the appropriate remedy?" The union said the contract required standby pay when an employer "requires an employee to remain available for callback at any time" and that standby rate under the MOU was $4 per hour.

County counsel told commissioners the union bears the burden to prove entitlement by a preponderance of the evidence and said the grievance was both untimely and procedurally defective. County witnesses, the attorney said, would testify the after-hours calls were voluntary, infrequent and part of a voluntary practice rather than a formal standby assignment.

Witness testimony admitted during the session offered competing factual pictures. Parts assistant Ashley Diaz testified she was required by her supervisor to keep a county-issued phone on her at all times to receive parts requests, that she routinely responded after hours and that she completed ordering and delivering parts for the fire fleet. Diaz said she and the two mechanics discussed the lack of standby pay with supervisors and human resources in 2023; she testified she recorded standby pay once on a timecard after an HR discussion in April 2023 and that the amount was later deducted from her pay.

On those duties Diaz testified: "I was to grab parts. I was to inventory them," and said calls after hours came "maybe once a week" and sometimes required in-person response — for example, retrieving a windshield-wiper assembly on the Friday after Thanksgiving.

Mechanic Jeremy Whitten, testifying by videoconference, described taking a county service vehicle home as a means to respond after hours and said that, for an initial period after he was hired, he and a second mechanic were effectively on call daily. He said supervisors told the shop that taking service trucks home was a "privilege" but that employees were expected to respond promptly when contacted; Whitten said managers sometimes criticized mechanics who could not be reached outside work hours.

County witnesses (read in opening statement) are expected to testify the grievance was untimely — filed 11 working days after the employees knew or should have known of the issue — and that the grievance improperly bypassed grievance steps that are required under the MOU, which justified denial. County counsel also told commissioners the shop process that generated occasional after-hours calls was voluntary, with sparse calls ("maybe 6 per year" in the county's opening description) and no discipline for failing to answer.

Commissioners admitted Union Exhibits 1 (grievance form), 2 (email thread about scheduling meetings) and 7 (a multi-page call-out calendar the union introduced to show who was listed as available for parts) into the record. The county moved to sequester nonparty witnesses who would testify, citing concerns about tainting testimony; the commission declined to broadly sequester the named grievants and allowed parties and named witnesses to remain in the hearing room while limiting nonparty observers when appropriate.

The commission also limited testimony at times, sustaining objections to lines of questioning the chair said were beyond the narrow scope of the grievance (for example, certain personnel or harassment claims that the county argued were not essential to the contractual standby determination).

The hearing did not reach a final commission decision before the session adjourned. Commissioners set additional testimony and cross-examination to continue at a later session.

The record consists, so far, of witness testimony from Diaz and Whitten, the union's opening statement and admitted union exhibits; both parties indicated additional witnesses would be called and additional documentary evidence would be considered as the hearing resumes.