Recently the correctional officers of the Merced County Sheriffs Department who are represented by Teamsters Local 856, had a fact finding hearing to discuss how overtime should be assigned.

The fact-finder, after hearing arguments from the Union and the County, released his recommendation on how overtime should be assigned.

You can view the full report of how much Merced County tax payers have paid in overtime to Merced Sheriffs Department on page 58 of the report here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1A1Roq6yreHuy_H6WWGH-RsUeyrgj8RGM/view

Merced County will make a decision on a later date.

While the details of his decision on overtime policies may not be of Interest to the public, the money the county spent on overtime and the hours correctional officers have to work was outlined in the report.

This fact-finding hearing concerns the Merced County Sherriffs Office (herein referred
to as the “Department”) need to assign mandatory overtime on a fair and equal basis.

For the past few Memorandum of Understandings, the express terms of the parties’ required that overtime be assigned on an “equal basis.”

On or about July 1,2017, the Department instituted a new overtime policy consistent with the parties’ MOU, which ensured that mandatory overtime was “assigned on a fair and equal basis.”

The Union seeks to change the current MOU language and eliminate the language, which
requires that overtime be assigned on an equal basis.

This change would ensure that the most
senior employees would not be assigned mandatory overtime unless there are no other
employees available for assignment.

Specifically, the Union wishes to return to the pre-July 1, 2017, Department practice of assigning overtime to the least senior employees, which ultimately changed due to female Correctional Officers being over-worked to the point of resignation.

Accordingly, the Department’s current practice ensures that mandatory overtime is assigned on a fair and equal basis.

However, the Report’s recommendations fail to recognize that a seniority-based assignment of mandatory overtime would have an undue burden on the Department’s operations.

While the County’s Last, Best, and Final Proposal balances the operational needs of the Department while ensuring a fair and equal distribution of mandatory overtime.

The Report’s recommendations attempt to create an entirely new system, however
creative the Report recommendations may be, the Department has significant concerns that the system would be unworkable.

The Teamsters local 856 Union agreed with the fact finders report for mandatory overtime.