A number of Adams County employees will receive an average of $3,000 each in restitution following a ruling by the Public Employment Relations Commission that the County was guilty of unfair labor practices in the way it treated them.

The workers will receive the restitution as compensation for having their hours cut by the County last year. The County acted against them after the members had filed a petition for about 50 County employees to be represented by Council 2. The employees work in the Adams County Courthouse and the Sheriff Department’s Emergency 911 service.

PERC ordered not only that the employees be given back pay but also that they receive interest of 12 percent on the money.

“This is only the second case in Council 2’s history that we know of that we have had an interest award,” says Director of Organizing Bill Keenan. Calling it a “great victory,” Keenan praised the work of Council 2 general counsel Audrey Eide who, he said, did an outstanding job of putting Council 2’s case to the commission.

The dispute began in December 2001 after the Adams County workers filed a petition to be represented by Council 2. The County disputed the proper make-up of the bargaining unit, a dispute that would take almost a year to resolve.

After the petition was filed on December 1, during the first couple of months of 2002 the County commissioners said that they had budget problems. On April 1, 2002 they cut the hours of all the employees who had filed the petition by five hours a week. That reduction represented a 12 percent pay cut.

At the same time the County awarded the other employees an 8 percent pay increase.

Council 2 filed an Unfair Labor Practices complaint in April, 2002.
In the meantime, the dispute over the make-up of the bargaining unit had been resolved and the workers voted in November last year to be represented by Council 2. Support for Council 2 ran at 76 percent in a card check, thereby eliminating the need for a vote.

Then — before the complaint on the unfair labor practices had been decided by PERC — the County acted again. In January this year the County Commissioners eliminated the 2 percent cost of living allowances for the same group of employees who had filed the petition, even though the amount had already been approved as part of the budget. The elimination of the allowance also served to freeze those workers’ seniority step increases.

At the same time, the County increased the other County employees’ pay by 4 percent.

On January 24, perc found Adams County guilty of committing an unfair labor practice and ordered that the hours of the affected workers should be reinstated from 35 a week to 40 and that the employees be paid for all the lost hours retroactive to April 1 2002, with interest. The 2 percent cost of living allowance was reinstated along with the step increases, effective January 1.

The next step for the new unit is the start of bargaining on their first contract.