PEF scores 1st win for grade 24 OT eligibility
By SHERRY HALBROOK
For the first time, PEF members who are senior parole officers (SPOs) — a salary
grade 24 title — are recognized by the state to be eligible for overtime pay.
It’s taken many years of struggle and an absolute refusal to give up, but PEF
has finally put a crack in the grade 22 ceiling that has shut out tens of
thousands of PEF members from overtime eligibility.
PEF Deputy Counsel Lisa King was notified in August by the Governor’s Office of
Employee Relations (GOER) a special state task force had determined SPOs qualify
for overtime under the federal Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA). And the state
would pay them overtime starting August 2 for officers on the state’s
institution payroll and August 9 for those on the administration payroll.
King, who has led PEF’s campaign to achieve OT eligibility for PEF members, said
it was very gratifying to finally see all of those years of hard work start to
pay off. She said PEF also is pursuing eligibility for some other state job
titles in grades 23 and higher.
King was not the only one at PEF celebrating the OT eligibility for senior
parole officers.
“It’s way overdue,” said Manuelita Clemente, a parole officer and PEF chair of
the joint labor-management committee at the state Division of Parole. “A lot of
our senior parole officers have been working 10 to 15 hours of overtime a week
and they haven’t even received comp time for it.”
Clemente said she has heard of parole officers turning down promotions because
it would have meant losing overtime eligibility.
“Lisa did a wonderful job on this,” said PEF Vice President Pat Baker. “This is
a wonderful win for our members at (the state Division of) Parole and they
deserve that.”
King said Baker was very helpful in gathering information she used in preparing
her arguments in support of OT eligibility for PEF-represented job titles. King
presented the information to the state task force (comprising GOER, the Division
of Budget [DOB] and the Department of Civil Service).
In 2004, the FLSA was amended.
“Unfortunately, those 2004 amendments undermined our legal argument in our
previous overtime cases that all PEF members (except doctors and lawyers) were
overtime eligible under the FLSA.
“However,” King added, “the amendments did contain a new regulation which made
‘first responders’ overtime eligible. Basically, we have interpreted that to
mean employees whose duties involve responding to emergencies, or investigating
and inspecting for violations of law are OT eligible.
“With the help of Pat Baker and PEF’s Statewide Labor-Management Committee, we
began soliciting information in July 2004, that led us to believe approximately
80 PEF-represented titles allocated to grade 23 and higher might be eligible,”
King said.
The positive decision on senior parole officers from the task force is its first
ruling on one of those PEF titles, and more decisions are expected in the months
ahead.
Meanwhile, in the face of strenuous objections by the state, PEF had
successfully argued that a senior parole officer’s grievance — filed in 2004 and
demanding OT compensation and other remedies — was arbitrable.
Since the task force’s ruling of OT eligibility for this title, GOER and PEF
have settled that grievance. Regarding the overtime issue, the grievant will
receive retroactive overtime payment at 150 percent his regular hourly rate,
based on when he filed the grievance and the amount of OT he worked.