BIRTH OF A UNION: HOW THE MODESTO POLICE & FIRE NON-SWORN ASSOCIATION BECAME MODESTO’S NEWEST BARGAINING UNIT

On May 19, 2006, over 100 non-sworn employees of the Modesto Police Department and Modesto Fire Department celebrated the establishment of the Modesto Police Non-Sworn Association (MPNSA) as the city’s newest bargaining unit. The celebration marked the end of a struggle for recognition and the beginning of a new one for respect.

The fight for recognition began in 2005, when a group of non-sworn Modesto Police Department employees retained Mastagni, Holstedt, Amick, Miller, Johnsen & Uhrhammer to help them break away from the 400-member Modesto City Employees Association (MCEA) and gain recognition as an independent bargaining unit. The MCEA and the city were without a contract and the city had just imposed its last, best offer because the parties were at impasse.

City Recognizes MPNSA As Bargaining Unit

This no-contract period presented a window of opportunity to initiate the unit modification process under the city’s Employer-Employee Relations Ordinance. The process usually requires would-be bargaining units to adhere to strict deadlines based on the expiration of the existing collective bargaining agreement; however, those rules did not appear to apply because no MOU was in place.

We petitioned the City of Modesto to recognize the “Modesto Police Non-Sworn Association” as the representative of the community service officers, crime analysts, property and evidence specialists, identification technicians, animal control officers and records clerks employed in the Modesto Police Department. Following a meeting with the City Manager and the personnel director, the City agreed to recognize the new association and added academy recruits as well as Fire Department technicians and deputy fire marshals to the new group. The first battle had been won.

Once the City recognized MPNSA as an organization, a state mediator supervised a unit designation. Prospective members of the new bargaining unit were asked to complete dues deduction authorization cards and proofs of support designating MPNSA as their representative. When the cards were counted, the MPNSA had been selected overwhelmingly as the new recognized bargaining unit for Modesto police and fire non-sworn employees.

City Refuses to Bargain for New Contract

The champagne was not yet flat, however, before City administrators turned a promising relationship sour by refusing to bargain with MPNSA for a new MOU to replace the MCEA contract under which the new association’s members had been covered. We filed a charge with the Public Employment Relations Board (PERB) alleging the City was violating the state collective bargaining statute by refusing to reach a new contract. While the charge was pending, the City agreed to start bargaining for a new contract.

We fought with the City again during the bargaining process when it appeared City negotiators were engaging in “surface,” or false, bargaining. The state statute on public employer-employee relations – the Meyers-Milias-Brown Act – requires the parties to bargain “in good faith.” A public employer cannot simply come to the table with nothing new to offer and no intention of settling the contract.

We filed a second PERB charge alleging surface bargaining. The City again conceded, and eventually reached a one-year contract with the MPNSA on the same terms as the prior agreement.

Real Work Begins on New Contract

Success often is measured in small steps. By breaking from the MCEA and establishing itself as the city’s newest non-sworn employee bargaining unit in several years, the MPNSA – now the Modesto Police & Fire Non-Sworn Association – had accomplished a long-standing goal. Contract after contract under MCEA had failed to acknowledge adequately the separate priorities, needs and entitlements of Modesto’s non-sworn public safety employees. In a single year, the MPNSA had stood up on its own to be counted and had bargained separately for its members for the first time.

This successful struggle for recognition, however, became a struggle for respect with negotiations opening for a new collective bargaining agreement. Both the MPNSA negotiating team, led by President Leslie Rodriguez and veteran team member Denise Ducot, and the law firm recognize the fight has just begun.