Since our last update on September 9, 2012 OCMA has been busy working on your behalf. Early in September OCMA met with several members of the Board of Supervisors to ensure that they were aware of the manager’s reasons for voting against the 2012 Tentative Agreement. Last week OCMA met with the final member of the Board of Supervisors. All of the meetings were cordial and the Board of Supervisors members expressed appreciation for the managers, however we did not see any movement on their part in regard to re-thinking the Last, Best and Final Offer provided by the County.
Mediation was held on September 24, 2012 between the County and OCMA. The neutral mediator is provided from the State of California, State Mediation and Conciliation Service. She seemed to understand our position and was sympathetic to it. Our OCMA attorney provided a chronology of our two year long negotiation with the County, a summary of OCMA’s various proposals in an attempt to reach contract resolution, and a copy of our last proposal prior to the County providing their Last, Best, and Final Offer. OCMA discussed the past contract sacrifices that managers have made and offered options that might bring the parties closer together. Unfortunately, mediation ended with the County not willing to make any concessions in regard to their Last, Best, and Final Offer.
OCMA’s next step is to apply to PERB, under Government Code Section 3505.4, for a “fact finding” hearing, wherein each party (the County and OCMA) will submit their differences to a fact finding panel since mediation was unable to effect a settlement. OCMA is required to make this request within 30 days of appointment of a mediator (which occurred on August 31, 2012) if we want to go forward with this review process. Therefore, on September 25, 2012 OCMA submitted our request to PERB to review/settle this dispute.
We will continue to update you as we proceed.