Hidden Valley Lake >> After nearly two months of protesting unfair labor practices without pay, union golf course workers and the Hidden Valley Lake Association (HVLA) have reached a settlement agreement.
Upon signing the document, general manager Cindy Spears on June 11 verified that the homeowners association “understands and agrees that the allegations … will be deemed admitted,” according to the settlement.
A hearing was scheduled between the HVLA and Laborers’ Local 324 before an administrative judge in Santa Rosa on Monday. With the settlement reached, however, the HVLA has instead agreed to make nearly $2,000 in back payments for lost work that will be divided amongst the 13 employees that make up the union, and both parties must return to the negotiating table.
“It took an awful long time,” Laborers’ Local 324 Field Representative and Vice President George Griffin said. “That’s all we had asked for from day one … to come up with a mutually beneficial agreement.”
The bulk of the back pay will go toward reimbursing workers for pay lost because the HVLA hired outside contractors for jobs the union handles between October 2014 and the present. Almost $470 will be reimbursed for contributions to health insurance which the union did not agree to.
Workers went on strike late April in order to reestablish negotiations for their contract that first expired on Oct. 31, then again on Dec. 3 after an extension was issued.
While HVLA and union representatives met multiple times, nothing was ever finalized, and the union filed numerous complaints with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB), an independent federal agency tasked with enforcing the National Labor Relations Act.
The NLRB conducted an investigation into each of the 10 claims, including unfair labor practices, and found sufficient evidence backing them and consolidated them into one document.
One claim states that Spears “impliedly threatened employees with termination in retaliation for their Union activities,” in the maintenance shop on Jan. 27. Calls to Spears went unreturned as of press time.
Others in the document include suspending an employee because he “assisted the Union and engaged in concerted activities” and to discourage such activities. The association also failed to provide information necessary for the union employees to perform their duties, hired seasonal workers to perform union duties outside of the time frame allowed for hiring and made changes to health care coverage without the union’s consent.
Owens said the union workers were meeting Monday to determine when they would return to work with the same wage and benefits as before the strike while a new contract is in negotiations, but no decision was made as of Monday afternoon.
