It’s no secret that Riverside County management has no respect for county workers. The offensive “last, best and final” offer they’re trying to impose on us and the 34 unfair labor practice charges they’ve racked up shows their position loud and clear.
Last December, they went beyond their usual tactics of bad faith bargaining, surveillance and intimidation to outright retaliation – firing a nurse for participating in our historic ULP strike in September.
Our union wouldn’t stand for these strong-arm, retaliatory tactics.
We fought back and took the County to court.
The judge ruled that county workers have “a protected right to participate in a lawful strike” and the County’s firing “constituted unlawful retaliation” and that “the County violated the MMBA (Meyers-Milias-Brown Act) by terminating the nurse’s employment in retaliation for her protected activities.”
Or, to put it more succinctly, the County got busted for union busting.
The County’s Scarlet Letter
With the County’s retaliation proven, they’ve got to make things right and let the world know about their illegal activities.
The judge ordered that the County:
- Rescind the termination
- Expunge all records of the termination
- Offer to reinstate the nurse and restore all of her earned benefits
- Make the nurse whole financially, including paying her back pay with 7% interest
- Post a notice at all work locations with SEIU 721 represented employees documenting their illegal retaliation, as well as distribute the notice electronically
It’s extremely likely that the County will spend more taxpayer dollars to appeal the decision, which means you won’t be seeing any notices around your worksite anytime soon. However, the court went through the trouble of making a notice for them, so we wanted to make sure everyone could see it!
Riverside County has been rocked recently by demands for transparency and a restraining order on their imposition; and this is yet another embarrassing blow for a County in desperate need of leadership.
Great action SEIU!