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Santa Clara County: Protect All Workers

Protect All County Workers

SEIU 521 Workers Demands to Santa Clara County Regarding COVID-19

We, the undersigned, demand that:

  1. The County follows FFCRA (Families First Coronavirus Response Act) guidelines for paid administrative leave and restores to workers their used sick time for mandated quarantine or self-quarantine due to immunocompromised health conditions and/or school closures.
  2. The County provides an additional paid sick leave of 80 hours, pro-rated for part-time and extra help. 
    • The County issued a new 80-hour sick leave bank on April 7, 2020.
    • We are using our right for informal grievance meetings to resolve individual issues for employees being denied emergency sick leave or expanded FMLA (Family Medical Leave Act).
  3. The County extends personal time off usage back to October 31, 2020, under Article 12.1.
  4. The County temporarily suspends the vacation balance caps under Article 11.1 (b) and (c) until January 1, 2021.
  5. The County increases the compensatory time cap accrual for Communication Dispatcher I, II, II and Compliant Center Dispatcher to 960 hours, and for all other unit workers to 600 hours, under Article8.2 (c).
  6. The County makes Zoom meetings available for workers to meet the child care provider(s) before committing to child care services for essential workers. We also need to ensure that there are child care facilities in South County.
  7. The County provides accommodations for workers that are essential and older than 50 with a work location or work that is not near patient care areas nor in an environment that could be potentially exposed to the COVID-19 virus.
    • We are using our right for informal grievance meetings to resolve individual issues for employees being denied emergency sick leave or expanded FMLA.
  8. All hospital workers at Valley Medical Center (VMC) receive hazard pay in accordance with our union contract for working in a locked facility, and the County provides meals to workers during shifts.
  9. The County provides all unit workers with frontline worker incentive days: 1 floater day per 40-hour workweek retroactive to March 16, 2020.
  10. The County protects all workers by providing PPE (Personal Protective Equipment) for essential workers across all our departments.
    • We need N95 masks and PPE for all essential workers working in hospitals; as well as PPE for essential workers conducting home visits in the field, i.e. Social Workers, Public Guardians, and FAF when/where interacting with potential positive COVID-19 patients.
  11. The County establishes a moratorium on the release of Extra Help and provisional workers at O’Connor and St. Louise, and an extension of our members’ contract so that they may continue working until we meet and confer within the next 30 days.
  12. The County provides a daily list updated with Labor Pool to our union.
  13. The County provides to our union a list of all essential workers sorted by department, classification, and name.
  14. The County notifies our union and meets prior to the implementation of any furloughs of part-time, extra help, and full-time workers, and prior to any hiring freeze as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic.
  15. The County doesn’t contract our bargaining unit work and abides by Appendix K of the current agreement between our union and the County.