Public Employee Press

Locals rescue lifeguard pay

Lifeguards look out for swimmers, but who looks out for Lifeguards? Their union does.

Locals 461 and 508 recently recouped close to $200,000 in longevity and retroactive pay for City Lifeguards and Lifeguard Supervisors.

The Dept. of Parks and Recreation has assured both ­locals that it will review records going back to 2004 and pay all employees who need to be made whole by Sept. 21.

When Supervisors Local 508 President Peter Stein came across the pay stub of one of his members, he knew it could not be right. The pay was less than it should have been and did not reflect the accurate Recurring Increment Payment. Many Lifeguards had not received their five-year RIPs.

So Stein and City Lifeguards Local 461 President Franklyn Paige worked with DC 37 Research and Negotiations Dept. Director Dennis Sullivan and Assistant Director Frank Burns to correct pay inequities for all their members. It took two years to resolve the problem.

“Pay rates and RIPs for both locals are based on years of service,” Stein explained. “There were three problems: the contractual increases were not being applied to the RIPs, some Lifeguards had not received RIPs at all, and because the payroll system is not automated, the members’ longevity was not being applied to their rate of pay.”
Both locals pressed to get their members the pay they are entitled to receive. To date, 40 Local 508 members have received more than $40,000 collectively in pay they were owed.

The locals are also pressing the city to automate the payroll system so the omission of longevity and RIPs will not be an ongoing problem, Stein said.

In a separate instance, as the locals prepared to seek additional pay increases through the Salary Review Panel, they found that first-year Lifeguards were being underpaid by 83 cents an hour.

“We are demanding that this be corrected immediately,” Paige said. As a result, effective Aug. 25, new Lifeguards will earn $12.55 an hour, and they can expect retroactive pay to correct the salary difference. The locals plan to meet with the Office of Labor Relations to correct these and other problems.

“Our members work a 48-hour week, receiving straight time through the sixth day,” Stein said. “We are working to correct this inequity of paying straight time for the sixth day and hope that we can convince the city of the wisdom in addressing this issue.”

— Diane S. Williams