CSEA awarded millions in covid comp time, but how much?

                                                                             

   

After a two year wait, an arbitrator has decided that Nassau County's Civil Service Employee Association members who reported to the office during the Covid pandemic shutdown between March 16 and June 26 in 2020 are indeed due "covid compensatory time" pay.

The 30-page decision, however, does not specify how much they will get -- though talk is the total amount due the union is somewhere between $24 million and $30 million. 

If so, that is just a fraction of the more than $127 million CSEA members claimed they were due after all the "essential" employees' in-office work time was counted by the county comptroller two years ago.

This blog reported it at the time.

https://liuncoverednews.blogspot.com/2021/10/nassau-county-employees-owed-nearly-150.html

Political appointees, who reported $18.4 million in overtime compensatory time, are out of luck.

They are not covered by the CSEA decision.

If the appointees, also called exempt or ordinance workers, want their money, they will have to sue.

If they sue, they will likely win. Past appointee lawsuits demanding equal benefits as union employees have been successful.

Meanwhile the talk around the county is that the arbitrator's decision was going to be announced Monday while all attention was on local elections rather than covid pay.

But a disagreement between  Republican County Executive Bruce Blakeman and CSEA leaders over the total amount due the union stalled the announcement, some say.

The CSEA emailed its members on Thursday, saying a decision had been made and that they will be getting pay rather than compensatory time for the hours worked.

During the Covid shut down, some municipalities paid as much as time and a half for every hour worked. 

In the county, while Democrat Laura Curran was county executive, there were discussions as to whether essential workers deserved more pay for working during the pandemic. Should they get their regular pay plus a half hour in comp time for every hour worked? Or an hour of comp time for every hour in the office?

The CSEA argued their contract calls for an hour of comp time for every hour worked in the office.

"Any employee who is required to remain at work after the County Executive or designated representative has dictated that extraordinary circumstances exist for that particular geographic area or location within Nassau County, shall receive equivalent compensatory time off at straight time, hour for hour, as the employees who were sent home or directed not to work," their contract says.

Curran never presented any covid comp time deal to the legislature for approval to nail down the deal.

Here is the arbitrators' conclusion: