In a meeting with ACSS Senior Labor Relations Representative Nellie Lynn, CalHR's Excluded Employee Labor Relations Officer Stephen Booth confirmed that his department is closely examining salary compaction - the phenomenon in which excluded employees often earn less than those they supervise.
"We're in the pre-budget process now," said Booth.
"And we're taking a serious look at compaction and some of the other perennial wage issues that have plagued supervisors."
ACSS has submitted a series of proposals to CalHR that would extend the provisions of the rank and file bargaining MOUs to supervisors, managers, and confidential employees. Booth stated that he soon will be providing ACSS with a list of which proposals have been met and which are still being debated.
In addition to working with CalHR to try to resolve the decades-long problem of compaction, ACSS also introduced Senate Bill 216 in 2013. SB 216 passed unanimously through the Senate with full bipartisan support and is currently in the Assembly Appropriations Committee suspense file. SB 216 would require the State to maintain their recommended 10% salary differential between excluded employees and the employees they supervise. If the State is unable to maintain that 10% differential, they would be required to provide a report detailing why they were unable to do so and the extent of the problem.