Every year around this time, San Franciscans rail against what passes for frigid weather here. Micki Callahan - HR Director San Francisco City/County 1. “We had a law on the books with no transparency and no enforcement,” says Micki Callahan, the head of the Department of Human Relations. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. Muni officials disagreed and a back-and-forth ensued — but, in the end, the controller's annual overtime report listed every last Muni employee who exceeded the overtime limit as being non-exempted. Edwin M. Lee Micki Callahan Mayor Human Resources Director One South Van Ness Avenue, 4th Floor, San Francisco, CA 94103-5413 (415) ... provides public safety employees with full salary for up to one year in the event they are unable to perform their duties while recovering from a compensable injury or illness. Factor in overtime and special pay and that figure nearly doubles, said human resources director Micki Callahan. Both Muni and the fire department have never spent more on overtime.There are a number of reasons for this, but the first is that the city's overtime ordinance isn't meant to reduce overtime.
That's a hell of a caveat, considering Muni and public safety workers account for about 90 percent of the city's yearly overtime.The city's overtime payout is down from its 2008-09 peak of $168 million, but jumped from $130 million in 2009-10 to $144 million in 2010-11 to $154 million in the most recent year. “There don't appear to be any repercussions to hold us to our budget realities,” says Supervisor David Chiu of his own law (he sponsored the 2011 version).The checks will keep coming as regularly as cold weather and complaints. Every city department must receive permission from Human Resources when it wishes to authorize overtime for employees exceeding 25 percent of regular hours — except Muni. In 2011, the ceiling was lowered to 25 percent. Between 2003 and 2008 the city's overtime costs jumped from $94 million to $168 million — maximum overtime rules be damned. As a semi-autonomous agency, it calls its own shots, every year exempting broad categories of workers from the city's overtime restrictions. His office claimed Muni's paperwork wasn't up to snuff, never using the term “exemption,” for one thing, and never referencing the relevant city codes. “When you adjust for the hourly rate, it’s on the order of 34 percent,” she said. Departments unresponsive to normal human emotions (such as shame) and with no compunctions about allowing representatives to be browbeaten before a Board of Supervisors committee can follow the rules as they see fit. They loose tremendous amounts of sleep, are exposed to caustic and cancerous chemicals, and often caustic people. They are underpaid and under recognized. Thirty thousand San Francisco city workers are in contract negotiations. Mayor Art Agnos signed legislation that required workers whose overtime hours exceeded 16 percent of their regular hours to receive permission from their departmental “appointing officer.” But by the time the Board of Supervisors revisited maximum overtime rules 20 years later, the '88 law was totally forgotten. That is the big management question,” continues Rosenfield. City officials looking into enacting a law on this matter tell San Franciscans unaware of or upset by having to, say, pay for Sunday parking meters can't opt out of the law. They miss holidays, birthdays and family events to ensure that you and your family are safe. An overtime law that isn't meant to reduce overtime also has no recourse to punish those who violate it.Certainly individual workers won't feel the pinch.
Good management, however, is tricky to legislate.It's especially tricky to legislate overtime when Muni is largely left out of the equation, and an overtime law unfocused on Muni is about as effective as an emissions protocol ignoring the United States. SF is on a fault zone, they are busier then neighboring departments & deal with a massive homeless population. As No one, it appears, was punished for this. Gran said firefighter salaries were just 5 percent above market in 2008 and nearly 8 percent above market in 2009.The growth of firefighter salaries has been commensurate with an increase in pay at the San Francisco Police Department, Callahan said.“Basically fire, if you will, came along for the ride which has created a disconnect because, in fact, the fire market is so much lower now,” she said.Gran pointed out that firefighters aren’t the only ones among the city’s 26,000 workers making top dollar. )another reason to get rid of these unions. But for city government, ignorance of or disdain for the overtime law allowed them to do just that. In no versions of the city's overtime law has there been a provision establishing any penalties for failing to comply. They should be doing fire inspections and checking fire portection systems or teching proactive fire safety.By viewing our video content, you are accepting the terms of our barbara garcia is out - now, everyone wants micki callahan out - stop bleeding people of color - these vermin have been in place for too long - clean slate. Find another group to pick on.I understand that firefighters have a very stressful and life threating job but if you didn’t want to risk your lives, then why did you go into the job in the first place?Why is it that virtually every time you drive by a fire house, the equipment is parked inside and the crews are sitting , watching TV?