San Diego Eligibility Technicians get a Re-Class

December 2002
by Richard Bermack

Irene Wilkingson

Bill Bixby

Laura Viloria

Robin Barber

San Diego is one of the most expensive places for housing in the state while San Diego eligibility technicians are some of the lowest paid in the state. There are even classifications in San Diego county where workers do the same work and get higher pay. To remedy the situation, the union convinced the county to do a classification study comparing the eligibility technician (ET) classification with the patient services specialist (PSS) classification. The PSS helps people who are treated at a hospital get benefits such as Medi-Cal or county medical services depending on their financial status. The PSS does the same work as the ET except because they used to work in the Health Department rather than the Department of Social Services. They have a higher pay scale because their wages were funded by the hospital where they are often stationed. Several years ago the departments were combined to form the Health and Human Services Agency and the inequity became even more apparent. A PSS 2 at top step gets $18.10, whereas the top step for an ET is $15.98 per hour. During the 2001 negotiations the county agreed to a classification study that was completed in August.

The county came back to the union and admitted that the union’s position was correct. The good news for ETs was that the study showed the ET and the PSS do equivalent work. The bad news was that because of the budget shortage the county said they had no money to do anything about it. The workers were shocked at the county’s response. They were appalled when they read in the newspaper at the same time that the county claimed to have no money for pay equity, the board of supervisors announced they were building a multi-million dollar animal shelter. “We launched an old style union campaign,” stated Field Representative Ted Burnett. “We sent out a questionnaire and got 700 responses. Everyone came together. Near the end of the campaign we had hundreds of people participating, wearing purple T-shirts, making calls and writing letters to the agency director’s office.” The field staff made the rounds to county offices, and the rank and file responded. “We were getting lunch time meetings with as many as 50 people attending. We made the county hear us,” he said.

The management of the Health and Human Services Agency finally came around. Budget crisis or not, they found the money to implement the reclassification, and the cost is being spread over several years through a phase-in. They merged the PSS 1 and 2 position with the ET position and created a Human Services Specialist position with a top step of $18.10 per hour, as compared to the current ET stop step of $15.98 per hour. All ET’s will receive an approximate 2.7% wage increase starting February 21, 2003, and the rest of the increases will be phased in.

“We did it,” stated San Diego ET Laura Viloria.

“This is one of the most positive accomplishments for San Diego County ETs in the past 20 years!” stated field representative Stewart Kocivar.