Napa Ass'n of Public Employees v. County of Napa

Napa Association of Public Employees (Local 614, SEIU AFL-CIO) is an employee organization which represents public *266 service employees and public service employee supervisors of the County of Napa for purposes of bargaining pursuant to the Meyers-Milias-Brown Act, Government Code section 3500 et s'eq. jn August 1977 the association and the county entered into written memoranda of understanding specifying wages, hours, and working conditions for the two units. 1 For all purposes relevant to this proceeding, the two memoranda are identical. Each provided a grievance procedure, culminating in binding arbitration, to resolve disagreements over the “interpretation, application, or compliance with the terms of the Memorandum of Understanding,” as well as matters involving disciplinary action or discharge. 2 The first step of the grievance procedure called for informal discussion between the grieving party and the immediate supervisor. If the grieving party was not satisfied with the solution at that step, then the grievance was to be reduced to writing and presented to successive levels of supervision, culminating (unless resolved along the way) with the county’s personnel…

I concur in the result.

I am in full agreement with the conclusion that the parties’ memorandum of understanding, although signed by the association alone, was for the third-party benefit of its county employee members who were entitled to enforce it. (See Civ. Code, § 1559; 1 Witkin, Summary of Cal. Law (8th ed. 1973) Contracts, § 499, pp. 428-429.)

*272 As I read the record, the County of Napa had agreed with the association and its county employee members that “disagreements” over the “interpretation, application, or compliance with the terms of the Memorandum of Understanding” constituted arbitrable grievances.

Two such “disagreements,” and thus “grievances,” arose over the “interpretation” and “application” of the memorandum of understanding. The first was whether its required 10-day notice by an aggrieved employee was triggered by the informal October 20, 1977, advice to the association of the county’s intent not to allow time off on the Friday afternoons before the year-end holidays falling on Sunday, or by the actual disallowance, more than two months later, of the contended-for time off. The second was whether the memorandum of understanding should be interpreted to…

Napa Association of Public Employees (Local 614, SEIU AFL-CIO) is an employee organization which represents public service employees and public service employee supervisors of the County of Napa for purposes of bargaining pursuant to the Meyers-Milias-Brown Act, Government Code section 3500 et seq. (1) (See fn. 1.) In August 1977 the association and the county entered into written memoranda of understanding specifying wages, hours, and working conditions for the two units. [1] For all purposes relevant to this proceeding, the two memoranda are identical. Each provided a grievance procedure, culminating in binding arbitration, to resolve disagreements over the "interpretation, application, or compliance with the terms of the Memorandum of Understanding," as well as matters involving disciplinary action or discharge. [2] The first step of the grievance procedure called for informal discussion between the grieving party and the immediate supervisor. If the grieving party was not satisfied with the solution at that step, then the grievance was to be reduced to writing and presented to successive levels of supervision, culminating (unless resolved along the way)…