Service Employees International Union, Local 390/400 v. Board of Supervisors

Appellants, the City and County of San Francisco, its board of supervisors (board), and its superintendent of schools, appeal from a peremptory writ of mandate compelling them to award vacation with pay to classified employees of the San Francisco Unified School District in accordance with the formula set forth in section 8.440, subdivision (a) of the San Francisco City Charter (charter).

The instant case is the second attempt by appellants to award vacation pay to classified school employees, whose work assignments do not include summer, Easter and Christmas vacations, at a rate different than that provided for by the charter. The first attempt was found invalid by Division One of this court in Civil Service Assn. v. City and County of San Francisco (1978) 79 Cal.App.3d 540 [ 144 Cal.Rptr. 895 ]. The second attempt fared no better before the trial court. We affirm.

I.

Subdivision (a) of section 8.440 of the charter specifies that every person employed by the city and county shall be allowed a vacation with pay *1181 annually “as long as he continues in his employment,” computed as follows: (1) ten working days after one year of continuous service; (2) fifteen working…

I dissent.

Section 8.440, subdivision (a) of the San Francisco Charter provides an annual vacation with pay for city and county employees as follows: “after one year’s continuous service, ten working days. ...” The majority concedes that the board of supervisors is empowered to interpret the charter and hence to interpret the partial phrase “continuous service” but observes that “ten working days” brooks no interpretation—it means what it says— ten days is ten days. So far so good and I concur. But at this point we part company. I would conclude that the board is empowered to interpret the full phrase “one year’s continuous service” and has in fact done so by enacting section 16.11, subdivision (d) of the vacation ordinance which provides: “An employee who has completed one year of continuous service shall accrue vacation at the rate of .0385 of an hour for each hour of paid service.” (Italics added.) The board has thus interpreted “one year of continuous service” for vacation purposes to mean 2,080 hours, which calculates out one year as comprising 40 hours per week for 52 weeks. This interpretation is further consistent with the vacation ordinance definition of “paid service”…