Marin union seeks better compensation for part-time workers

Marin County’s largest public employee union is emphasizing what it views as inequities in overtime pay and benefits for part-time and contingency employees as it presses for a new contract.

The Marin Association of Public Employees has released four videos in which union members talk about how these issues have affected them. The union, which has about 1,150 members, has been in negotiations with the county since September. The union’s contract expires on June 30.

In one of the videos, Erick Morales, a maintenance equipment operator, recounted how he was denied overtime even though he required medical treatment for poison oak while working extra hours with a chipper crew. The treatment caused him to miss two days of work.

“This was long enough to nullify my eligibility for overtime as the time away from work was longer than the overtime hours I had accrued,” Morales said. “This was a tough pill to swallow as I felt like I had earned the overtime rate by performing above and beyond the call of duty.”

Christina Cramer, Marin County’s employment director, said the county follows federal wage law by paying overtime to any employee who works more than 40 hours per week. Cramer said the county also pays overtime to employees contracted to work 37.5 hours per week if they work more than that amount, even though it is not required to do so.

The county has 2,426 employees, 50 of whom are regular part-time workers who work less than 75% of their contracted hours. That typically works out to fewer than 30 hours per week. In 2025, the county also employed 494 contingent employees, which included seasonal firefighters and park employees.

Joan Glassheim, an ombudswoman with the Division of Aging and Adult Services, who has worked for the county 20 hours a week for more than 23 years, said, “When I leave county employment, I will not have a monthly retirement benefit. I will not have medical, dental or vision coverage as I would if I were in the retirement system.”

“While Marin is one of the wealthiest counties in the state, it is the only county in the Bay Area that does not include part-timers in the retirement system,” Glassheim said.

Cramer said part-time regular employees who work less than 75% of their contracted hours are required by the Internal Revenue Service to contribute 7.5% of their pay to an individual retirement account. Starting in 2022, the county began contributing a 3% match to these retirement accounts. Cramer said other counties besides Marin limit participation in their retirement systems.

Sarah Broderick, a community library specialist, said, “I am what is known as a contingent hire. That means I fill in for other library staff rather than having a regular schedule. I typically work 18 to 25 hours a week. Sometimes I get same-day calls to cover a shift. Other times I am scheduled in advance.”

“Despite my working regularly,” Broderick said, “the county does not pay anything for my retirement, and I do not have health care through the county. I don’t have any paid vacation and I’m not paid for holidays. My fellow contingent hires are in the same position.”

Cramer said contingent employees and part-time employees who are less than 0.75 full-time equivalent are not covered by the Marin County Employees Retirement Association. The association has seven other employers, including San Rafael, the Novato Fire Protection District and the Southern Marin Fire Protection District. Cramer said any changes in membership eligibility would have to be approved by the association’s board.

Cramer said the county does provide contingency workers with access to enrollment in a medical plan, as required by the Affordable Care Act, and makes a modest contribution to help cover the cost.

Another video highlights the issue of the rate at which rank and file county employees are paid.

Joel Landfield, who works for the county as an appraiser, said, “The county’s policy is paying the median salary of surrounding counties. That’s not good enough. Marin has the second highest cost of living of any Bay Area county. We have the third highest median home cost. But our policy is to come in fifth in hourly pay. We trail almost 6% behind the fourth-ranking county.”

Ralph Lowe, a county locksmith, said, “Because the county won’t pay more, it has a hard time recruiting and retaining employees.” Lowe said two people recently offered jobs in the county’s building maintenance department declined because the salaries were too low.

Marin had a 9.2% vacancy rate among all county employees in December, up from 8.7% in December 2024. Josh Swedberg, the county’s budget director, has estimated that the county had $21 million in unassigned revenue in fiscal year 2024-25, and a significant amount of that revenue was due to vacant positions.

Rollie Katz, executive director of the Marin Association of Public Employees, said the county is currently proposing a two-year contract with a 4% cost of living increase in the first year and a 3% increase in the second year. Katz said the county is also offering to increase the amount it pays to help cover employee health care costs by a dollar amount equal to 5% of the increase in Kaiser Permanente’s least expensive health plan. The union is asking for 6% wage increases in each year of the contract.

And, Katz said, “We want them to pick up the dollar amount that’s equal to 100% of the Kaiser increase.”

Cramer said the county calculates the market median for job classes using about a dozen other cities and counties, including San Francisco, San Mateo, Sonoma, Solano, Napa, Alameda, Contra Costa, Berkeley and San Rafael.

“The county’s philosophy and approach is to bring job classes to the ‘market median,'” she said.

Cramer said the county is proposing equity increases for more than 1,085 of the union’s members to bring their rate of pay up to the market median.

“These equity increases combined with the cost of living adjustment would increase the rate of pay for MAPE-represented employees by a range of 7% to 22.85% over a two-year period,” she said.

Marin County negotiated new contracts with its nine other unions last year. Their contracts expired in June. The county did, however, agree to some “sweeteners” to MAPE’s current contract last year, including a one-time payment of $1,200 to employees who were paid less than $85,000 in base pay.