Pinheiro turns on Fresno County, threatens union pay deal

By many measures, John Pinheiro was a star employee for Fresno County.

The savvy 45-year-old labor negotiator pulled off the unenviable task of squeezing pay cuts from thousands of union employees, sacrificing his personal popularity to help the county avert a financial nightmare.

The cuts sparked last year's labor strike, but the protest was short-lived because Pinheiro and his superiors succeeded in a battle of wills that earned the deft negotiator a glowing job review.

One county supervisor even sent flowers to his home.

A year later, however, Pinheiro may be the county's public enemy No. 1.

He was recently fired from his job for what his bosses describe as a midlevel-manager living a double life that involved late-night gambling, prostitutes and a distracting affair with a co-worker -- charges that Pinheiro denies and he's fighting to get dismissed.

Pinheiro maintains that he was set up because he began speaking out against a covert effort by county administrators to illegally break the county's biggest employee union.

His claims of conspiracy have already been seized by union leaders who are taking his allegations before the state labor board, where they've accused the county of violating labor laws and hope to get their recent pay cuts recalled.

While some county leaders believe Pinheiro is a disgruntled employee with little credibility, others are taking his claims seriously.

"The county could lose tens of millions of dollars in back pay," said county Supervisor Henry Perea. "Having been our chief negotiator, his testimony is putting the county in position to lose the labor case."

Pinheiro is expected to take the stand before the California Public Employment Relations Board as early as this week.

The rise and fall of John Pinheiro

Pinheiro's job review last February called him an "honest and ethical" employee who deserved the highest possible pay increase.

The seven-year employee had made his mark the previous year when he sought salary concessions from more than a dozen labor groups in an effort to help the county balance its recession-battered $1.6 billion budget.

Working closely with personnel director Beth Bandy and the county's top executive, John Navarrette, Pinheiro helped negotiate a respectable $12 million worth of concessions. He and his colleagues saw through an additional $32 million of pay cuts that were forced on the local chapter of the Service Employees International Union after the group and the county couldn't agree on a voluntary rollback.

"The Board (of Supervisors) was extremely pleased," Pinheiro said recently.

SEIU and its more than 4,000 members were not so pleased and responded with the first of three grievances with the state labor board, alleging that the county had not bargained reasonably.

The two additional grievances allege that the rights of workers to organize had been restricted and, perhaps most damning, that the county was trying underhandedly to get the correctional officers at the county jail to bust the union.

The burden of proof in the cases rests with the union, meaning the odds of SEIU succeeding before the state are long, but not impossible.

The penalties vary, but the labor board could take the extreme step of asking the county to renegotiate pay cuts.

Pinheiro says that County Administrative Officer Navarrette made it clear to him that he was acting illegally, working behind the scenes to try to get 300 correctional officers to break from SEIU. It's a move that would weaken the county's most outspoken and confrontational labor group.

The reporter can be reached at (559) 441-6679, kalexander@fresnobee.com or @KurtisInValley on Twitter.

Source: http://www.fresnobee.com/2013/02/16/3177603/pinheiro-turns-on-fresno-county.html

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