After a grievance was filed against the City of Fernley over the hiring of two utility department workers earlier this year, allegedly bypassing consultation with union representatives for the positions, the city council voted on May 21 to meet with the union to try to negotiate a settlement and avoid arbitration.
In a letter dated April 16, 2025, the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) Local 1245 notified the city of the grievance and indicated that according to the union’s Collective Bargaining Agreement (CBA) with the city, the city has 30 days to place the item on a city council agenda and that a written decision regarding the grievance must be issued within 30 days of the council meeting.
The letter also indicated the union was advancing the grievance process to step four of the grievance procedure, taking the grievance complaint to the city council, which caused some consternation among the council as to how this action had just come to their attention, yet is now at step four of the grievance process.
In a letter in response to the grievance, City Manager Ben Marchant noted that the parties had agreed to waive the process for Steps 1 and 2 of the grievance process.
At the May 21 council meeting, Marchant said this was a “unique sort of grievance in that there is no city employee or member of the union that was affected in order to initiate step one or step two” of the grievance process.
He added that the grievance arises from the creation of two new positions in the new utilities department, a Supervisory Control and Data Acquisitions (SCADA) Specialist and a Utility Systems Electrician, positions that were approved to be hired by the city council in February.
After the council approved hiring the two positions, the union was provided notice of the hiring authorization, job descriptions of the positions and the proposed pay scales, he said. Marchant said he then met with union representatives on March 20, at which time the union said they felt the positions should have been discussed with them prior to the council authorization and questioned the pay scale attached to each of the positions.
“And later, when the grievance was filed, it only made sense that it would come straight to the city manager as step 3" since there was no department head level for the grievance to be heard, Marchant said.
In a response letter to the union from Marchant, dated April 14, Marchant denied the grievance, claiming that after reviewing Section XIV of the CBA, the section cited as being violated in the grievance, the two new positions “do not fit the criteria of a position that is (a) ‘currently occupied by an employee of the Bargaining Unit’ or (b) ‘a reclassification of an existing job class, which is in the Bargaining Unit.’ ”
Questioning the pay scales for the two new positions, Councilman Joe Mendoza asked if the union had any salary comparables from the area for the two positions, if they had an approximate percentage of the alleged difference in pay.
Marty Kumle, business representative for IBEW Local 1245, said he could not estimate a percentage of the pay difference, but after reviewing several similar union and non-union jobs “it was quite a difference in our eyes and that is why we wanted to bring this forward.”
Mendoza responded that the city does have an issue with job retention, “and if we’re going to hire people that can get paid more somewhere else, they’re just going to use the city (Fernley) as a place to get some experience and then go to another municipality and make more money.”
The city’s job retention problem has “decreased significantly,” according to Mitzi Carter, the city’s human resources manager, who also said her office did not see the wage difference the union is claiming, indicating the wages the union presented were more in line with NV Energy and not other municipalities.
The union’s other concerns were about the job descriptions and safety as well, Kumle said. “This new department deals with a lot of the water treatment side and also requires different certifications, different voltages, and things of that nature that we felt were inadequate,” he said.
Councilman Ryan Hanan questioned the appropriateness of negotiating with the union for newly created job positions for which the CBA does not require negotiation. “It seems like we’re opening a Pandora’s Box. Do we do this for all positions now?” he asked.
“My understanding is that the requirement to negotiate is for an existing position or a change in position. It doesn’t encompass the creation of a new position,” he said.
Hanan also said he thought the union’s allegations of safety issues with the two new positions may be a “scare tactic.” Mendoza disagreed, saying that even before he was on the city council, he had safety concerns about the city, noting that he had seen pictures of unsafe actions posted on social media, and wondered if the Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) would take action on the things he had seen.
Councilwoman Felicity Zoberski said she wanted to maintain good relations with the union and thought the whole grievance process could have been avoided with more open communication. “I would prefer to settle with open communication about any new classification that comes up that would be trade-type jobs or something the union would be a part of,” she said.
Speaking to wage differences for the positions, Marchant said, however, the issue was resolved, whether through negotiation or arbitration, pay scales would be retroactive to their date of hire “so they would be made whole.”
With a three-vote majority, the council approved negotiations over the positions between the union and the city, with city staff, the city manager, the city attorney, and a council member representing the city. Mendoza abstained from the vote due to his affiliations with the IBEW, and Hanan voted no.
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