By John Woolfolk
The San Jose Mercury News
SAN JOSE, Calif. — San Jose officials have agreed to pay more than $1.6 million to settle lawsuits by firefighters who claimed they weren’t paid sufficient overtime over the past five years.
The deal, which the City Council is expected to approve Tuesday, would settle two lawsuits.
One was filed in 2007 by firefighters in administrative jobs, and the settlement would cover back payments dating to September 2005. The other was filed in 2008 by firefighters working 56-hour fire suppression shifts; that settlement would cover payments back to April 2006.
A total of 793 firefighters are involved, with some covered by both cases because they worked each type of shift.
Under the settlement, the city will make retroactive payments totaling $1.44 million to eligible firefighters, in amounts up to thousands of dollars each.
The city will pay an additional $93,000 into the firefighters’ pension system and $105,000 for their legal costs.
The dispute arose from complexities in labor law and different interpretations of how various pay categories apply to overtime. The city attorney’s office said the two sides agreed to resolve the dispute by deciding how those calculations will be made in the future.
Copyright 2010 San Jose Mercury News
All Rights Reserved