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Berkeley’s nonprofit Building Opportunities for Self-Sufficiency (BOSS) may be reaching out to the homeless, but workers say they are shortchanging their own employees. 

Union officials charged this week that BOSS has improperly frozen annual 3 percent pay hikes and increased employee co-payments for doctors’ visits and prescription drugs without seeking worker approval. 

“We understand there’s financial problems with every agency, but you have to talk about things,” said Chris Graeber, business representative with the Inglewood-based California Professional Employees, Local Union #2345, which represents 85 cooks, counselors and office workers at BOSS. About 20 to 30 percent of employees are former clients, according to the organization’s human resources chief, Paul Sedler. 

In the midst of contract negotiations this week, the union announced that it had filed unfair labor practices charges against BOSS last month with the National Labor Relations Board (NLRB) for making “unilateral” changes to the wage structure and health care program.  

BOSS officials, facing a dip in private grants and public funding this year, say the changes were necessary to cope with an unprecedented $112,000 deficit for the fiscal year that ended in June. 

“I’ve been a union supporter all my life and will continue to support a union at BOSS...but I can’t grow money,” said BOSS Executive Director boona cheema. “We’re going to give as much as we can give without being in a position next year where we have a higher deficit and we have to shut down programs.” 

BOSS, which serves 3,000 homeless in Berkeley, Oakland and Hayward, has already cut loose a pair of Oakland programs—one for homeless teenagers and one for parolees—in the face of declining funding. In both cases, other agencies took over the programs. 

Cheema said BOSS has also issued a handful of layoff notices to union members, chopped three managerial jobs and reduced administrative salaries to deal with the fiscal crisis. cheema herself took a 10 percent pay cut and now makes $86,589 annually, according to BOSS’s human resources department. 

Kenneth Ko, supervisory attorney with the NLRB’s Oakland office, said his office has not yet heard BOSS’s response to the union charges, filed in two separate complaints July 23 and July 24, and has made no determination. But he said the workers appear to have a strong case. 

“If you’re talking about a situation where there’s a recognized union, generally there’s a requirement to notify and bargain with a union,” Ko said. 

The NLRB will collect evidence from both sides, decide if the charges have merit and seek a settlement if they do, according to Ko. If BOSS declines to settle, the case would go before an administrative law judge, probably this fall, he said. 

BOSS, which provides housing, health care and education for the homeless, has an annual budget of $8.5 million. About 80 percent of its funding comes from government sources, including about $800,000 from the City of Berkeley. 

Labor strife might seem like an odd malady for BOSS, a 32 year-old icon of Berkeley liberalism. But the agency is not alone. The Berkeley Bowl grocery store—known for its endless bins of organic fruit and dreadlocked cashiers—is facing an upheaval of its own, with workers pushing to unionize. 

Terri Dunn, a BOSS fiscal specialist who is on the union’s negotiating team, said the organization has generally treated its employees well, but has overstepped its bounds with its recent maneuvers on pay hikes and co-payments. 

The cost-cutting measures “probably can’t be helped” in the long run, she said, but the organization should bargain with the union, which has been in place since 1993. 

Before this year, workers paid nothing for doctors’ visits or prescription drugs. But BOSS’s health care provider, Kaiser, raised co-pays for prescription drugs to $5 on Jan. 1. 

BOSS agreed to swallow the co-payment until July 1, when the workers’ last, three-year contract expired. Starting Sept. 1, under a new plan management decided to join—without union approval—prescriptions will cost employees $10 and co-pays for doctors’ visits will jump to $15. 

Melissa Leonard, a case manager with BOSS, said the hikes will have a serious impact on her family’s finances. Leonard, a wheelchair user, said she has five active prescriptions and must visit a physical therapist once a week. 

“In order for me to work and keep up my physical stamina, I have to go every week,” she said.  

Leonard’s husband and three children, including a son who must see a neurologist four times a year, are also on her plan. 

But the costs will only be an issue if she keeps her job. Leonard said she recently received a layoff notice and is waiting to see if she will be able to “bump” a less experienced worker out of a job, as the union contract allows, and stay employed. 

If she loses her job, Leonard said, her family will probably go homeless. 

“I feel they’re treating us unfair,” she said. “We’re the frontline staff, we’re the ones who keep BOSS running.”