SAN JOAQUIN COUNTY, Calif. — In San Joaquin County a Latina woman is now a supervisor's chief of staff, making it a first for the county. However, the appointment of Camille Zapata, 25, of Stockton wasn’t without controversial debate over equal pay and the gender wage gap.
Zapata had expected to start her role as Chief of Staff for San Joaquin County Supervisor Kathy Miller on February 1. Miller has only two years left in her term, making it a hard-to-fill role. Human resources approved top-grade pay for Zapata equal to her peers. However, in late January, other supervisors on the board voted to delay her appointment to review Zapata’s compensation.
In a self-published essay drawing attention to the issue, Zapata wrote she was floored when three male supervisors questioned whether it was fair.
Supervisor Robert Rickman did not respond to ABC10's request for comment.
Supervisors Tom Patti and Miguel Villapudua said their concern was never about gender, race, or even Zapata. Rather, they say they wanted to review the current procedure for Zapata and the historical hiring practices of other chiefs of staff.
"There's four other legislative aides, chiefs of staff and they all started out at level 3, and they worked their way up. That’s all I was thinking about at the time,” said Villapudua.
"It wasn't a discrimination anything. And of course, I was targeted, I was slandered, I was lied about, and it was all false narratives, this was an HR protocol, not a personnel issue,” said Chairman, Tom Patti.
To Zapata, this was not an HR dust-up.
"This was a gut feeling of, this is an inequity that needs to be challenged,” she said.
Sliding her down the pay-scale, she argued, would have her doing the same work while making less than her male colleagues without the opportunity to move up in her limited contract, a possible violation of the Equal Pay Act. The law was enacted in 2016 and states that it prohibits an employer from paying any of its employees wage rates that are less than what it pays employees of the opposite sex, or of another race, or of another ethnicity for substantially similar work.
"Although the [act] was passed in that loophole was closed, we're seeing that, and women are discovering that within their lives, that there are all these loopholes that are still open. And I think this was a really big example of that," Zapata said.
After consulting with women peers, Zapata said she worked up the courage to go public, advocating for not just herself but for women across the country who find themselves shortchanged in the workplace. She said systemic inequities still serve to justify the gender pay gap. Women make 82 cents to every dollar earned by a man, according to a 2020 report by the American Association of University Women.
"I respect her for believing in herself and believing in this issue, and its importance,” said Supervisor Kathy Miller, who added that Zapata was beyond qualified and capable for the job.
When the board returned this Tuesday, community members called in public support for Zapata.
“What my community did, what San Joaquin County did, is they say, a woman’s equal pay is not up for public debate in 2021,” Zapata said of the support.
Ultimately, after much debate, the board cleared Zapata’s appointment, amended county policy to pay legislative assistants a flat rate, and will create a committee to review pay equity in the county.
Miller said she was initially frustrated that her male colleagues had challenged her hire, which was approved by the county’s HR director, also a woman. It’s a situation she said, is common in her experience as the third woman to ever serve on the Board of Supervisors.
“It’s a male-dominated culture,” she said.” I can't tell you the number of times I've had a male colleague “mansplain” an issue to me. And it's, it's quite often very insulting and the most shocking part is in today's world is that they are very often completely unaware of what they're doing or how offensive it is.”
Patti said the process was in line with his and the county’s commitment to equality.
“We are an equal employment opportunity county, we will always do analysis and reflection, and make sure that there's fair and equitable pay for everybody regardless of how they identify, regardless of nationality, regardless of any element,” he said.
“I give credit to Ms. Zapata because if she didn’t challenge this, I wouldn’t have gone out and asked,” he said.
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