The Region : County Pay ‘Coercion’ Hit

The 2nd District Court of Appeal ruled that the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors discriminated against some county employees in 1983 by withholding a $44.56 monthly health insurance increase until their unions had settled salary negotiations. The justices said the county’s action “had an immediate coercive impact on the non-settling units” by providing immediate benefits for those who had settled and denying them to those who had not. Both the discrimination and coercion, the court said, violated the state’s Meyers-Milias Brown Act governing public employee unions. The decision means all county employees were entitled to the increase as of August, 1983.