County Workers Poised to Strike, Union Warns

Leaders of the county’s largest union warned Thursday that their members will go on strike next week, department by department, unless the Board of Supervisors meets their demands for a significant pay raise.

Union officials, releasing a poll they say shows the public overwhelmingly supports their call for a raise, outlined their strike strategy at a news conference at the county Hall of Administration.

The labor contracts for the more than 40,000 workers represented by the Service Employees International Union, Local 660 expire Tuesday, and negotiations between union leaders and county officials are at an impasse.

If the local’s employees don’t get a significant raise in each of the next three years, said union general manager Annelle Grajeda, they will scare the supervisors into coughing up more money by targeting certain county departments for a strike on each successive day, starting Wednesday.

Then, if that escalating series of job actions doesn’t force the county to meet demands--which are shared by other county unions, including the one representing sheriff’s deputies--the local will call a general strike Oct. 7.

Such a strike could cripple the operations of the nation’s largest county government, shutting down public hospitals and emergency rooms, welfare offices, courthouses, the assessor’s and tax collector’s offices, the probation department and even beaches and harbors.

“This is going to be a horror show for the board; you don’t open with all the blood and gore at the very beginning,” Grajeda said, explaining why the union isn’t calling for a general strike immediately. “In the end, if you’re not where you want to be, then you hit them with all you’ve got.”

The poll, conducted for the union by San Francisco-based David Binder Research, did not ask 400 randomly selected county voters whether they approved of workers going on strike to get a raise.

But of those interviewed, 53% said they believed the supervisors could offer something more than “a small pay increase without harming other public services.” An additional 19% said the board could “only afford a small increase.”

Noting that inflation has totaled nearly 12% since 1993, the survey asked respondents to specify what they saw as a fair increase. Their responses, ranging from 0% to “more than 20%,” averaged 6.8%, Binder said in an interview.

Initially, the county offered increases of 1% to 1.5% in each of the three years--an offer union officials rejected as insulting.

The poll, Grajeda said, “clearly shows the public is on our side in this fight.”

Many of Local 660’s members have been without a raise for five years. But so far they have resisted using job actions such as the sickout tactic deputies used, including calling in sick by the hundreds and allegedly making harassing phone calls.

“We want to settle this,” Grajeda said, “and get a decent pay raise and some job security.”

The union is asking the supervisors to include $10 million for retraining services so union workers can weather the changes wrought by welfare reform and restructuring the mammoth county health department.

The local’s plan of action calls for other unions to join the selective strikes, including the Assn. for Los Angeles Deputy Sheriffs.

Grajeda said the first strike would target the county’s welfare, public works, and children and family services departments. On Thursday, county employees working for the courts, sheriff, district attorney, public defender, assessor, tax collector, probation, health centers, animal control and other departments would walk off the job.

Next Friday, employees working for the registrar-recorder, Fire Department and Harbor-UCLA Medical Center would strike, followed by public library and beaches and harbor employees the next day.

After a break Oct. 5, workers at the County-USC Medical Center and Martin Luther King Jr./Drew Medical Center would strike. A countywide strike and massive demonstration would be called for Oct. 7, on a day when supervisors gather at the Hall of Administration for their weekly meeting, Grajeda said.

The county’s lead negotiator, Chief Administrative Officer David Janssen, said both sides are talking.

“We’re hopeful,” he said. “We are at the table with everybody, and we begin intensive negotiations with 660 on Monday.”

Janssen said Local 660’s threats of a strike--general or otherwise--will neither help nor hurt ongoing efforts to reach a wage compromise.

“Strikes don’t add money to the table,” he said. “I don’t believe it adds pressure on us to complete our negotiations. We are prepared to negotiate what we believe is a fair and affordable cost-of-living increase.”

Janssen said the county’s 38 departments have contingency plans to deal with potential job actions by Local 660 or the dozens of other unions whose contracts have expired or will come up for renewal soon.

But, he conceded, “services will be impacted if we don’t reach an agreement. You can only do so much with management . . . and supervisors filling in.”

The rolling strikes have occurred in the past.

In 1988, nurses represented by Local 660 struck, hindering hospitals’ ability to provide patient care and prompting a judge to order them back to work.

In 1991, the local engaged in a department-by-department strike that culminated in a general strike. A judge again ordered striking nurses back to work, saying their absence compromised public safety.

In 1995, union workers threatened to go on strike to stop a proposed layoff of thousands of employees during the county’s budget crisis. Eventually, about 3,000 workers were laid off or demoted, but many have since been hired to fill vacancies, said SEIU Local 660 spokesman Steve Weingarten.