First Strike Against State Bar Ends : 33 Attorneys Agree to Arbitration, Return to Work Today

The 33 attorneys who staged the first strike against the California State Bar in its 59-year history will return to work today under an agreement to submit their salary dispute to a three-member arbitration panel.

The lawyers, who process discipline cases against the state’s 90,000 attorneys, began picketing both the Bar’s San Francisco and Los Angeles offices April 25 after negotiations failed to resolve their complaints about proposed salary schedules.

Mediator Gerald R. McKay, a South San Francisco attorney who will head the arbitration panel, worked out the agreement Friday. The striking attorneys ratified it unanimously late Monday and the Bar’s governing board approved it 12 to 6 on Tuesday.

State Bar President David M. Heilbron said he is pleased by the agreement and that it contains the same salary ranges approved by the board some weeks ago, leaving only the placement of individual attorneys into those ranges up to the arbitrators.

Marilyn Alper, spokeswoman for the striking attorneys in Los Angeles, and Jerome Fishkin, spokesman for those in San Francisco, said where individuals rank in the salary ranges had been the major problem because it appeared that few if any attorneys would receive the top pay in each range.

The lawyers currently receive between $2,016 and $4,341 monthly. The new contract provides $2,234 to $5,274 monthly, including a 5% raise retroactive to Jan. 1. The new pay system also includes a 2% raise July 1, and 4% raises on Jan. 1, 1987, Jan. 1, 1988, and Oct. 1, 1988.

The lawyers complained that they have not been paid comparably to attorneys working for other state agencies.

“We wanted parity pay,” said Fishkin, “and now the arbitrators will decide what that is.”

A State Bar spokesman said attorneys hired on contract at $90 an hour to process discipline matters during the strike will complete the 63 cases they are working on. He said the Bar’s disciplinary system, under fire by legislators, had not been seriously slowed by the three-week strike.