Removal of 2 Top State Job Agency Supervisors Urged

The California State Employees Assn. on Saturday called for the removal of the two top officials of the Employment Development Department, saying that the two have known about demoralizing problems among workers at the agency but have done nothing.

The call for the removal of Kaye Kiddoo, the office’s director, and Mark Sanders, deputy director, was contained in a report presented at a Long Beach hearing by the Senate Committee on Industrial Relations, which is investigating complaints of mismanagement in the EDD.

The union report, demanding that the two officials be fired or forced to resign, said that Kiddoo and Sanders have “little or no control over their managers (or) supervisors,” have not taken action against managers who abuse authority, have intimidated employees who appeared before the union’s investigative committee and “have been aware of all the problems in EDD but have not dealt with them.”

About a dozen EDD employees from throughout the state testified with examples of on-the-job stresses, which they said were caused by overwork, insensitivity and harassment by their office management.

Sanders, testifying at the hearing’s conclusion, said he and Kiddoo will take the testimony as “constructive criticism” by hard-working employees who have pride in their work.

“I’m not the kind of person to know something’s wrong and not do something about it,” he said.

The worst case occurred March 31, 1986, when Fidel Gonzalez Jr., a worker at the Garden Grove unemployment office, shot and killed his boss, Louis H. Zuniga, and then turned the gun on himself. Both men died instantly.

“I hope this will alleviate a lot of stress from my co-workers and set them free,” a note in Gonzalez’s pocket read.

According to testimony Saturday, tensions also have boiled over in other unemployment offices. In addition to the Garden Grove murder-suicide, several EDD employees have died of stress-related heart attacks, and in San Francisco, a disgruntled claimant pulled a gun on employees, according to the California State Employees Assn. report.

(EDD spokesmen have said that the deaths, attacks and employees’ complaints are unrelated and not a result of job stress.)

Jean Berry, an employee at the EDD office in Long Beach, described Saturday how fellow worker Ed Choice grew progressively ill on the job and died of a stroke last January. Choice, 37, was taken to the hospital after being reprimanded by administrators, Berry said. When she called paramedics, she said, she disregarded her boss’s instructions to tell the emergency team not to use the siren and to come in the back door.

Joe Craigen, employment program supervisor at the San Diego office, said he was publicly reprimanded in the office by an administrator who said “he was going to belt me. . . .”

“I held my temper, but it was tantamount to the harassment they had in the Garden Grove office, where they just pushed and pushed and pushed,” Craigen said.

An EDD employee from Modesto said that employees there must routinely work overtime and cancel vacations. They also are reprimanded by their bosses in front of the public, said Maria Dedet, employment program supervisor.

A Stockton employee, Irene Garcia, said that while she was recuperating from a 1982 on-the-job car accident, her supervisor repeatedly telephoned her with demands for confidential medical information. She said she is permanently disabled (and had difficulty speaking Saturday because of recent jaw surgery), but her boss has repeatedly held up her workers’ compensation claims, she said.

After the session, Sanders said he was surprised by the employee union’s call for his firing.

“I don’t have any plans to leave,” he said. Kiddoo did not attend the hearing.

Sanders said that while he believes the airing of grievances at the hearing will bring about change, he also believes that some of the complaints were the result of “things (manager-employee communications) getting misconstrued.”

Sanders said studies have shown that the workload at the unemployment offices has decreased, because of the addition of computer systems.

Noting that there are more than 200 EDD offices throughout the state, Sanders said that EDD administration trains the office managers and tries to watch each manager’s performance.

“I’m sure there are some abuses. But I’m also sure there are many highly qualified, good managers, good citizens,” he said.

While Sanders said he considered Saturday’s testimony by the employees “sincere,” he added that “not everybody was being totally truthful.” He would not elaborate.

The report also recommended to the legislative committee that it increase the EDD’s budget, require that disciplinary action be taken against any manager who abuses authority and provide stress training for all EDD employees.

Saturday’s hearing was headed by Sen. Bill Greene (D-Los Angeles). No other members of the committee were present, although Greene was briefly joined by Assemblyman Richard E. Floyd (D- Hawthorne), who chairs the Labor and Employment Committee, and by Assemblyman Dave Elder (D-Long Beach).