Half of Phone Counselors Walk Out : Dispute at Suicide Hot Line Intensifies

Half the telephone counselors who take calls from suicidal people at Los Angeles’ nonprofit Suicide Prevention Center stayed away from their jobs this week as a longstanding dispute between clinicians and administrators intensified.

“The decision to walk off the lines was an anguished one,” said Phyllis Meisler, a spokeswoman for the group of about 40 volunteers and $6-an-hour part-time supervisors who refused to work.

Meisler said Thursday that she was “scared” for the 250 teen-agers and young adults who will probably call the center’s telephone crisis line this week “only to find there is no one to answer.”

However, the manager of the crisis line, Charles Gubera, said there was no reason to worry. He said some counselors are working double shifts, and other former counselors have returned to help. He said the line is operating at only a slightly reduced level.

The walkout began over the New Year’s weekend as a protest over a decision by the center’s board of directors to ask for the resignation of Sam (Mickey) Heilig, a social worker who was the center’s first employee about 30 years ago.

Heilig, along with center co-founders Norman L. Farberow and Dr. Robert E. Litman, served as part-time clinical advisers to the telephone counselors, Farberow said.

While center administrators said Thursday that Farberow and Litman will be able to make up for Heilig’s absence, Heilig and some of those who walked out said his departure will leave a void.

“It’s a desperately serious business,” Heilig said at a news conference Thursday. “At times, we get calls from people who are on the brink of committing suicide and, indeed, at times people we have talked to have committed suicide. . . .

“This is a very anxiety-laden circumstance for people who are on the telephone, and they need to have a sense of support in terms of how to deal with critical issues affecting someone’s life and death.”

Meisler, the spokeswoman for the walkout, said telephone counselors believed they needed Heilig’s expertise.

“Many issues come up during the course of our work that require the special expertise of a professional person who has experience in ‘suicidology,’ ” she said.

Attempts Made

Meisler said to avert a walkout, volunteers tried to convince members of the board of directors not to fire Heilig, but directors hung up on them.

Board Chairman Raphael Chaikin, a Newport Beach real estate developer, said he has been out of town and was not aware of such attempts. But he said representatives of those who walked out have been invited to a directors meeting Monday.

Chaikin said Heilig was discharged to save money.

“We’ve had serious funding problems. Basically the whole thing is economic,” he said of the center, which also operates various drug programs.

However, Heilig said he does not believe the economic rationale.

“It’s simply a power move on the part of the board of directors. . . ,” he said of his dismissal. “They want to throw their weight around. They enjoy that. They do it for the sheer excitement and fun of being in a position of power.”

Heilig said the abrupt manner of his dismissal--he said he personally was given no reason for it and learned of the reasons in a newspaper article--was “damaging to the morale and the function of many very dedicated volunteers. . . .”

“To have the board take an arbitrary, precipitous action without discussing it with people involved is extremely disruptive,” he said.

Heilig said his dismissal was part of a pattern of poor management and arbitrary actions that have characterized the board for several years.

“They treat this center as if it was a business organization, and it simply is not,” he said.

Chaikin said that is simply the talk of a disgruntled former employee.

Chaikin also questioned the motives of those who walked out, saying he wondered how much they cared about clients who would be calling in their absence.

Farberow, however, said he and Litman “very much support the actions of the people who walked out.”

The hot line manager, Gubera, said he believes that the conflict is “a battle between the administration--the board (of directors)--and the clinical people--the doctors.”

“(The clinical people) see one of their members being asked to leave, and they’re concerned about their input,” he said.

Action Taken

The board last month removed co-founders Litman and Farberow as voting directors.

Heilig charged that the move was illegal.

Chaikin said the board had no choice but to remove the two clinicians to avoid an appearance of conflict of interest when matters came before the board affecting the clinicians’ remuneration as employees.