Local News in Brief : Santa Ana : 20 Jail Nurses Picket in Dispute Over Wages

A group of at least 20 nurses who work in the county’s jail medical facilities picketed Tuesday outside the Sheriff’s Department headquarters in Santa Ana in a dispute over wages.

The nurses claim that, for working in the jail, they should be paid 17 cents an hour more than other nurses employed by the county. County personnel officials said, however, that the pay differential was dropped recently when the salary scale for jail nurses was upgraded.

Both sides said the status of the differential was not discussed during negotiations for the new salary scale. The nurse’s union says now that it assumed the differential would be continued, and county personnel officers say they assumed it would be dropped since salaries were raised overall.

The dispute is scheduled to be decided by an arbitrator.

The county last December increased the salary scale in two nurse classifications in the jail to make their pay more competitive during a nationwide nursing shortage.

The pay for a nurse practitioner was increased from $18.94 per hour to $19.97 per hour, said Dave Carlaw, chief of employee relations. He said the pay for a licensed vocational nurse went up from $10.24 per hour to a ceiling of $12.28 per hour.