2,200 County Workers Walk Out for a Day : Labor: Welfare employees and clerks in DA’s office and Department of Children’s Services go on surprise strike.

Nearly 2,200 Los Angeles County workers walked off the job Thursday as union officials renewed their threat of a general strike by half of the county work force following a breakdown in contract talks.

By Thursday evening, however, a private meeting engineered by Los Angeles County Federation of Labor Executive Secretary-Treasurer William R. Robertson and Richard B. Dixon, the county’s chief administrative officer, appeared to have mended the breakdown.

Elliot Marcus, county director of employee relations, announced after meeting with Gilbert Cedillo, general manager of Local 660 of Service Employees International Union, that talks would resume today.

But despite the resumption of contract negotiations, Cedillo said the union’s “rolling thunder” strategy will continue until a contract is “signed, sealed and delivered.” He said Department of Public Social Services workers will be walking out today.

A one-day general strike by the union membership is planned for Tuesday, said Dan Savage, research associate of Local 660.

On Thursday, welfare workers and clerks in the district attorney’s office and Department of Children’s Services walked out.

About 60 clerks--nearly all--in two Department of Children’s Services offices walked off the job, but there were no reports of significant disruption of services to abused and neglected children.

Also walking off the job were about 2,000 welfare workers, Marcus said. In addition, 179 clerks in the district attorney’s Family Support Division--about a fourth of the clerical staff--walked out. A district attorney’s spokeswoman described the impact as “negligible.”

Union leaders said they were surprised by the walkout.

“This is something being generated right at the workplace,” Savage said. “We didn’t try to organize it.”

The union, which represents 40,000 county workers, Tuesday night revived its “rolling thunder” strategy of rotating strikes after a tentative agreement reached earlier in the week on health benefits unraveled.

Gasten Serrato, director of the Department of Public Social Services’ Belvedere office in East Los Angeles, said that most of his staff walked out during a morning break and never returned.

Serrato said he handed out flyers to welfare recipients “telling them that our workers just walked off the job. We are going to take care of emergencies only today. If you do not have an emergency, you will need to come back” another day.

The walkout also surprised Welfare Director Eddy Tanaka, who was forced to return early from a management retreat in Palm Springs.