County OKs Plan to Settle Charges of Job Bias Against Latinos : Employment: The proposal approved by supervisors calls for new standards of hiring and promotions in public hospital system. Molina boycotts the meeting.

The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors, in a closed-door meeting boycotted by its only Latino member, has approved a proposed settlement of federal accusations that the county discriminated against Latino employees.

The proposed agreement with the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission calls for Latinos to be hired and promoted within the county’s huge public hospital system in numbers approximating the percentage of job applicants they represent. For example, if a third of the qualified applicants are Latino, a third of the hires must be Latino.

However, the proposed accord has been harshly criticized by officials of some Latino worker organizations who say the county should hire Latinos in proportion to their growing numbers in the population.

Supervisor Gloria Molina said Wednesday she boycotted Tuesday’s meeting because she objected to county bureaucrats negotiating the proposed settlement without first consulting the board.

Without specifying her objections to the proposed settlement, she said, “I’m not going to be a party to hurting my community.”

Raul Nunez, president of the county Chicano Employees Assn., was more specific. “We’ve been sold out,” he said. Nunez argued that the county should set as its goal bringing Latino employees--who make up 23% of the 22,000-member health department work force--in line with the county’s 38% Latino population.

The proposed settlement was drafted in response to an EEOC accusation in 1990 that the county has discriminated against Latinos in hiring and promotions in its Department of Health Services, especially at Martin Luther King Jr./Drew Medical Center in South Los Angeles.

Board Chairman Deane Dana said Wednesday he expects the EEOC to approve the agreement, even without Molina’s blessing.

EEOC officials in Washington refused comment. If they do not sign off on the proposal, the county faces a possible Justice Department lawsuit that could include fines.

The issue has been a source of racial tension at King hospital, where blacks and Latinos are competing for scarce government jobs. King is heavily staffed by blacks but serves a community that is now heavily Latino.

The Department of Health Services, the county’s largest agency with 22,000 employees, is about 23% Latino, compared to the county’s 38% Latino population. King’s work force is about 12% Latino and 71% black.

County officials have acknowledged that Latinos are underrepresented but deny that it is the result of discrimination. The proposed agreement includes no admission of any discrimination.

Clyde Johnson, president of the Black Employees Assn., acknowledged that for many years, King hired “almost exclusively black people” to work at the hospital that was built after the Watts riots to serve the neighboring black community.

Recent years have brought a “tremendous change in demographics and an influx of Latinos into the community,” Johnson said. “Hiring has to reflect those changes. I have no problem with that. But I don’t think that means you should push black people out.

“If Chicanos are not represented in high enough numbers, I hope that any adjustment is not made at the expense of black employees,” he said.

The proposed agreement, a copy of which was obtained by The Times, calls for the county to recruit, hire and promote “qualified Latinos in numbers approximating the percentage they represent among the qualified applicants” for seven job categories in which Latinos have been underrepresented, including physicians, nurses, clerks and custodians.

An administrator would be hired to oversee the affirmative action program and report to EEOC, and “cultural sensitivity training” would be provided to managers.

The county’s three-year plan to settle the EEOC complaint would cost $2.1 million.

County officials said the agreement calls for the county to step up outreach efforts, such as advertising in heavily Latino communities, to increase the pool of Latino job applicants. But Alan Clayton, who as former director of equal employment for the County Chicano Employees Assn. first complained to the EEOC, said the county has done a “lousy job” of recruiting Latinos.

Nunez, who plans to send a letter of protest to the EEOC, said the proposed settlement “is not in compliance with the county’s own stated goal of making sure that the work force mirrors the population that it serves.” More than half of the total patients treated at county hospitals and neighborhood clinics are Latino.

Nunez criticized Molina for refusing to attend the closed-door meeting. “At best, she should have been present to articulate her concerns,” he said.

Irving Cohen, assistant health director, called it unrealistic to hire and promote Latino employees in proportion to the percentages they represent in the population.

Noting that 13.2% of the county nurses are Latino, Cohen said, “Organizations such as the Chicano Employees Assn. like to compare our 13% against the 38% Latino population. But Hispanic work force availability for nurses is 9.8%. We’re exceeding 9.8%. So we’re doing good.”