Countywide : Union Protests Using Inmates as Janitors

A proposal by Sheriff Brad Gates to use County Jail inmates as janitors in two county office buildings met with opposition at the Board of Supervisors meeting Tuesday from a union representing county employees.

The Service Employees International Union cited the layoff of nine county custodians in other county offices and asked that the county use janitors and other union workers slated for layoffs.

The pilot program is expected to save the county more than $250,000 the first year and more than $200,000 the second. To keep the offices clean using county staff, as the union suggests, would cost about $600,000 annually, according to county analysts.

Three correctional service technicians would be hired to oversee the program the first year, with two more added the second year. The technicians would be responsible for completion of the janitorial work as well as supervising the inmates.

The program would start in August at two new office buildings in the Hutton Towers complex on Santa Ana Boulevard in Santa Ana. The buildings house divisions of the Sheriff-Coroner’s Department, Environmental Management Agency and Integrated Waste Management Department.

Inmates would be closely screened before admission to the program, officials said.

While union representatives contend that the salaries of county janitors are less than those of correctional service technicians, county officials say the cost savings of using inmate crews supervised by only five county employees is far less than the cost of 15 to 20 county workers needed to clean the offices, according to Steve Snyder, manager of the county’s Personnel Department.

“We informed (the union) that this was coming and offered to meet with them and discuss it,” Snyder said.

Union spokesperson Cynthia Pickett said the union knew nothing of the proposal to use inmates as janitors until it received the Board of Supervisors agenda in the mail on Monday.

“We just don’t understand why they can’t move over the nine people they are planning to lay off to the Hutton Towers,” she said.

Assistant Sheriff Walter Fath said any county janitor facing a layoff is encouraged to apply for the correctional service technician positions.

Inmates participating in the county’s Community Work Program, which allows them to serve the final 45 days of their sentence in their homes as long as they work 40 hours a week at an approved site, can volunteer for the janitorial program.