Board OKs Mandatory Time Off for County Workers

The San Diego County Board of Supervisors gave preliminary approval Tuesday to implementing a mandatory time-off program for about 5,000 county employees not represented by labor unions.

Negotiations with four labor unions representing about 11,500 other employees are at a standstill, although the Service Employees International Union, which represents most of the workers, has a ratification vote scheduled next week on the county’s last offer.

County spokesman Bob Lerner said Tuesday that the Board of Supervisors “felt uncomfortable approving this without having commitments from all other employees.” Lerner said that, “in the next few days,” the county is hopeful of renewing negotiations.

But Kay Deely, a spokeswoman for SEIU, offered a different interpretation.

“All during negotiations, the county kept insisting they wanted to do something fair for everyone,” she said. “So I’m a bit surprised by (Tuesday’s) vote. We think it’s deplorable they’re trying to solve all the budgetary problems on the backs of employees, be they represented or unrepresented.

“At the moment, we are not negotiating. Period. The county has given us what they call their last, best and final offer. We have a ratification vote coming up next week on whether or not to accept it.”

Lerner said the county hopes to implement the “integrated leave program” in such a way “that everybody in every county department participates.”

He said the Board of Supervisors intends to take up the issue once again at its meeting next Tuesday. The supervisors have said they need to implement more than $50 million in budget cuts--mandatory time off being among them--as a way of making up a shortfall in expected revenues from Sacramento.