Supervisors Ought to Call Off the Scare Tactics

“The San Gabriel Valley could lose four parks, nine libraries, four health clinics, two swimming pools--and maybe even county funding for the Arboretum--under cuts before the Board of Supervisors” (San Gabriel Valley edition, July 15).

Is the sky falling yet?

“The county is also considering slashing welfare payments, mental health programs, recreation programs and the monitoring of child molesters.”

Is the world going to end? I don’t think so.

In fact, I am really getting tired of all of these scare tactics. If the recall in Covina hasn’t sent a wake-up call to the County Board of Supervisors, then they had better start looking for a new job. We pay some of the highest taxes in the country in Los Angeles County, and if the board cannot keep the vital public services open on $13.1 billion then it is time to move on.

Get this straight, we cannot and will not pay another cent to keep the bloated city, country, state and federal governments in the lavish style they are accustomed to.

What good does it do to keep the libraries, parks and health clinics open if you lose your home because of an increase in property taxes? Let everything close if it’s a choice between that and my home, because we just can’t pay another cent.

MICHAEL A. PACER

Glendora

City of Hope Risks Losing Union Support

The current labor relations policy of management at the City of Hope, Duarte, with the hospital replacing striking nurses (San Gabriel Valley section, July 10) has created a hornet’s nest in organized labor circles.

Since America’s labor leaders traditionally urge their members to generously donate money to the City of Hope, and to other worthy causes, the local cancer hospital’s decision to permanently replace union nurses with non-union nurses will boomerang on the institution’s fund-raising potential among thousands of union members, active and retired--like me.

Consider these recent developments from the union’s perspective in the dispute:

* Kenneth L. Coss, president, United Rubber, Cork, Linoleum and Plastic Workers of America, AFL-CIO, was scheduled to receive the City of Hope’s 1993 Spirit of Life Award at a dinner July 9 in Akron, Ohio. Because of the hospital’s attitude toward its union nurses, this important national event was canceled.

* On the local level, Renee Tawa reported in her story that the executive board of the powerful Los Angeles County Federation of Labor, AFL-CIO, has given tentative approval to a policy that would ban affiliated local unions from raising money for the City of Hope. This policy, if implemented, will result in a severe blow to the cancer hospital’s financial status because L.A. County Federation of Labor, the largest central labor body of its kind in the United States, has about 400 affiliated local unions with an estimated 700,000 active members.

* In the U.S. Senate, federal legislation is pending that would prohibit employers from permanently replacing strikers. The proposed federal law, “The Cesar Chavez Workplace Fairness Bill” passed in the House of Representatives June 15 by a 239-190 margin.

In the meantime, I will join my brothers and sisters in the labor movement who decide to withhold monetary contributions until such a time as the hospital’s attitude toward unionization changes.

JACK RUGH

San Gabriel