County Children’s Service Employees Threaten to Strike : Labor: Wage dispute involves 2,300 social workers, mostly women. They claim they are paid 34% less than probation officers, mostly men, whose work requires similar skills.

A union representing about 2,300 social workers alleges that the county is practicing sex and wage discrimination against its predominantly female membership and is threatening to strike unless its wage demands are met.

The dispute involves Department of Children’s Services social workers and their supervisors, who provide services to 50,000 abused and neglected children.

The workers base their complaints on the results of a 1992 pay-equity study which found that the typical county social worker is paid about 34% less than the typical probation officer, who requires similar skills and experience. Most probation officers are male.

Despite the study, which subsequently was supported by the conclusions of an impartial fact-finder, the county has rejected salary increases.

As a result, hundreds of social workers plan to demonstrate today in front of the Hall of Administration before taking their case to the Board of Supervisors.

“The study revealed what social workers had always known, that their jobs are more demanding in every significant measure than those of probation officers, and they should receive higher salaries,” said Phil Ansell, a field representative for Local 535 of the Service Employees International Union. “The county refuses to redress this sex-based discrimination in any way and . . . leaves the union members with no alternative but to prepare for a strike.”

County officials contend that the study is flawed and that severe financial constraints have left them no money for the kind of salary increases required to even the pay scales.

“Between the time we contracted for the study and (now), the financial situation has gone to hell in a handbasket,” said the county’s chief of employee relations, Elliot Marcus.

The study, which the county agreed to conduct as part of a union contract, compared the objective value of work performed by children’s social workers and deputy probation officers. Both sides had agreed that the results would be used to renegotiate wages.

The study found that social workers require more knowledge and skills and that the job imposes greater mental demands and more dangerous working conditions than probation work. Yet, at the time of the study, a deputy probation officer II earned a monthly salary of $4,056, compared to a children’s social worker II’s monthly salary of $3,346.

The union contends that the county’s rejection of salary increases for the social workers places it in violation of Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which prohibits sex discrimination.

Marcus disputes the union’s charges, arguing that there is a distinction between issues of pay equity involving different job classifications and equal work for equal pay.

He also argues that the study failed to consider differences in market demand for probation workers as compared to social workers.

“I’m not saying that the social workers don’t have a case but their case is not as strong as they put forth,” he said.

Marcus said that the county has in place contingency plans should a strike be called. If a strike placed Children’s Services clients at risk, the county would go to court to force the workers back to their jobs, he added.