County Employees Stop Work to Protest Cutbacks : Budget: Some workers call in sick or walk off jobs to fight efforts to cut as many as 18,255 positions and slash services.

As Los Angeles County officials pleaded for budget help in Sacramento, the first of many expected job actions by county workers threatened with layoffs occurred Tuesday at welfare offices throughout Los Angeles.

Employees in at least six welfare offices called in sick or walked off their jobs in protest of the county’s efforts to cut as many as 18,255 jobs and slash services in an effort to resolve an unprecedented budget deficit of $1.2 billion.

Recipients of food stamps, Medi-Cal and Aid to Families With Dependent Children money were forced to wait in long lines to get checks or address problems. Hundreds were told to come back another day unless they had emergencies, said Department of Public Social Services officials.

“I think the staff are of the opinion that this is the way to express their displeasure with what is going on,” said Eddy S. Tanaka, department director. “Obviously it is very disruptive. I think the message needs to be given to someone else, the people in Sacramento.”

Tanaka and aide Carol Matsui blamed union leaders and said the walkouts were timed to protest 1,782 layoff notices set to go out Monday. In all, there are 7,000 department employees in 31 county offices.

Gilbert Cedillo, general manager of Service Employees International Union Local 660, said union members were trying to send a message to state lawmakers in Sacramento. They chose to walk off the job Tuesday, he said, because they knew the five county supervisors were in the state capital and would inform state legislators of the walkouts.

Cedillo said the walkouts were spontaneous, but that similar job actions are expected at least through the week while the supervisors are in Sacramento, where they are asking state lawmakers for help in finding alternatives to layoffs and closures of hospitals, parks and other services.

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Board Chairwoman Gloria Molina said the walkouts are counterproductive and not the way to get state lawmakers’ attention.

Although Cedillo was in Los Angeles, the top echelon of Local 660 were in Sacramento, making the same rounds as the supervisors.

At the Southwest Family Services office in Inglewood, 111 of 219 employees called in sick early Tuesday, followed by 149 of 312 employees at the Southwest Special Office in South-Central Los Angeles.

“We have a lot of homeless people needing immediate cash, food stamps and Medi-Cal,” said district Director Joyce Washington. “We managed to do it, but it was very, very stressful even to address the emergencies.”

About 150 of 470 employees at the Metro North office near Downtown left work in the afternoon and never returned. In Cudahy, 59 of 221 employees walked off the job; 34 of 159 employees in Paramount; and 178 of 297 workers at an Echo Park office near downtown also walked out, DPSS official said.