Attorneys Say Koester Trying to Bust Union

Ventura County public defenders and prosecutors on Thursday angrily accused County Chief Administrative Officer Lin Koester of attempting to break their fledgling labor organization by offering to give the lawyers the raises they seek in return for disbanding the union.

About 100 prosecutors and public defenders attended a meeting in mid-November where Dist. Atty. Michael Bradbury and Public Defender Kenneth Clayman outlined Koester’s offer, several attorneys who attended the meeting said.

The offer was contained in a memo signed by Koester, said veteran prosecutor Peter Kossoris.

According to Kossoris, the memo offered to hike the salaries of the 133 union members by 3% in each of the next two years while guaranteeing that they would be paid at the same levels of the county counsel’s 16 attorneys by 1998.

But in return, Koester said the attorneys would have to disband their 11-month-old union and agree to be classified as management employees, Kossoris said.

“I think it is apparent that management doesn’t want us to be unionized,” Kossoris said.

Koester was out of town Thursday and could not be reached for comment.

But County Supervisor Frank Schillo said he did not believe that such an offer was made because Koester never cleared it with the Board of Supervisors.

“That’s obscene,” Schillo said when told of the memo. He said the board would have to approve any such offer, which it has not.

The county’s chief negotiator, Barbara Journet, said she also was unaware of any independent offer Koester may have made to the attorneys.

“If things have gone on behind the scenes, I am not aware of them,” Journet said.

But several public defenders and prosecutors contacted Thursday said they attended the meeting where the memo and offer were discussed. Union leader and veteran public defender Douglas Daily said the rank-and-file voted on Koester’s proposition last month and overwhelmingly rejected it after the meeting.

“It sounds like the Board of Supervisors and the county’s upper management just aren’t communicating,” Daily said.

Daily said that most of the 38 public defenders would not show up for work today in protest of the contract impasse. Prosecutors said they will remain on the job today. But they have paid for a full-page advertisement in a local newspaper accusing the Board of Supervisors of “compromising public safety” for failing to give the attorneys what they want.

Talks between county officials and the union broke off for the last time Monday without getting close to a contract resolution.

The union wants to be paid at the same rate as attorneys in the county counsel’s office. The county counsel handles civil litigation while union members handle criminal matters.

Prosecutors and public defenders earn between $33,700 and $79,200 annually while their civil counterparts earn between $35,386 and $83,122 a year.