Prosecutors, Defenders Sue County Over Talks

Ventura County prosecutors and public defenders sued the county Thursday, charging it with bad-faith bargaining and union-busting efforts stemming from stalled contract negotiations.

“We’re contending that the county is trying to punish us for unionizing and to set an example to deter others from unionizing,” said Stephen Silver, the attorney representing the Criminal Justice Attorneys Assn. of Ventura County. “Hopefully, the court is going to hold them accountable.”

The union’s bitter pay dispute with the county has dragged on for nearly two years, prompting three prosecutors to resign recently to take higher-paying jobs in the private sector and elsewhere. Another prosecutor has applied to become an FBI agent and is awaiting acceptance into the agency’s training academy.

Meanwhile, a fifth deputy district attorney, Helen Bang, said Thursday she is leaving her office today to take a similar position in Los Angeles County for about $44,000 a year, a $10,000 increase over her present salary. Bang was hired in January, but only has temporary status as a county employee and does not receive health or other benefits.

“I’d like to be able to go see a doctor and to get my teeth looked at. . . . It just made me uncomfortable with a dispute like this going on,” she said. “It’s going to be a long, dragged-out fight.”

Prosecutors have complained for years that they should be given parity with the county’s civil lawyers. The salaries of prosecutors in the district attorney’s office range from $33,774 for an entry-level position to $79,222 for a senior attorney. This contrasts with a salary range of $35,385 to $83,122 in the county counsel’s office.

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The prosecutor and public defenders union, which includes about 140 members, was asking for a retroactive pay package similar to one approved for management employees in February, Silver said. That deal consisted of a 3% cost-of-living raise and the inclusion of annual longevity bonuses into base pay, which means an automatic increase in retirement benefits.

The union also asked the county to do a parity study comparing the salaries and benefits of prosecutors in all seven Southern California counties. Silver said it then wanted the county to make up whatever pay differences were found.

But Silver said county officials have refused to budge on negotiations because they are upset that prosecutors formed their own union in 1993 after failing to receive a significant pay raise in eight years. The attorneys were previously classified as management personnel.

“What we’re contending in the lawsuit is that the county is refusing to offer us as much as they would have had we stayed management,” Silver said. “They are retaliating against our right to form a bargaining unit.”

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Union and county contract negotiators met twice in the past two weeks to try and hammer out a compromise. But after a two-hour, closed-door meeting Wednesday they were still at odds.

“The county had made some movement” on its last offer, said Barbara Journet, the county’s negotiator. “But apparently it wasn’t enough for them. It’s unfortunate, because we’d really like to resolve this.”

But Silver disputed Journet’s account of the negotiations.

“The county has not changed its offer at all,” he said. “They said they were willing to move a little bit if we made a counteroffer. So we did and they rejected it.”

Supervisor Frank Schillo said he was disappointed to learn of the lawsuit filed by prosecutors in the wake of the continuing impasse.

“I really feel bad that they feel that they have to go to this extent,” he said. “It would have been much better if we could negotiate this at the table.”

Still, Schillo said if the prosecutors wanted parity with management personnel, they should have remained in that classification.

“They need to decide whether they want to be management or labor,” he said. “If they want management benefits, then they should stay management. If they want to be labor, then they have to have labor negotiations.”

Schillo said he believes the union membership should have voted on whether to file a lawsuit before any action was taken.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Greg Phillips, president of the attorneys’ union, said the membership did in fact vote in July to file a lawsuit. But he said the union’s six-member board decided to hold off because it was led to believe the county would make a new offer.

“Based on some of our discussions with county officials, we thought it was best if we waited,” he said. “But after we spoke with the county negotiator, that proved to be fruitless.”

Phillips said the county could lose more prosecutors if the pay dispute cannot be resolved satisfactorily and in a timely manner.

“You’re losing a talent pool because the county is failing to pay lawyers what their value is,” he said. “We still want to continue to work here but there’s got to be some give-and-take in the equation.”