Strike Effect on Courts Mixed

With tensions rising as surely as the number of striking workers, a walkout over pay increases for 600 Los Angeles County court clerks continued Thursday as a new round of negotiations was scheduled.

The walkout has affected Superior and Municipal courts throughout the county, as judges have juggled cases in the nation’s busiest judicial system and, in some instances, struggled with other court personnel to handle the awesome volume of paperwork needed to process hundreds of criminal trials and civil proceedings.

The strike, though officially launched Wednesday, effectively began at many courthouses Tuesday when clerks did not return to work after attending a Board of Supervisors meeting that lasted longer than they expected.

While the court system still was far from gridlock Thursday, there were reports across the county of delays and other snafus that, at minimum, will mean a backlog of administrative work once the job action ends. Countywide, 80% to 90% of the Superior Court clerks were participating in the walkout; a smaller percentage of Municipal Court clerks were striking, but the number was far above the 20% to 30% reported Wednesday.

“There is no question that there has been some inconvenience and some delays,” said Superior Court Presiding Judge Robert W. Parkin. “But we have been operating and taking care of our essential operations. . . . We have managed to keep going.”

Over time, however, he said, the effect of the strike on staff workloads will be felt.

“Judges are taking notes; they are conducting trials,” Parkin said. “[But] I think probably what is happening is that they are all putting those notes aside . . . to be taken care of later. So there is a big job ahead” when the strike ends.

In Van Nuys, for example, some courtrooms seemed to weather the strike without major consequences, while others experienced slowdowns as judges searched for files and other documents.

“The impact is mixed,” said Superior Court Judge Thomas Schneider, who oversees the calendar for civil matters in Van Nuys. “The vast majority of judges are doing their very best without interruption of their cases.”

He added: “It’s not as efficient and well-oiled as the professionals who man the clerks’ stations, but justice proceeds with its own disabilities.”

At the Santa Monica courthouse, those disabilities were obvious.

“Nothing’s getting done; nobody knows what’s going on,” fumed filing-window examiner Andre Watts as he dealt with an overflow line and angry clients.

After a heated exchange with a woman who had been wrongly referred to his window, he said: “Whoever’s working [the other department] doesn’t have a clue to what they’re doing.”

Similarly, he said, temporary replacements in the courtroom were “doing the best they can” but were making mistakes that were coming to him.

As Judge David Finkel joined the clerks’ picket line outside the courthouse, tensions rose inside.

“The strike is screwing everything up,” said Malibu-based criminal attorney Robert Schell, standing outside a clerk’s office trying to figure out his next move. Because of the strike, he said, a file he needed for a procedural motion “isn’t on the shelf. Lord knows where it is. They don’t have a record.”

If he could not get the information from the file, Schell said, he would have to seek an extension, effectively slowing down an already clogged court system. “It’s more work for everyone,” he said.

In Pasadena, the supervising deputy district attorney, Larry Trapp, said the strike has disrupted the work of prosecutors because they have had to take time to make notes on court calendars so the clerks, when they return, can schedule future hearings.

“I can’t tell you the sky is falling. It is more of a nuisance,” he said.

But if the strike goes on more than a few days, he added, criminal suspects may seek dismissals of their cases based on the court’s inability to schedule timely hearings.

“[Prosecutors] are the ones whose interests are the most affected when major things go wrong,” Trapp said.

The confusion caused by the walkout was matched by the anger among striking clerks, who charge that they have been taken for granted after six years without a pay raise.

“Everything I buy has gone up,” clerk Yvonne Lane said as she marched outside the Long Beach courthouse with more than a dozen other pickets.

Wearing a straw hat to shield herself from the sun, Lane, 47, said that with a daughter at Long Beach City College and other expenses, she has not been able to repair the family car or keep up with bills.

“I am living from paycheck to paycheck after having been a county employee for 25 years,” said Lane, who rides a bus to work. “You think I’m angry? You bet your doggone life I am angry.”

Such sentiment has galvanized the clerks to strike for the first time in at least a quarter-century. And even as talks are to resume today, union President Karlene George and other labor officials said Thursday that their rank-and-file membership will demand far more than the 10% raise now offered by the county over the next three years. The clerks’ average pay now is about $35,000 per year.

“We will not be cowed. We will not be defeated,” George told a cheering crowd of strikers outside the downtown County Courthouse. “We will walk these lines and continue to fight until we have won the dignity and respect and fair compensation we deserve.”

Times staff writers Joseph Hanania, Douglas Shuit, Deborah Belgum and David Yi contributed to this story.