Court Clerks’ Strike Settled With 4% Raise

After eight days that dramatically slowed the nation’s busiest court system, the first general strike by Los Angeles County court clerks in at least a quarter-century ended Saturday with a tentative agreement on new contracts for 600 employees.

“Everyone will be back to work on Monday,” said Karlene George, the president of the Superior Court clerks union, after a settlement was reached with negotiators for the courts.

The tentative agreement, reached during more than four hours of talks Saturday, ends a walkout that had spanned eight days and wrought havoc to some courts, forcing administrators and other officials, including judges, to scramble to keep up with thousands of criminal and civil cases countywide.

The proposed contract, which represents the clerks’ first pay raise since 1991, calls for Superior Court and Municipal Court clerks to receive a 16% pay package over the next four years. For the majority of clerks, who now make $3,600 a month, the raise translates to a $700-a-month increase by the end of the four years, according to George and Esther Richards, a spokeswoman for the municipal court clerks union.

“We are very pleased,” said John A. Clarke, executive officer of the Los Angeles Superior Court. “We believe it is a fair settlement [that] recognizes the contributions that court clerks . . . make to the Los Angeles court system and at the same time allows the court and county to operate within their limited budgets.”

Although clerks had earlier rejected a 12% raise over the next three years, George said this 4%-a-year package agreed to by negotiators was acceptable because it ensures that 4% rate for an additional year, and includes non-monetary benefits such as joint labor-management committees on new technology in the courts and for professional development and training.

“It puts us into a much more active position [in operations] at the court,” George said.

The insistence on higher salaries for clerks and greater respect for their work from supervisors and judges was a rallying cry for the hundreds who marched on picket lines day after day, sometimes braving heavy rains to do so.

“I think the issue of respect was a critical factor in the determination and the stamina that the clerks put forth,” Richards said.

“I mean, it takes a lot to make someone walk in the rain, chanting, standing up for their rights,” Richards said. “They wanted to be heard. Finally. And this was a way to be heard.”

Although the strike’s first days were relatively uneventful for court operations, the effect on the judicial system grew over time.

With priority placed on criminal cases, especially those with time constraints, court officials assigned those clerks who did show up for work to those courtrooms so no prosecutions would be jeopardized.

But with a vast majority of clerks joining in the strike, workloads became overwhelming and judges--some of whom joined their clerks on picket lines--were in many cases forced to log the proceedings themselves and join attorneys in searching for exhibits.

Even with those extraordinary steps, court officials were acknowledging by late last week that some crucial entries of court proceedings were not being logged into a countywide computer that monitors criminal cases.

That fact alone left the prospect for chaos in the system. In Pomona, for example, one probationer was jailed for days because authorities did not realize an arrest warrant had been withdrawn. Beyond individual cases, the failure to enter court actions into the computer system during the strike could mean some criminal cases may eventually be dismissed, union leaders warned, because no one knew that a defendant was not brought to court on time for proceedings.

With clerks set to return to work, court and union officials said it will take weeks to catch up on the backlog of paperwork caused by the strike. While court officials said that will mean night, weekend and holiday work for clerks, they did not have an estimate on the potential cost in overtime pay--a figure that union officials have put at no less than $2 million.

With so much work ahead, union President George said she would not be surprised if some clerks are at work today to get a jump on what promises to be an arduous month or so ahead.

“I’m sure that some will go back over the weekend,” she said.