Child Social Workers Strike, Demand Lighter Caseloads

Los Angeles County child social workers went on strike Tuesday after negotiations with county officials to reduce their workloads and increase their wages broke down.

The walkout by most of the union’s 3,000 employees was the first in what could be a weeklong wave of strikes by county workers ranging from nurses to librarians to welfare eligibility workers.

Those 40,000 workers, represented by the Service Employees International Union Local 660, could begin strikes as early as this morning. Labor negotiations with the union local’s 17 separate bargaining units were continuing late into the night Tuesday.

The strike by the child social workers, represented by Service Employees International Union Local 535, was called after the county’s labor negotiators walked away from the bargaining table just before 4 a.m. Tuesday.

The refusal of those employees to report to work at MacLaren Children’s Center, the county’s child abuse hotline and at Department of Children and Family Services facilities had an immediate impact, placing in peril the health and safety of potentially thousands of abused and neglected children in the county’s care, according to county officials.

All told, 302 out of 354 social workers serving 12,000 children in the San Fernando Valley, Santa Clarita, the Antelope Valley and parts of the San Gabriel Valley honored the picket lines Tuesday, said Schuyler Sprowls, spokesman for the Department of Children and Family Serivces.

At the Santa Clarita office, which serves children in the Santa Clarita and Antelope Valleys, just eight of the unionized staff of 122 came to work.

Among the strikers was Denise Sherman, who walked the picket line in front of the North Hollywood office of the Los Angeles County Department of Children and Family Services, where she works placing children in foster care.

The day before, she said, she put in an 11 hour work day, searching for a missing 15-year-old single mother, helping a 17-year-old who’d had a nervous breakdown and appearing in court.

“I’d work for less money if I could have a smaller caseload,” Sherman said. “Our lives are being eaten up by this job.”

“The stress is overwhelming,” said Cindy Levine. “We’re expected to make snap decisions on children’s lives and then if we mess up, we’re held accountable.”

In the Valley, said family counselor Rebekah Aguirre, 33, bilingual employees are overworked because of the number of Spanish-speaking immigrants. “We deal with it,” said Aguirre. “But we work 70 hours a week. We don’t want the overtime, we want a life.”

The Board of Supervisors, meeting behind closed doors, directed county lawyers to seek an injunction as early as Thursday to force the social workers to return to their jobs.

Children and Family Services Director Peter Digre said managers and other personnel were summoned starting at 5 a.m. to fill in and respond to emergencies, including taking reports of child abuse called in to the hotline.

Even with the contingency plan, however, Digre and other county officials said critically important functions were unmet, such as visits to the homes of children at significant risk of physical and sexual abuse.

“I think it’s a very dangerous situation, and I hope it comes to an end as quickly as possible,” Digre said. “Every time you don’t visit a kid, something bad could happen.”

By late afternoon, negotiations appeared no closer to a resolution.

The union had demanded an 8% raise over three years, while the county’s most recent offer was for 7.5% over three years.

But “pay is not our issue,” said union negotiator Sarah Bottorff. “We are really concerned about the safety of children.”

Their safety, she and other union leaders said, has been severely compromised by overwhelming caseloads and unnecessary paperwork required of caseworkers.

“There isn’t any doubt they deserve to be paid more and have more manageable caseloads,” said department spokesman Schuyler Sprowles. “But the public can decide if the best way to make the point is by abandoning caseloads and going on strike.”

Digre and management negotiators have promised to reduce exceptionally high worker caseloads, but they have been unable to agree how to do so.

Nearly 700 of 1,552 field-level workers have more cases than permitted by their most recent their contract, department officials said. Those limits are already 20% to 25% above the stated optimum workload.

Workers who help to reunite broken families are supposed to carry a maximum of 47 cases, while those who monitor children in presumably more stable permanent homes are supposed to have a maximum of 67 cases.

Workers have said that, with too many children to watch over, they are sometimes left making cursory “drive-by” visits.

Digre said Tuesday that he’s adding social workers as fast as he can--up to 300 in the coming year and training them at an accelerated rate.

Social workers also say they need a reduction in paperwork, which they say overwhelms them and cuts into the time they spend with children.

Digre pledged a year ago to hire the Washington-based Child Welfare League of America to help draw a plan to “eliminate nonessential workload while maximizing positive outcomes for children.”

But Digre said the hiring of the consultant has been delayed as the county studies three separate proposals to do the job.

Sarah Bottorff, a shop steward in the department’s Lancaster office, said she was “not surprised that nothing has happened.”

“Whenever caseloads get too high they come out and say they will do a study,” Bottorf said. “We might as well wait until hell freezes over.”

Workers may not have a sympathetic ear on the paperwork issue, judging by the comments of several members of the Board of Supervisors. “We are unequivocal about that; these reports are required by the state and are absolutely necessary,” said Board of Supervisors Chairman Zev Yaroslavsky.

“None of us like paperwork,” he said. “But when you are talking about the lives of children, and taking them away from their parents, that kind of documentation is absolutely essential.”

Tuesday’s strike culminates a long-burgeoning feud between Digre and the social workers.

Since his 1991 hiring, Digre has been acclaimed by some county officials for restoring order to a system that had been threatened with a state takeover and for increasing protections for children.

But employees have complained bitterly that he has tried to assure safety by usurping their power--relying on ever-increasing regulations and paperwork rather than their professional discretion.

The discontent bubbled to the surface a year ago in a noisy rally before the Board of Supervisors. In response, Digre promised that a new computer system would help lighten the workers’ burden.

But Digre conceded Tuesday that the computer system has been slow to come on line. About 300 problems were detected during one assessment this summer and the entire system shut down this week because of the failure of a single phone switch in Sacramento.

Among the picketers outside county buildings Tuesday was Kelly Schreiner, who responds to child abuse reports. She said workers were prepared for a prolonged walkout if they were not ordered back to work by the courts.

Schreiner said that a shortage of workers at the command post means that even emergency reports of child abuse and neglect can go uninvestigated for hours.

“On Saturday, we had 110 cases labeled ‘immediate’ but only 30 workers to handle them,” she said. “There can be a two- or three-hour wait to talk to a hotline worker and then four or five hours after that before someone comes out.”

Meanwhile Tuesday, Service Employees International Union Local 660’s negotiators continued to try to hammer out a deal at 17 separate bargaining tables for its 40,000 members.

Those workers are set to strike in waves, beginning today, if they don’t get a “significant” raise and other benefits.

Local 660 is seeking a 12% to 14% pay increase over three years, as well as promises of job security and a $10-million retraining fund that its leaders say is needed in an era of health and welfare overhauls and downsizing.

Times staff writers Sharon Bernstein and Solomon Moore contributed to this story.