Union’s Own Staffers Strike at Critical Time

At a time when the county’s largest labor union, Service Employees International Union, Local 660, is threatening job actions against the county because its members want a raise, the local’s own staff members have gone on strike.

Local 660’s staffers, themselves members of United Union Representatives of Los Angeles, set up picket lines Monday morning outside the service employees’ Washington Boulevard headquarters after rejecting what they said was the SEIU local management’s final offer for a new contract the day before.

At times Monday, more than 40 staffers at the SEIU local walked the picket line, including some who have been in negotiations this month with the county on behalf of the local’s 40,000-plus members.

The internal contract squabble isn’t over money, the staffers said; the contract proposal offered by SEIU Local 660 management includes a 9% raise over two years, they said.

Instead, they said, their concerns are based on a proposed contract that includes what they called “mean-spirited” noneconomic “take-aways,” including reductions in vacation and seniority benefits and diminished protections against layoffs, transfers and dismissals.

“How can Local 660 preach fair labor practices and dignity for all in the workplace when it treats its own staff like children,” according to one widely circulated flier issued Monday.

The Local 660 staff has been working without a contract since June 30. Its members say they plan to strike until the contract offer mirrors the pact they have worked under in recent years.

“We are looking for a no-change contract” in terms of benefits and work guidelines, said Lyle Fulks, a vice president of United Union Representatives of Los Angeles. “We don’t want them to come in and loot our work rules.”

Union Treasurer Jim McCarthy said that SEIU Local 660 leadership really has no idea why the staff is striking because the 9% is in addition to a 5% raise they received in January.

In addition, McCarthy said, the proposed new contract remains essentially the same, including a pledge not to lay off any staff members during the life of the two-year contract.

“We offered them what we felt was a real fair agreement, and they rejected it,” McCarthy said. He described the staff as being “ridiculous” for striking over what he called minor issues that could be worked out in negotiations.

Local 660 staff members said the strike couldn’t have come at a worse time for the union and its members because some of the staffers who went on strike had been chief negotiators in the ongoing labor talks with the county over a contract for all Local 660 workers.

The local represents employees in a wide array of government jobs, including janitors, nurses and health and welfare workers.

It is seeking a significant raise for its members, saying they have gone without a hike for five years while the county fought its way out of near-bankruptcy.

But the county has set aside no money for raises in its current budget and has offered increases of 1% to 1.5% for each of the next three years, according to union officials familiar with the negotiations.

The local’s rank and file have threatened to walk off the job if the county doesn’t offer more by the time the contract expires Sept. 30,

More than 1,200 of the local’s members voted last week to authorize such a strike.

But Local 660 won’t be able to wage an effective general strike without the help of the communications workers, field representatives, researchers and others who are now on strike, according to Fulks and others on the picket lines Monday.

They say the staffers are the ones responsible for organizing, providing strategies for work actions and distributing information to county employees.

“You don’t go out on strike when your people--the people you represent--are [threatening to have] a strike unless you feel like you really have to, and we felt like we really had to,” said Service Employees International political associate Tracy Zeluff, who spent much of the day protesting with her 10-month-old son Alec by her side. “This is a punitive contract. We just find it unacceptable that they want to take all those things away from us.”

The internal labor unrest also could hurt the union’s ability to hammer out a good contract for its workers.

Fulks said: “They need to spend less time getting tough with us and more time getting tough with the county. We want to be supporting and leading our brothers and sisters in Local 660 in getting a raise from the county of Los Angeles. But because they have chosen to pick this fight with us instead of fighting with the county, we’re out here.”

Another union represents the clerical staff who work for Local 660. Although they did not go on strike, some members of that union, the Office Professional Employees International Union, refused to cross the picket line Monday, Fulks said.