Deputies Rally to Demand 15% Pay Hike Over 3 Years

About 70 Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies marched outside the Board of Supervisors’ hearing room Tuesday urging county officials to grant them as much as a 15% raise over three years.

The county has offered the deputies and district attorney’s investigators represented by the Assn. for Los Angeles Deputy Sheriffs a 9% raise over three years, the same level it is offering most employee groups during this round of contract negotiations. But union officials and two state assemblymen Tuesday said deputies deserve more.

“We do different jobs, we deserve to be paid different,” said Mark Claahsen, chairman of the negotiating team for the union. “We put our lives on the line every day.”

The deputies were joined in the morning drizzle by Assemblymen Gil Cedillo (D-Los Angeles) and Wally Knox (D-Los Angeles), who urged the county to relent. They and other legislators have written letters to county supervisors asking that the deputies and investigators get better raises.

Union officials noted that although state law prohibits law enforcement from engaging in any job actions, groups of deputies “became sick” during the last contract dispute in 1997.

“If they want a fight, we’ll give them a fight,” vowed union president Roy Burns.

The contract expires Jan. 31, but David Janssen, the county chief administrative officer, said the offer will stand. “We’ve been in negotiations with ALADS since last summer and feel very strongly that our offer of a 9% increase over three years is very fair.”

Janssen noted that county firefighters and probation officers have accepted that increase and said it would bring deputies to a pay level slightly above the Los Angeles Police Department with county benefits factored in, a contention the union disputed.