County Workers Launch 'Rolling Strike'

By NICHOLAS RICCARDI and EDWARD J. BOYER

Oct. 3, 2000 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITERS

The other strike slowly got underway Monday, as hundreds of Los Angeles County workers walked off their jobs at the registrar-recorder and animal control offices as the first step in an escalating labor action to boost the pay of 47,000 government workers.

The so-called “rolling strike” is scheduled to hit more sensitive agencies today--the welfare offices and children’s services--then move to the district attorney and sheriff’s offices Wednesday. Job actions at public hospitals and clinics are planned on succeeding days, as workers build toward a countywide walkout Wednesday of next week.

The key issue is pay. Local 660 of the Service Employees International Union wants a 15.5% raise over three years to make up for past cuts; county officials say that would cost $97 million and force them to dip into crucial reserves while their budget remains wobbly. The county has offered a 9% raise over three years.

Talks between the two sides broke off Friday afternoon and no negotiations are scheduled. So, Monday offered a taste of what labor unrest could do to the massive county government, which does everything from run elections to provide health care for the uninsured.

For example, county Chief Administrative Officer David Janssen warned that further job actions at the registrar-recorder’s office could disrupt the November presidential election and said the county would seek an injunction to keep unions from striking health facilities such as public hospitals.

“I’m very disappointed, obviously, that the public has to suffer the reduction in services,” Janssen said. “The proposal we have for the union is, we think, an excellent one.”

Union officials say they planned the one-day actions to minimize impact on the public while demonstrating their clout to county supervisors.

“The only alternative we have left to us is to strike,” said Annelle Grajeda, general manager of SEIU’s Local 660, which represents the 47,000 county employees engaged in the rolling strikes.

Grajeda said that a 15.5% raise is required to bring her union’s members back to the inflation-adjusted salary they made in 1990, before the recession crippled the county budget and froze pay. She and other union leaders cited a surplus of about $100 million that the county has run the past few years as evidence that it could afford the raise. Sixty percent of Local 660’s members earn $32,000 or less per year.

But county officials say that a 15.5% increase would be too risky because they face a $184-million deficit in three years in the health department and may have to reduce jobs to cut costs. They have used surplus money almost exclusively for one-time costs, such as repairing aging buildings, to guard against future deficits or a sudden downturn in the economy.

Moreover, other unions representing nearly a third of county workers, including firefighters and sheriff’s deputies, have accepted the 9% offer.

“We feel very strongly about it,” said Supervisor Gloria Molina, the chairwoman of the board, “as they [Local 660] feel very strongly about it.”

The first day of the strike was mainly an inconvenience to the public, as hundreds of picketers marched outside the registrar-recorder’s office as a skeletal crew inside churned out marriage licenses and birth certificates for those with emergencies who crossed the picket lines. Property transactions went unrecorded for the day.

“Today is manageable,” Registrar-Recorder Connie McCormack said Monday morning, with only 284 of her 1,050 employees--largely temporary workers and managers--showing up for work. “We’re wounded, but we’re not dead.”

On the picket lines, Donna Meredith, who works in the Norwalk finance management office, was confident of the union’s prospects. “These rolling strikes will definitely lead to a settlement,” she said.

Jim Miksche and Michele Sandoval were more than a little nervous when they arrived at the registrar-recorder’s Norwalk headquarters Monday. They had flown in from Madison, Wis., to get married in Santa Monica on Saturday and hoped to pick up their license Monday.

“If we can’t get a marriage license, the wedding is not going to happen,” Sandoval said. “The priest won’t do it without a license.”

After filling out forms, the couple was told to return today to pick up the license.

Mercedes Redburn of San Fernando, who was turned away from the Van Nuys registrar-recorder’s office in her quest for a marriage license, was surprised but not upset.

“They have the right to strike,” she said, shrugging.

At animal control offices, 76 of 90 workers did not report for work, leaving officers responding only to emergency calls and those at the office doing unusual duty. “I was out myself cleaning out animal cages,” spokesman Bob Ballenger said.

And though the strike is only a day old, the city’s mayoral politics already are at work. Candidate and Assemblyman Antonio Villaraigosa (D-Los Angeles) wrote supervisors a letter urging them to settle the issue before a countywide walkout.

“These contract negotiations provide the county with an opportunity to lead the way in resolving labor issues in an equitable manner and with a minimum of disruption of service to the public,” wrote Villaraigosa, a former labor organizer and Assembly speaker.

Much of the anxiety about disruption of services has centered on the county’s giant health department. Beginning Thursday, county hospitals and medical clinics are slated to be hit by one-day strikes, with doctors and interns joining nurses and clerical workers on the picket lines.

Labor leaders say they will staff emergency rooms and intensive care units and that they warned the county far in advance of their plans in the hope that management would protect patients. They said they did not believe the county would be successful in winning a court order to limit their job actions.

“We do not intend to harm anyone,” said Dr. Alexis Anvekar of the Joint Council of Interns and Residents, another county union that plans to join Local 660 on the picket lines to protest staffing shortages that leave interns with 120-hour workweeks.

But Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky accused unions of “holding hostage” the working poor who are the primary users of county services.

“It’s an interesting situation that organized labor has decided to use the working poor as a pawn,” said Yaroslavsky, who usually supports unions but has found himself fighting them as a county leader and on the MTA board during that agency’s ongoing strike.

Union officials bristle at such allegations, saying their demands include beefed-up staffing in health facilities and that they must use tough tactics to get what they deserve.

A strike “raises the stakes for everyone,” said Bart Diener, assistant general manager of Local 660, “and that’s why it helps get a settlement.”

Times correspondent Grace Jang contributed to this report.

(BEGIN TEXT OF INFOBOX / INFOGRAPHIC)

Strike Schedule

A series of one-day strikes throughout Los Angeles County began Monday. Following are the departments that will be affected and the days walkouts are planned:

Today

* Department of Public Social Services

* Department of Children and Family Services

* Department of Public Works

Wednesday

* Civic Center

* Sheriff/jails

* District attorney

* Public defender

* Internal Services Department

* Assessor

* Treasurer-tax collector