Big Stakes, Too Little Effort

Contract negotiations between the Los Angeles county government and a union representing 47,000 of its workers ought to be in high gear less than 24 hours from a Wednesday-morning general strike deadline that could have a devastating impact on local residents and the economy.

Instead, very little official action was scheduled this morning. Nothing at all at the negotiating table, in fact--just a closed-door meeting of the county supervisors and arguments by the county before a local labor relations panel that the rolling strikes that began last week are illegal because a negotiating impasse was not declared before the walkouts.

The county may and should ask the Superior Court for a temporary restraining order against walkouts by certain workers, such as hospital nurses, if public health is imminently jeopardized. The county successfully did that in 1988 and again in 1991. But why are the five county supervisors and their negotiators willing to allow the general strike deadline to approach without getting back to the table?

On the other side, the Service Employees International Union Local 660 should have agreed to delay the strike if serious negotiations resumed and continued. The county, for its part, hasn’t budged from three points: the rolling strikes are illegal; it won’t negotiate with a union on strike; and the union must agree to cancel the broad, general strike before talks resume. This is an oddly rigid position in the face of such serious consequences.

The 24-day-old Los Angeles transit strike may be having a smaller impact than first imagined, but a general strike by most county workers would bring hardships on a broad front, most seriously at county clinics and hospitals. The county has offered raises of 9% over three years, a pact already accepted by other unions, including those representing county sheriff’s deputies and firefighters. But Local 660’s demand is for a 15.5% raise over the same period, which union spokesmen say is necessary to bring its members’ pay back to inflation-adjusted 1990 income levels. Their pay was frozen for four years during the region’s economic downturn in the early 1990s.

The supervisors have painted themselves into a corner by allowing so-called “me too” clauses, or protection agreements, with other county unions that would entitle those workers to the same pay raises. Elected officials fail to exercise leadership and judgment when they abdicate their ability to match reward to the county’s needs and the importance of the job.

But the union, too, has backed itself against a wall, demanding to recover in one leap from the kind of penny-pinching agreement it was forced to accept in 1991 during the last big county strike. Los Angeles has also pushed into the national labor spotlight, and local unions see this contract as another test case in the resurgence of the local labor movement.

The county’s continuing problems are well known, including a looming health care budget deficit of about $184 million three years from now when federal bailout money begins to run out. And the county continues to suffer, as all California cities and counties do, from the state government’s confiscation of local property taxes, a situation that must be brought to an end.

The immediate need, however, is to restart serious negotiations. Too much is at stake, from health care for the poor and uninsured to services for neglected and abused children and preparation for next month’s general election, for either side to balk or play games.