Progress Reported in County Labor Talks

The union representing 47,000 county service workers whose series of walkouts ended abruptly this week said Friday that it was making progress at the bargaining table, yet may need to use unspecified “activities” to wring more concessions from the county.

Union spokesman Mark Tarnowsky said he did not know what form the “activities at our work sites and elsewhere” may take next week. “I can’t be more specific because we haven’t figured out the details,” he said.

The fourth day of negotiations concluded Friday with no talks scheduled until Monday.

The leadership of Service Employees International Union Local 660 angered some of its membership when it abruptly suspended the day-old countywide walkout Wednesday night, citing a request from Cardinal Roger M. Mahony. Since then, union officials have struggled to explain their actions to their sometimes skeptical rank and file, many of whom said they would not strike again if directed to by the leadership.

The tussle between the county and its largest union has centered on the 9% raise over three years the Board of Supervisors has offered all unionized county workers. Though the county has offered to increase that raise for certain members of Local 660 (some were offered 17% raises before the strike), the union has pushed a baseline of a 15.5% raise for all its members.

In its statement Friday evening, the union said more than half its members were now being offered raises above 9% but that some were not. “We are pleased with this progress,” the statement said. “However, there are important issues the county has not moved on. . . . Our fight is far from over.”

The statement followed an afternoon announcement that the county had offered raises of 12% to 13% to nearly half the union’s membership. The union had scheduled a news conference Friday to tout those gains but canceled it and instead issued its statement.

Local 660’s contract expired Sept. 30, and for six days the union staged a series of single-day job actions. But when the strike went countywide Wednesday, thousands of union members crossed picket lines and the leadership decided to stop striking and return to the bargaining table following Mahony’s request for a temporary truce.

The decision irked many strikers, who fumed that they had lost pay for no good reason. Sixty percent of Local 660’s membership earns $32,000 or less annually. A handful walked off work Thursday despite their union’s direction to return to their jobs.

Union leaders have insisted that another reason for suspending the strike was the progress they have made at the bargaining table.

News of the targeted increases was not enough to mollify some of the massive union’s membership. County officials said 21 welfare workers walked out of the Rancho Park office Friday afternoon, chanting “12% is not enough!”