County Hopes for Accord With Union by Midweek

Los Angeles County officials said Monday that they hope to reach an agreement by midweek with their largest union, which abruptly called off its countywide strike last week.

“The negotiations are progressing very positively and we think we’ll be able to resolve the issues by the middle of this week,” Chief Administrative Officer David Janssen said.

Both sides reported progress during the fifth day of talks at a Westchester hotel, but the union took a somewhat more combative posture, promising to start picketing county supervisors’ field offices and launching telephone and letter-writing campaigns to induce the county to improve its offer.

Discussions are scheduled to resume today.

With the Service Employees International Union, Local 660, representing 47,000 county employees, from nurses to typists, the negotiations are complex. The central issue is pay: The county has offered 9% over three years, plus targeted increases for certain workers. The union, pushing for 15.5% in raises over three years, says that all its workers must have their pay boosted to make up for compensation freezes during the 1990s.

The union says that over the course of negotiations, the county has offered raises of more than 9% for the majority of its employees, but that it is sticking with that figure for some. It has also said that the county has offered to improve retirement benefits and pay for more training, but that the two sides do not yet agree on such things as the number of medical staff needed at county hospitals.

In an effort to increase pressure on county supervisors, the union said Monday that it will begin picketing supervisors’ field offices this week, starting at Supervisor Don Knabe’s Norwalk office Wednesday.