As Picketers Pace, Managers Step In

It was government in slow motion.

Ordinarily bustling offices at the Ventura County Government Center administration building were virtually empty. Corridors in other county buildings were still.

As hundreds of picketers gathered outside county facilities, their bosses inside did what they could to keep things going.

There was some emotion, some chest-beating, a little confrontation. But mostly, Day One of the county workers’ unprecedented two-day walkout was peaceful.

At the Ventura County Medical Center’s gift shop, a hospital human resources manager fumbled with the cash register until a volunteer showed her how to work it.

Outside the E.P. Foster Library in Ventura, sunblock-slathered picketers trudged up and down Main Street while inside the woman who directs the county’s library system checked out books.

“I wouldn’t call it stressful,” said Starrett Kreissman, “but it’s different.”

Across the county, employees on picket lines sounded the same angry notes: The county hadn’t negotiated with them in good faith, they said. Salaries lagged behind those of workers in other counties. The pension plan, they fumed, is a joke.

Paul McCarthy, a rehabilitation therapist for mentally ill outpatients, manned the line outside the county’s mental health unit on Hillmont Street in Ventura.

“Every day we accord these people respect,” he said. “All we’re asking is for the Board of Supervisors to show us the same respect. In retirement, we want to keep up with the cost of living.”

Inside the Ventura County Medical Center, nurses and managers assumed some of the chores ordinarily done by the dozens of picketers who, at the building’s entrance, were frequently cheered by horn-tapping drivers on Telegraph Road in Ventura.

The center’s administrators said patient care would not suffer during the walkout.

“We’re just putting along,” said Dr. Sam Edwards, the hospital’s top administrator. “If you break your arm, we’ll take care of you.”

Others, however, weren’t sure that a trimmed-down staff could effectively see to patient needs.

Asked if she’d keep an ailing relative at the medical center, striking laboratory scientist Laura Whyte said she would move anyone whose condition was likely to change dramatically.

“They need to be attended to quickly,” she said.

Whyte said only a handful of her 40 fellow lab workers were on the job. Strikers said trauma cases would be diverted to private hospitals. But Michael Bakst, director of Community Memorial Hospital two blocks down the street, said he had heard of no such plan. On Wednesday afternoon, Bakst said the hours-old strike had not affected his institution.

A judge Wednesday ordered a number of emergency services employees, including certain hospital workers, back to work.

At the County Government Center, only a few members of the public trickled into the building past hundreds of picketers and signs that read: “Due to an employee work action, we are working with limited staff today. Thank you for your patience.”

“I saw the signs, but I didn’t really know anything about it,” said Mike McHale, who stopped by to get a permit from the planning office. “It seemed to run very smoothly.”

In fact, just one of the county’s 37 planners showed up for work.

“I’m it,” said Craig Melin, a union member who said he showed up because he didn’t want to get fired during his six-month probationary period. “I’m going crazy.”

Outside, strikers blocked some motorists from entering the center by marching slowly across Victoria Avenue as the light turned from green to red.

Attorney Ron Gold complained he was late for court because the picketers held him back for 10 minutes.

“They shouldn’t impede the public’s ability to get their work done and get access to government services,” Gold said.

Ventura police and Ventura County sheriff’s officials said they received about 30 calls from drivers who couldn’t get to work.

In downtown Oxnard, when recovering drug addict Alana Montgomery arrived at a family services center for a supervised visit with her 13-year-old daughter, she learned her social worker was on strike.

“I’m kind of worried about it, because she knows all about my case, and I really don’t want it switched,” she said. But Montgomery, 35, of Oxnard, said she supports the county employees.

“My social worker handles a really big caseload, but she still goes out of her way to keep everything with me on track,” she said.

Montgomery eventually met with her daughter, under the supervision of another department employee.

At the state’s Employment Development Department in Oxnard, some of the clients looking for work didn’t have much sympathy with pickets outside county offices next door.

“We’re in here because we don’t have a job, and they’re out there complaining about what they’ve got,” said 41-year-old Quinn Dear of Oxnard.

“They want more cost-of-living,” he said. “I’d be happy with just making a living, period.”

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Times staff writers Timothy Hughes, Jenifer Ragland, Matt Surman and Margaret Talev contributed to this story.