County Eyes Pension Deal in Bid to End Strike

Ventura County officials said Monday they hoped to persuade thousands of county government workers to end a weeklong strike by offering them some form of inflation protection for future pension checks.

But to pay cost-of-living adjustments for retirees, the county probably would cut into $20 million in salary and benefit increases it had earlier offered union members, said County Executive Officer Johnny Johnston.

“Instead of getting this much in salary and nothing in pensions, it’ll be a little of both,” Johnston said. “There’s no new money.”

Union chief Barry Hammitt called the overture “totally unacceptable.”

“They’re just asking us to move money from our left pocket to our right pocket, and aren’t doing anything more,” he said.

Given that reaction, county supervisors are not optimistic about a new round of talks with the Service Employees International Union Local 998, which represents 4,200 of the county’s 7,500 employees.

Supervisors also expect a large and vocal union presence at this morning’s board meeting.

“I think this might be a long strike,” said board Chairman Frank Schillo. “I don’t have much hope right now.”

Picket lines appeared thinner Monday than last week, but few of those absent strikers went back to work. About half the union’s membership remained off the job, county officials said.

Strikers were expected to return to work this afternoon, if only for a few days, to replenish their paychecks.

“I have to go back,” said Summer Herron, a 24-year-old probation clerk who earns about $17,000 a year. “I have to pay for day care for two kids.”

But Hammitt said the standoff is by no means over. “If the employer doesn’t feel the pain, he’s got no incentive to come to the table and resolve it,” he said.

Meanwhile, several county departments--those handling agricultural inspections and social services, for example--have become severely backlogged, managers said.

A Superior Court judge on Monday postponed a decision on whether to force 194 strikers back to work. On Wednesday, county lawyers will try to convince the same judge to extend orders keeping 247 would-be strikers, who hold jobs considered essential, on the clock.

An offer shifting money from raises to the pension plan had not been presented formally to the union Monday afternoon, and it was even unclear whether members of the Board of Supervisors were satisfied with the idea.

Most declined to discuss details of an early-morning closed-door meeting at which the deal was discussed, but Supervisor John K. Flynn characterized the session as “not very productive.” He added, “The board members seem to be divided on the issues.”

A labor mediator could be recalled today or later this week to renew talks between county and union negotiators. But the plan Johnston outlined Monday fell far short of what union negotiators demanded before walking away from the bargaining table last Tuesday.

At that time, the county had tentatively agreed to a $20-million package that would give members, on average, a raise of 10% after three years, giving them parity with their counterparts throughout Southern California.

But the county would not agree to further union demands that pensions be adjusted by 3% a year to allow retirement savings to keep up with inflation.

The union wanted such adjustments applied not only in the coming years, but retroactively to 1979--the year union members agreed to stop receiving adjusted pensions.

The county said that more than two decades of retroactive adjustments would cost at least $108 million up front and $3 million to $4 million annually. Officials said they could not consider such an adjustment without first conducting a detailed financial study, which could take months.

On Monday, supervisors said they still could not authorize their negotiators to guarantee retroactive pension adjustments. Nor were they willing to authorize future pension boosts on top of the salary enhancements negotiated earlier.

But one supervisor, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said union members might be willing to consider shifting a portion of their salary increases to create a cost-of-living mechanism for their pensions, because that would be a better deal for employees in the long run.

Meanwhile, supervisors and other county officials said they hoped to fine-tune the language of any new offer to provide stronger assurances that the county would seriously consider some amount of retroactive pension boost once a study is completed.

“We’d very much like the union to return to the table to discuss how that might work out,” Johnston said.

“Maybe there’s a way to fashion a deal that’s more acceptable to employees.”

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Times staff writer Tina Dirmann contributed to this story.