Ventura County Workers End Strike

Ventura County government workers voted Wednesday by a margin of more than 2 to 1 to end an eight-day strike over the union’s demand for improved retirement benefits.

Thousands of social workers, county hospital staff members, building inspectors and accountants are expected to return to work this morning. Meanwhile, county and labor negotiators met with a mediator Wednesday to begin a new round of talks.

The first order of business is to select a consultant to study the fiscal effect of a new retirement package and to set guidelines for the review, negotiators said. The study will examine the cost of adjusting workers’ pensions each year for inflation.

County officials praised the union’s decision to suspend the walkout, which had slowed or halted services ranging from citrus inspections to the issuance of child-support checks.

Gathering at a Ventura city park to cast their ballots, members of the Service Employees International Union Local 998 voted 819 to 337 to end the strike. The union represents 4,200 county employees, about half of whom walked off the job last week, county officials estimate.

“There certainly has been an impact with their absence, so it will be positive to have them back,” said county Supervisor Kathy Long. “The county’s services reach out to the poorest of the poor, the most desperate of our citizens, and this will bring back their safety net.”

Board of Supervisors Chairman Frank Schillo also expressed relief.

“It’s not over till the fat lady sings,” he said. “But I think we’re both trying our best.”

Supervisors were to meet this morning in a closed-door session to be briefed on Wednesday’s talks.

Union members said returning to the job would show county officials they were acting in good faith. They also acknowledged that many strikers were so cash-strapped after a week without pay that they might have been forced to cross picket lines anyway. Also, medical benefits for some employees would expire within days if they failed to return to work.

Union leaders said they expect the financial study to be completed in two to four weeks. They vowed to strike again if the county fails to come up with a satisfactory plan.

At an afternoon hearing Wednesday, Ventura County Superior Court Judge Henry Walsh refused to order 203 health care workers back to work, saying the issue was moot because of the union’s decision.

But if a new strike is called, Walsh said, those workers must give 24 hours’ notice before walking off the job, and the county will be allowed to argue its case again. Additionally, 176 employees he ordered back to work last week will be bound to remain on the job should the strike resume.

Before workers voted Wednesday morning, union President Keith Filegar told hundreds of members, “I know some people feel we’ve done nothing if we go back now, but we have not done nothing. They’ve agreed to talk to us. None of this would have happened if we hadn’t walked out. The pressure is on them right now. To stay out any longer is not going to make them work any faster.”

Not everyone agreed. Patrick Smith, 55, a county air-quality specialist, voted to keep the strike going. “I’m personally prepared to stay out until hell freezes over,” he said.

Carmel Amorosano, 45, a Human Services Agency clerk, followed the union leadership’s recommendation, however.

“I don’t see the merit in employees staying out,” she said. “Two to four weeks is a long time. Some of us could be so financially strained, we’d lose our homes.

“I say, let our bargaining team work for us. I’m not trying to be a martyr. I can’t afford it.”

When the union’s contract expired a month ago, workers’ demands focused initially on getting salary increases that would bring employees parity with their counterparts throughout Southern California.

The county tentatively agreed to a $20-million package that would achieve parity, with average raises of 10% to be implemented over three years.

But before they would sign a contract, union negotiators also demanded that the county agree to increase employee pensions by 3% each year to keep up with inflation. They wanted that provision to be applied not only in the future, but back to 1979, the year new county employees were no longer eligible for pension inflation adjustments.

Talks broke down and the strike ensued when the county said it would not consider such a plan without undertaking a months-long financial review.

The union contends that pension increases are essential for a group of workers with an average salary of $29,000 per year.

Without a cost-of-living adjustment, a worker who earns $4,000 per month and retires at age 50 would, after 25 years of service, draw a monthly pension of $1,180. That amount would not increase, even as the value of a dollar diminished.

With a 3% annual cost-of-living adjustment, the same worker’s monthly payment would grow to $1,586 after a decade, and to $1,838 after 15 years.

County officials estimated that the plan could cost $108 million up front and another $3 million to $4 million a year to maintain. Officials said that could have a devastating effect on the county.

After a week of picketing, neither union leaders nor county officials were ready to make any major concessions. But both made overtures to return to the table.

The county floated a plan that would shift some of the $20-million salary package it had offered to pension enhancements. Union officials rejected that idea. But they said they would allow the county time to do an expedited financial study and to have workers contribute to their own pension plans to ease the financial burden on the county.

If workers share the cost and the county finances the plan over 30 years, union leaders said, it could cost the county less than $2 million a year. County officials are skeptical of that figure.

The consulting team, yet to be hired, will scrutinize the union plan and other alternatives.

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Times staff writer Tina Dirmann contributed to this report.