Supervisors Await Briefing on Labor Talks

Faced with a threatened strike by one union, Ventura County supervisors will hold a closed-door meeting today to be briefed on contract talks with four employee groups and to lay out a strategy for dealing with their demands.

County Executive Officer Johnny Johnston said he did not expect any announcements as a result of the session and that it is intended only to bring supervisors up to date on the discussions.

Faced with a range of demands by labor--from paying employees the same as other government workers in Southern California to expanding pension benefits--a lengthy session is needed to review the potential financial effect on the county’s $1-billion budget, Johnston said.

County government’s largest workers’ union, meanwhile, mailed ballots to 4,200 members Thursday for a strike vote set for June 6, said Barry Hammitt, chief of the Service Employees International Union Local 998. And the group representing 750 sheriff’s deputies is taking the unprecedented step of calling for arbitration to settle its contract after six months of unsuccessful negotiations.

“We met [this week] and received such an insulting offer from the county that we see no alternative but to go to arbitration,” said Glen Kitzmann, president of the Ventura County Deputy Sheriff’s Assn.

Meetings with a third employee union, representing about 150 mechanics and engineers, have dragged on since late last year. But union spokesman Ron Pitts said his bargaining unit is scheduling a new round of talks.

And, negotiations with a fourth group--representing 225 probation officers, park rangers and harbor patrol officers--are close to culminating in an agreement, said spokeswoman Diane Hubbard.

Johnston said one goal for the special session is to seek consensus from the Board of Supervisors on how to approach demands from various employee groups.

The Service Employees International Union, for example, is asking that its salaries be comparable to those in 13 other counties and cities in the region, a concession won by prosecutors, public defenders, sheriff’s deputies and firefighters in previous contract negotiations.

But Johnston has stated that so-called parity pay--about $12 million in the coming year--is too costly for the county. Talks stalled between the county and the service employees union over that issue on May 6.

Pay parity is also emerging as a sticking point in negotiations with the sheriff’s deputies, Kitzmann said. The union wants to continue to receive pay comparable to deputies in the surrounding region while the county has offered raises capped at 4% annually, Kitzmann said.

Ventura County must pay wages comparable to other counties so government employees don’t leave for better-paying jobs, union leaders said. Higher salaries are needed to keep up with Ventura County’s spiraling housing market, the unions said.

The deputies are asking for post-retirement pay that equals 3% of their salary for every year worked. Deputies retiring at 50 with 25 years of service would qualify for pension pay that equals 75% of their salary. Currently, deputies receive 2% per year worked, or about 50% of salary at retirement.

Leaders of the Service Employees International Union are asking that members who currently do not qualify for cost-of-living increases on pension pay be given the inflationary hikes. The cost of expanded pension benefits for both unions could spiral into the tens of millions of dollars, county negotiators have said.

The deputies ask that contract negotiations be turned over to a three-member arbitration panel.

“We are going into uncharted territory,” Kitzmann said. “But they have not demonstrated a good-faith effort to put a contract together.”