L.A. County, Unions Face Tense Future

With most of their contracts expired and a gloomy offering of frozen salaries and chopped benefits on the table, Los Angeles County employee unions are rallying their members for a public showdown with the Board of Supervisors.

A major sticking point in the negotiations is the soaring cost of health insurance, which is the same issue behind two labor disputes rattling the Los Angeles region: the bus mechanics’ walkout and the grocery clerks’ strike.

County workers across California also face fallout from the state budget crunch because county finances are closely tied to state revenue. The labor unrest has already begun to ripple into the far-flung corners of county government.

First, hundreds of defiant sheriff’s deputies began a sporadic sickout that landed their union leaders in court. Last week, the influential Service Employees International Union’s Local 660 joined the fray with more than 75 noisy, sign-shaking rallies at county hospitals, libraries, courthouses and welfare offices.

On Tuesday, that union and another coalition of county workers intend to stage their mightiest show of force yet, a huge demonstration at the weekly Board of Supervisors meeting. Organizers expect more than 2,000 workers to protest.

“Our members are not unreasonable,” said Bart Diener, Local 660’s assistant general manager. “They’re not looking for big gains. But when you couple a wage freeze with the kinds of shifts in health costs the county is proposing, that’s going backward.”

Experts say that more job actions are likely, particularly among government workers.

“We’re in a period of great uncertainty,” said Daniel Mitchell, a UCLA professor of public policy and management who specializes in labor relations.

A generation ago, Mitchell said, the typical union member was a manufacturing or construction worker. But today, more than half of the unionized workers in California are government employees.

“The public sector is in particular trouble right now because of the state budget crisis,” he said. “It’s just going to filter down through all the layers of government. Los Angeles County is not going to be alone in its misery.”

Some counties, such as San Bernardino, Orange and Ventura, have avoided labor confrontations simply because they have few or no employee contracts open for negotiation this year.

“Thankfully, it’s somewhat quiet,” said Elizabeth Sanchez, San Bernardino County’s employee relations chief. “It will probably be a tighter pinch next year.”

But in Los Angeles, a tense year of labor negotiations has yielded few agreements as contract after contract has expired. Thousands of sheriff’s deputies, county firefighters and other public safety workers have been working without signed agreements for at least eight months.

On Sept. 30, three more major contracts ran out: the Service Employees Local 660 agreement, which covers more than half of the county’s 90,000 workers, and a pair of health insurance and retirement benefit contracts that cover about 75,000 employees. Nearly all of the county’s 56 labor agreements have now expired.

That unleashed a fresh wave of union activity, just as the Metropolitan Transportation Authority workers and grocery store clerks walked off the job or were locked out in separate actions.

Those strikes fueled a sense of solidarity among county workers, some of whom joined grocery picket lines to wave signs that read: “Your fight is our fight.”

So far -- with the exception of the deputies, whose sickouts have been called illegal by a judge -- no county employees have walked off the job. Protests are generally confined to lunch breaks, and most of the county unions are still at the bargaining table, trying to reach an accord.

“There’s a great deal of anger and hostility, and that’s an understatement,” said Donald Washington, one of the county’s top negotiators.

The county’s 2003-04 budget includes no money for pay raises. County negotiators want the unions to accept this yearlong wage freeze, as well as some increases in what employees pay for health insurance.

The county has picked up the full cost of health insurance premiums for its employees for years. But now, with premiums expected to jump roughly 35% over three years, the county wants workers to shoulder some of the cost.

Depending on which health-care plan they choose, unmarried employees would pay $17.50 per month for basic HMO coverage or $24.71 per month for the costliest preferred-provider plan. Workers with families would pay between $40.50 and $85 per month.

Employees now have $5 co-pays for doctor visits; the county wants them to pay $10 per visit.

Many workers see the proposed increases as unfair “take-aways” by a stingy employer who was reluctant to share the wealth in good times.

“The county has been crying wolf for a long time. Now, when it really is wolf, our people are no longer willing to accept it,” said Paul Roller, chairman of the Coalition of County Unions, a group of 12 unions that includes the sheriff’s deputies.

Though both sides call it a last resort, a strike would not be unprecedented. Before unions can strike, they must declare an impasse and go through mediation. In 2000, Service Employees Local 660 called a brief strike in an effort to wring higher wages out of the county. The resulting deal gave workers an average pay raise of about 12% over three years.

Some union leaders in other counties say that the negotiations in Los Angeles are scarred by a deep mistrust. That was the case in Orange County too -- until the county went into bankruptcy in 1994.

In the recovery from bankruptcy, county officials “began to realize how important their employees are,” said Nick Berardino, assistant general manager of the Orange County Employees Assn.

Orange County revamped its human resources department and spent several years building a better relationship with its unions.

“The last time, it resulted in a fair contract,” Berardino said. “When you’re bargaining in an atmosphere of collaboration rather than one of antagonism, both parties are willing to see each other’s points of view.”

In Los Angeles, by contrast, Local 660 is now distributing a cartoon that sums up the worker’s-eye view of the conflict. County supervisors are depicted as greedy villains, chuckling as they face off against a throng of scowling workers in union shirts.

“We’re drawing the line!” the workers chant.

“No raises!” howls Supervisor Yvonne Brathwaite Burke, dressed as an evil superwoman as she hurtles through the air. Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky, his bushy eyebrows even more furrowed than in real life, plows a bulldozer through employee pay and benefits with a devilish grin as a tubby Supervisor Don Knabe clutches sacks of money saved by all the slashing.

In actuality, the supervisors are none too pleased about the need to hold down expenses as state revenue dwindles. California is facing an estimated $8-billion budget shortfall, and about 20% of the county’s $16.8-billion budget comes from the state.

Los Angeles County supervisors have already presided over cuts in health care and public safety, and if Gov.-elect Arnold Schwarzenegger follows through with his promise to cut the car tax by $4 billion, the county could lose as much as $840 million annually. Schwarzenegger has insisted he can repeal the tripling of the car tax without harming local government.

“As far as I’m concerned, I’m not going to put the county into bankruptcy,” Burke said. “We have a finite amount of money here. And I think there’s a sense of urgency to sign these contracts, because county workers know it could get even worse.”

Already, the city of Los Angeles is trying to reopen negotiations with its employee unions to trim costs, a move that has rankled the unions.

For now, county negotiators and union leaders alike express hope that they will reach a deal in the coming weeks.

“This stuff does sort of magically come together at the last moment,” said Jim Adams, the county’s chief of employee relations. “You’ve got to get into a zone of settlement, as we call it. But we’re not in the zone yet.”