About 55,000 L.A. County workers are poised to walk off their jobs Monday night, disrupting public services from healthcare and social work to libraries and parks.
Leaders of SEIU Local 721 said the two-day strike will start at 7 p.m. Monday, sparked by what they characterized as a failure by the county to fairly negotiate a new contract.
“Clearly, they thought they were above the law. They thought we would never strike,” said union head David Green in a statement. “They thought wrong.”
The union said it will be the first time all of its members walk off the job.
The strike, which is set to last until 7 p.m. Wednesday, will touch nearly all county departments. Libraries and some healthcare clinics will be closed, though hospitals will remain open. Wildfire debris cleanup may be paused. Public service counters at the Hall of Administration could be shut down.
Union leaders said the impetus for the strike was a string of 44 labor law violations allegedly committed by the county, including retaliation and contracting out work that’s supposed to be done by union members. The union’s contract expired at the end of March.
The union has also expressed outrage over what it described as an insultingly low pay offer. The county had initially said it couldn’t afford raises this year because of wildfire costs, a massive sex abuse settlement and the loss of federal grants. L.A. County Chief Executive Fesia Davenport said the union’s initial salary proposals could have cost the county billions.
Davenport said county officials have “moved off” a zero raise offer in recent weeks but remained cautious about what they could offer.
“We don’t want to negotiate ourselves into a structural deficit,” said Davenport in an interview Monday. “We want to hold the line.”
Otherwise, she said, the county might have to cut positions down the road, similar to what Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass has proposed. Last week, Bass released a budget proposal that included 1,650 layoffs to help close a nearly $1-billion deficit fueled in part by employee raises the city agreed to last year.
Davenport also emphasized that she wanted to protect the county’s credit rating. The county has held onto its AAA rating from S&P Global Ratings, despite the looming $4-billion sex abuse settlement, due to its reserves, “manageable debt burden” and deep tax base, according to a release from the credit rating agency. S&P, meanwhile, recently downgraded the city of L.A.’s rating due to its “weakening financial position and an emerging structural imbalance.”
The strike comes as other unions have begun to publicly chastise the L.A. County Board of Supervisors for offers made at the bargaining table. A coalition of unions representing county first responders made a public plea last week for a pay bump, arguing that their members’ efforts during the unprecedented January wildfires had not been properly rewarded at the bargaining table.
