On Dec. 6, striking LA County Children’s Social Workers, elected officials, community and faith leaders, labor leaders and concerned citizens rallied for child safety in front of the Dept. of Children and Family Services headquarters.
There were more than 1,000 people at the event, including Congresswomen Judy Chu and Janice Hahn, El Monte Mayor Andre Quintero and Pasadena City Council Woman Jackie Robinson, who all pledged support for the strike and called on the Board of Supervisors to take action.
Check out pictures from the rally:
The crowd called out for commonsense reforms that would greatly improve the ability of social workers to protect children in need.
Our righteous cause could not be ignored. Director of DCFS Phillip Browning was forced to step out of headquarters and address the social workers. He said he supports social workers but he does not support the strike. The crowd told him that wasn’t enough and demanded child safety now.
Our strike isn’t about pay, it’s about child safety. We’ve made it clear that we’re serious about change and we will not let up until LA County agrees to safer social worker-to-child ratios. We’re more determined than ever.
In other LA County news, we filed more Unfair Labor Practice charges against the County today. The charges include:
- Interfering and restraining labor relations by imposing unreasonable conditions that effectively dissolved ERCOM in the middle of contract negotiations with SEIU 721.
- Surveilling, Intimidating, Harassing and Retaliating against member negotiators and leaders for engaging in protected union activity.
- Illegally discriminating against SEIU 721 members for their exercise of collective bargaining rights.
- Bad faith bargaining, including direct dealing, delay tactics, regressive bargaining, surface bargaining; providing false and misleading statements; failing to provide critical bargaining information from multiple information requests.