LA County Members Join Clergy Allies at Board of Supervisors Meeting to Pack the Chambers and Shut It Down

Outraged by Los Angeles County management’s continued slow-rolling of the contract bargaining process, hundreds of our LA County members joined our clergy allies at today’s Board of Supervisors meeting to pack the chambers and shut it down. Today’s action culminated with the arrest of six union members and clergy allies who engaged in non-violent civil disobedience inside Board chambers as the official meeting took place.

In the moments leading up to the arrests, LA County members made their presence known with loud and persistent chants of “Shut it down!” and “Remove the poison pill now!” The “poison pill,” LA County’s proposed “budget clause,” would allow County management to unilaterally cancel future wage increases by claiming a budget deficit.

Just prior to the meeting, LA County members held a spirited rally on the steps outside of Board chambers – voicing our demand for good faith negotiations with repeated chants of, “What do we need? Guarantee!”

“Do we bring it to the Board of Supervisors right now? Can we do it? Are they going to hear our voice today?” asked David Green, Executive Director and President of SEIU 721, who is also a Children’s Social Worker II at DCFS. “Let’s do it!”

LA County members and clergy allies quickly complied, dominating Board chambers with chants and placards with the number “64” that expressed indignation with the Supervisors’ bad faith bargaining tactics that have left County members working without a contract for more than two months.

“These are our members that you need to listen to!” exclaimed Gilda Valdez, SEIU 721 Chief of Staff, directly to the Board of Supervisors. “Sixty-four days without a contract!”

Before departing Board chambers, LA County members left behind hand-written notes describing the devastating effects of working without a contract for 64 days and counting.

“The Board of Supervisors has talked a good game for many months about how much they supposedly appreciate the LA County workforce, but their actions don’t back it up,” David Green noted. “Since the Fall, LA County management has repeatedly broken the law by refusing to bargain with us in good faith. Now, they are dragging their feet at the bargaining table in a bad faith attempt to wear us down. It will not work. We are more determined than ever to secure a strong contract – and we proved it today. If the Board thought our ULP Strike was the last they’ve heard from us, they thought wrong. We will escalate however necessary and for however long it takes.”

Together, we win!

NOTE: Images from today’s action can be viewed on our Flickr page. To view more footage, visit our social media feeds on Facebook, Instagram, X (formerly known as Twitter), and YouTube.