Bargaining team members will continued talks Oct. 6, to reach an agreement on a tentative 2-year contract for 55,000 LA County employees that adopts worker proposals to introduce new efficiencies to the county.
After an all-night bargaining session that ended the morning of Oct. 1, bargaining team members reached tentative agreements for most of the 24 bargaining units.
A settlement on the agreements is contingent on our Building a Better LA County proposals and health care coverage. Negotiations resumed Friday, Oct. 2 and continued Oct. 5.
“We are close to an agreement that will help build a better LA,” said Linda Dent, vice president of SEIU 721 and chair of the bargaining committee.
County Goes Back on CEO’s Pledge With Library Layoffs
At the eleventh hour library management announced dozens of layoffs of staff that help keep the county’s 84 libraries open for community members and their children.
The move confounded union members who have been negotiating in good faith to reach an agreement that preserves county services and adopts worker suggestions to deliver services more effectively.
“We’re serious when we say we are taking a new approach to preserve services. We did it this summer when we helped secure federal funds to keep libraries open and now we’re trying to implement efficiencies throughout the county,” said Bob Schoonover, president of SEIU 721.
But the county’s response was to lay off dozens of library staff.
Part of workers’ proposals to “Build a Better LA” is a plan to decentralize county book purchasing so that residents have access to more relevant book selections at their local branch.
This summer SEIU members helped secure federal stimulus dollars from the TANF Contingency Fund to avert employee layoffs and maintain library services.
“With federal funding available, the library department still decided to slash county library services. It doesn’t make any sense — particularly when the county CEO has taken great pride in the fact that the county will weather the economic downturn without a single layoff,” said John Tanner, executive director of SEIU 721.
If you are affected by the county’s layoffs please contact the Member Resource Center at 877-721-4968 or email us here.