Hundreds of SEIU 721 Union Members and Clergy Allies Will Also Deliver Thousands of Handwritten Notes from Frontline Workers Urging County Leadership to Settle Contract Immediately
LOS ANGELES – Outraged by Los Angeles County management’s continued slow-rolling of the contract bargaining process, SEIU 721 members will deliver thousands of hand-written notes from union members to the LA County Board of Supervisors describing the disastrous impacts of working without a contract for more than two months.
After delivering these notes, union members and their Clergy allies will take their fight directly to the Supervisors by risking arrest through non-violent civil disobedience in the Board chambers. The Board’s meeting on Tuesday will mark Day 64 that SEIU 721 members have been working without a contract.
The impending action on Tuesday comes amid mounting frustration and fury by more than 55,000 union members represented by SEIU 721, who held a historic two-day Unfair Labor Practice (ULP) Strike in late April that included a raucous rally directly on the doorstep of the Hall of Administration. It culminated in a massive march through downtown LA’s Civic Center and ended in the Financial District – where dozens of SEIU 721 members were arrested for non-violent civil disobedience at the intersection of Figueroa and Fifth Streets.
“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,” said David Green, Executive Director and President of SEIU 721, who is also a Children’s Social Worker II at the LA County Dept. of Children and Family Services. “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 will prove it on Tuesday. 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.”
WHO:
LA County Employees Represented by SEIU 721
Clergy Allies of SEIU 721
David Green, SEIU 721 Executive Director and President
Gilda Valdez, SEIU 721 Chief of Staff
Raymond Meza, SEIU 721 Deputy Chief of Staff
WHAT:
Union Members to Deliver Thousands of Hand-Written Notes to LA County Board of Supervisors and Risk Arrest Through Non-Violent Civil Disobedience Alongside Clergy Allies
WHERE:
Kenneth Hahn Hall of Administration
500 W Temple St
Los Angeles, CA 90012
WHEN:
June 3, 2025 at 8:30 AM
BACKGROUND:
The 55,000 union strong LA County workforce has serviced nearly 10 million residents in a 4,084 square-mile service area through the COVID pandemic, through the recent Winter wildfires and through non-stop emergency situations in healthcare, foster care, social welfare, traffic enforcement, street repair and much more for many years. Instead of being thanked by LA County management with good faith bargaining resulting in a strong contract, they have been on the receiving end of management’s repeated law-breaking, bearing the brunt of at least 44 alleged Unfair Labor Practice (ULP) violations during this contract bargaining cycle. These include:
- Refusal to bargain with union members in good faith
- Surveillance and retaliation against SEIU 721 members engaged in union activity
- Restricting union organizers’ access to worksites
- Contracting out of SEIU 721-represented positions
To add insult to injury, for years, LA County management simultaneously has been operating a taxpayer-to-private sector pipeline – funneling $7.7 billion in FY 2024-2025 to private firms while not requiring them to pay a living wage. Instead of privatizing good union jobs, those dollars should be staying in-house. And while claiming money is a problem, the Board of Supervisors somehow found a spare $205 million recently to buy a skyscraper in downtown LA that will serve as new office space for themselves and LA County management. These are the very same people telling the workforce – and taxpayers – that there is no money for more services or frontline staff.
###
Contact: Roxane Marquez, (213) 705-1078, Roxane.Marquez@seiu721.org
Download PDF