Welfare Workers Conduct Sickout

At least 270 Orange County welfare workers staged a surprise sickout Tuesday, becoming the third union in a week to conduct a job action aimed at squeezing more wages out of county government.

County officials said some welfare applicants were turned away at the door Tuesday but, for the most part, the work was accomplished with supervisory personnel.

“The primary impact is on those individuals who are not known to us, and this is the first time they come in,” said Angelo Doti, director of financial assistance for the county Social Services Agency. He said many of those people were told to come back Wednesday or that they would be contacted later.

“We were only able to deal with the most needy,” Doti said.

Workers involved in the job action were primarily responsible for evaluating applications for such programs as Aid to Families With Dependent Children, food stamps, refugee assistance and general relief. Doti said the agency has about one supervisor for every six welfare eligibility workers.

Ann Imparata, director of the American Federation of State, City and Municipal Employees that represents 530 Orange County workers, said the sickout was organized late Monday without the involvement of the union leadership.

She also said she expected that it would not continue today.

“The membership took it upon themselves to express their dissatisfaction this way,” she said. “They obviously all talked to each other.”

Imparata said the workers were displaying a show of force one day before the union was scheduled to meet with the county and a state mediator. AFSCME broke off its talks with the county last Wednesday over salary increases.

The county had offered a 2% salary increase effective in April. AFSCME, however, wanted at least 6% during the fiscal year, Imparata said.

Imparata said she was told at least 80% of the 530 AFSCME members had called in sick Tuesday, but Doti said only 272 had failed to come to work.

Meanwhile, the Assn. of Orange County Deputy Sheriffs continued the sixth day of its work slowdown, delaying the delivery of prisoners from the jails to the courtrooms again by about five hours.

Marshal James C. Byham said there were some prisoners who were not returned to their cells at Orange County Jail until almost midnight Monday, more than six hours behind schedule. Sheriff’s Lt. Richard J. Olson said there were four prisoner transport buses that did not arrive at the jail until after 9 p.m.

Nine o’clock is the deadline sheriff’s officials have set to comply with a federal court order that the county provide at least eight hours of sleep to prisoners who have court appearances the following day. County officials have notified the federal court that they are apparently in violation of the order.

In Superior Court on Tuesday, Judge Kathleen E. O’Leary continued her entire calendar of in-custody criminal cases until today because the prisoners were not delivered until almost noon. Rather than have her courtroom--attorneys, marshals and staff--sit and wait for the prisoners, O’Leary handled a criminal trial during the day.

“I’ve been waiting every day at least until 10:30 or 11,” O’Leary said. “It’s a little like working on an assembly line, but they’re not sending down the widgets.”

Like some other judges, O’Leary had requested that about a dozen of the defendants scheduled to appear before her be specially delivered by the Sheriff’s Department so that they would be in court by 9 a.m.

The Sheriff’s Department on Tuesday complied with judges’ requests to deliver about 33 high-priority prisoners by 9 a.m. But those on O’Leary’s list were not included in the delivery.

The Board of Supervisors is scheduled to adopt a $1.7-billion budget today for the fiscal year that began July 1. It is one of the tightest budgets ever for Orange County, and it will require up to 45 layoffs and the loss of about 100 other positions.

The supervisors have continued to insist that there is little or no money for higher salaries. The unions claim the money is there, but the county just has inappropriate spending priorities.

There are eight unions, representing about 12,000 of the county’s 14,000 employees, that have been working without contracts since early July.

Last Thursday, the Service Employees International Union conducted a sickout of at least 152 workers, including automobile mechanics, heavy machine operators and landfill technicians.

This week, the SEIU and the county agreed to meet again on Monday.

County officials have refused to comment on the job actions while they are negotiating.