As staffing declines, Contra Costa County labor unions press for much better deal

General public defenders and district attorneys are ordinarily on opposing sides in the courtroom, but team associates from equally departments have marched in lockstep at current rallies, urging Contra Costa County to recruit and retain a lot more people today to lighten their workloads.

Nine labor unions that symbolize a lot more than 6,000 staff, which include prosecutors, public defenders, engineers, IT personnel and general public assistance personnel, between others, have joined forces to argue for far better compensation in their next 3-calendar year contract — a move that could keep staff from departing for greener pastures.

With about a 7 days remaining on the unions’ recent deal, organizers say they are significantly from considering a strike, but they are well prepared to commence shifting in that course if the two sides really don't make progress quickly.

There were being 1,964 vacancies amid around 10,000 whole-time positions in the county past calendar year, a charge of about 20%, when compared to 12% in Santa Clara County, with nearly a 4% over-all increase in unfilled positions from the 2017-18 fiscal 12 months, in accordance to facts presented by the unions.

The most important affect was to the overall health solutions office, which observed a 14% boost in vacancies from the yr in advance of as the COVID-19 pandemic stretched general public wellness workers slender over extended hours of actual physical and psychological strain.

The union coalition represents quite a few of these workers — like health care assistants, psychological health and fitness experts and lab technicians — who treated patients and battled the spread of COVID at the Contra Costa Regional Health care Center in Martinez and several other wellbeing clinics in the county.

“The jobs grew to become so a lot tougher throughout the pandemic,” stated Sean Stalbaum, guide organizer for the nine-union coalition Staff Up Contra Costa. “At a specified issue, personnel began hunting around and explained, ‘I just just cannot do this any additional this is also significantly.’ ”

The main problem, personnel say, is that the county has not reinvested earnings into improved overall health care benefits and price-of-living changes for workers, prompting more youthful gurus to depart for a lot more interesting public sector work in Alameda and Santa Clara counties or the area metropolitan areas there.

Supervisor Karen Mitchoff reported in an job interview that health and fitness care has been a significant “sticking point” in the negotiations.

“We fought this battle three a long time in the past and bought an settlement on these concerns,” mentioned Mitchoff, who is retiring this 12 months and beforehand labored more than 20 a long time as a county worker. “Granted we’d all like to get (employees) substantially much more, but we also have to be fiscally prudent.”

1 county employee with far more than 20 years underneath his belt claimed Contra Costa has effectively turn out to be a “training ground” for employees who inevitably look for much better options in other places, killing morale for the veterans who then acquire on many roles to make up the variation.

“I’ve noticed persons get employed and leave just due to the fact of the added benefits and wage problems,” said Gabriel Lemus, a principal planner in the county’s conservation office and an IFPTE Nearby 21 consultant.

“They come to me directly and say they’d like to keep, but it’s also hard when they could get paid greater positive aspects and maybe have much less of a workload at other businesses,” Lemus explained.

The labor groups have held large rallies outside the house the county Board of Supervisors chamber in Martinez, timing the most animated moments for when the supervisors are conference in shut session to go over the unions’ upcoming contract.

The county and its labor teams often keep on to discount soon after contracts expire, and union personnel will be paid what they were producing until finally a offer is reached. Retroactive pay agreements are rare, so the unions are underneath tension to achieve a deal as speedily as achievable.

If negotiations appear to a entire standstill, the two sides can declare an impasse and ask for a California labor relations mediator to forge a compromise, the very first of many steps ahead of the union members can vote to authorize a strike.

Labor leaders are cautiously optimistic that they can achieve a offer very well before that gets to be an choice, even though one particular union representative stated he did not expect an settlement to be achieved in advance of mid-July.

“We’re still pretty a approaches away,” said Teamsters 856 organizer Corey Hallman, noting that the two sides hadn’t built much development during a bargaining session Friday.