Santa Clara County employees threaten to strike again Friday

The union representing nearly 12,000 Santa Clara County employees is threatening to call for another strike, to start Friday, in the wake of failed mediation talks and a rolling 10-day walkout in October.

Service Employees International Union Local 521, the county’s largest union, announced Sunday that employees will strike again if the county doesn’t reach common ground by 4 p.m. Thursday.

“The County is proposing eliminating the wage increase for June 2020 that they included in their Last, Best and Final offer of 2019,” Janet Diaz, a patient services clerk at Valley Medical Center and the union’s chapter president, said in a written statement. “This is not only illegal, but a deliberate attack on the livelihoods of workers who not only serve the public, but who are residents of this county.”

County CEO Jeff Smith said the union is mischaracterizing the county’s newest proposal, which covers a shorter period than the last, best and final offer presented in October. The October offer would have provided 3 percent annual raises over five years, or a total of 15 percent, plus additional wage increases for certain positions.

Smith described the current offer on the table as a four-year contract with 3 percent salary increases each year of the contract, or 12 percent total, plus additional raises for certain positions. The deal would cost the county an additional $462 million over the life of the contract.

He said the union has pushed for a shorter contract and wants an extra, retroactive 3 percent raise and signing bonus to make up for the year it will have spent in bargaining after the contract expired in June 2019, costs that would total $647 million.

“They’re counting back to when they went out of contract in June 2019,” Smith said.

In October, employees took turns picketing at different departments each day of the rolling strike.

SEIU spokesman Victor Gamiz declined Sunday to answer any questions about how a potential strike would unfold. Gamiz also declined to describe the county’s offer, other than to say it’s engaging in “regressive bargaining.”

“Until recently, it appeared that agreement was close but now the County CEO is moving backwards by insisting on a new offer with roughly $110 million less in raises than what had been offered by the County” in October, the union wrote in a news release Sunday. “By eliminating a previously-offered raise of 3% in June 2020, the new proposal would cause the essential front line workers — already low paid – to fall even further behind others employed by the County.

The union has blamed low pay and mismanagement on a staffing shortage, especially in social services, and high turnover. Last week, SEIU held demonstrations to highlight how short staffing has affected foster children support programs and wait times at county medical facilities.

Smith said he doesn’t think the union has the legal grounds to strike, but the county will be ready if it does.

“I don’t think the last time they called a strike it was a legally supported strike, but they went ahead,” Smith said. “The best we can do is just be prepared.”

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