“Sickening” and “bombing us back to the Stone Age” are terms used by Riverside County employee unions to describe proposals from county negotiators following months of contract talks.

The harsh words portend a potential stalemate between county government and three unions representing thousands of employees. Contracts with Service Employees International Union Local 721, Laborers’ International Union of North America Local 777 and the Riverside Sheriffs’ Association expired last year.

Since then, the county has negotiated behind closed doors with the unions in hopes of reaching new collective bargaining agreements.

It’s not clear whether new contracts are imminent. Robert Masson, president of the sheriff’s union, declined to comment last week, citing the possible ratification of a new deal, though he said the current offer is better than the county’s last, best offer.

County spokesman Ray Smith said talks between the county and unions are private “so both sides can frankly and honestly discuss the issues.

“Labor groups may characterize the status of negotiations however they choose, knowing the county respects the privacy of the process and will not respond,” he said in a written statement. “It has long been a tactic to criticize public agencies during negotiations in order to apply pressure that groups hope will improve their labor agreements.”

In the last contracts agreed to in 2012, the county gave employees raises in exchange for workers paying more toward their retirement and accepting a lesser tier of pension benefits for new hires. At the time, county officials said pension costs were out of control and the changes brought stability to the public employee pension system.

Final offer?

Today, the county is struggling to plot a financially sustainable course with revenue growth lagging and a series of new, ongoing and inflexible costs piling up. To rein in spending, the county Board of Supervisors has publicly taken a hard line on raises in an effort to keep labor costs flat for the next few years.

“The board and (executive office) have said for more than a year that compensation must flatten, compared to the county’s historically generous increases,” Smith said. “There just isn’t the money that there has been in the past.

“As it has done before, Riverside County is bargaining in good faith this year and truly values employees’ hard work and dedication,” Smith added. “As evidence of that appreciation, the average salary increase for SEIU and LIUNA employees since 2012 was approximately 38 percent, and approximately 30 percent for RSA employees. That does not count (cost-of-living raises) ranging from 8 to 9 percent.”

LIUNA did not respond to a request for comment, but online posts paint a grim picture. The county presented LIUNA with a “last, best and final offer” on July 12, LIUNA Business Manager Stephen Switzer wrote in a post on the union’s website.

“It is management declaring that they are finished with the bargaining process and it is usually a take it or leave it proposition,” Switzer wrote. “The rejection of (that offer) is usually followed by management’s declaration of an impasse.”

County supervisors, who only have one public meeting set for August, have yet to declare an impasse with any of the unions.

While saying the union needed to study the final offer out of respect for the bargaining process, “It is not good and in fact would scale back 20 years of progress we’ve made,” Switzer wrote.

“Indeed, we are not halfway through the (offer) and already it is inferior to the piece of garbage contract we inherited … just over 20 years ago. It appears that the (Board of Supervisors) are intent on bombing us back to the Stone Age.”

A similarly glum assessment is coming from SEIU. The county submitted its last, best and final offer on July 19 “and it’s sickening,” read a post on SEIU’s website.

In an emailed statement, SEIU Local 721 President Bob Schoonover said: “At the bargaining table, the county is callously dismissing proposals to expand critical health and mental health care services but then turns around and hands out millions of taxpayer dollars to consultants, to essentially do the job that top county executives are already paid to do,” Schoonover said.

The county is paying consulting firm KPMG roughly $40 million to make county government more efficient and transform the way it does business.

Strike looming?

The county doesn’t want to offset surges in health insurance premiums and wants to cut step increases in pay from 5.42 percent to 2.71 percent, according to SEIU’s flier.

“On top of the county wanting you to give up your step increases, settle for no raises, and leaving you to foot more of your health coverage bill, they also want you to pay them to show up to work!” the flier read. “The county now wants you to pay to park at your worksite facilities.”

In May, 98 percent of SEIU members authorized “escalation up to and including a strike,” the union announced in a news release.

The union has filed at least one unfair labor practice charge with the state Public Employment Relations Board. SEIU also sent members en masse to supervisors’ meetings in recent months to demand a fair deal.

There could be further demonstrations if supervisors impose contract terms, a step the board last took in late 2011. SEIU held a one-day strike Jan. 31, 2012, with more than 1,000 purple-shirted, sign-waving employees descending on a board meeting to demand a return to the bargaining table.