6,000 CONTRA COSTA COUNTY EMPLOYEES ANNOUNCE JUNE 27 STRIKE DATE

The workers that provide quality vital services and will strike include: Animal Services Workers, Civil Engineers, Mechanics, Children’s Social Workers, Adult Social Workers, Eligibility Workers, Public Defenders, Secretaries, Engineering Technicians, Juvenile Hall Counselors, Probation Officers, Doctors, Librarians, Certified Nursing Assistants, Licensed Vocational Nurses and Dentists.

County workers agreed to lowered benefits, resulting in an increase in health care co-pays, increase in the number of years an employee must work to receive a retiree medical benefit, reductions in continuing pay for injured employees and reduced retirement benefits for safety employees. County Supervisors have given new accounting guidelines as reasoning behind the multiple takeaways without offering a fair and balanced wage increase.

The key issues are:

* workers won’t accept a contract that reduces their take home pay with increases in health care costs while receiving no cost of living increases
* workers won’t agree to a two year freeze and a wage offer of 3% over four years
* social workers won’t accept the county’s caseloads standard because caseloads are too high and clients are not receiving the appropriate time needed

“County administrators are asking county employees to pay more for benefits and accept no cost of living increases. They are also asking us to sacrifice in order to counteract the County administrators’ negligence and waste—that is intolerable,” said Kate Acosta, Social Casework Specialist II.

http://www.seiu535.org/ourlocal/cconeday.cfm