SANTA CRUZ >> Close to 100 workers with Santa Cruz County’s largest union showed up en masse at this week’s county Board of Supervisors meeting in an effort to ratchet up pressure on county leaders as the two parties remain locked in a monthslong contract negotiation.

The workers were from SEIU Local 521 representing the General Representation Unit of about 1,800 county employees primarily within the Health Services Agency and Human Services Department. The union and the county have been embroiled in an intense contract negotiation since July, including nine negotiating sessions and six tentative agreements, but so far a final contract is yet to be reached and many union members showed up to the meeting with signs that read “I’m strike ready.”

At the start of the meeting in Santa Cruz Tuesday, before it was time to move into agenda items, union members spoke for nearly an hour to decry chronic staffing issues and demand higher pay in the face of high living expenses.

Kirsten Juel, a 10-year county employee and senior mental health client specialist, said her department within the Human Services Agency currently has 30 open vacancies.

“We have been working through the pandemic; working with so many openings. We’re doing the jobs of more than one person,” said Juel. “We need to be paid a living wage.”

‘Strike ready’

The current labor agreement is set to expire Sept. 18 and while there are provisions that will allow it to extend should negotiations continue, the potential for a strike was floated many times by speakers. While the bargaining team is the entity capable of formally implementing a strike, it must first call for and receive a vote of approval from its union members. As of Tuesday, a strike vote had not been called though union leaders were confident its members were ready if needed.

“We do not want to strike. We are strike ready, but nobody here wants to miss a day of work,” said Prairie Garcia, a union member. “I cannot count how many people have gone over to Santa Clara County because they get so much better pay, so much more respect and have safer working conditions and they have a management that listens to them.”

County spokesperson Jason Hoppin told the Sentinel Monday that the county is “hopeful that we can reach a deal, but we do remain fairly far apart,” noting that negotiations were supposed to begin in June, but the union requested a monthlong delay.

Among the sticking points currently under discussion, according to Hoppin, are cost of living adjustments, duration of the contract itself, holiday vacation timing and bonuses for those who regularly work in person. And, Hoppin said, despite what perceptions may be given the public display of dissatisfaction at the meeting, the county’s retention rate was 91% last year and 97% so far this year.“I mean these are good positions; people like working here,” said Hoppin. “I realize what they’re doing. I think most people can see through it.”

Still, Hoppin added “we’re closer now than when we started,” but county staff is in the process of preparing for a strike in case the bottom drops out.

Neighborly comparisons

Max Olkowski-Laetz, SEIU 521’s Santa Cruz chapter president and bargaining team member, said that when compared with Santa Clara and other counties in the region, “we’re the worst contract.”

“People are ready to strike. People have been ready to strike for a long time,” said Olkowski-Laetz. “We’re going into the next three days of very intense negotiations to try to avert that, but our members are ready and willing and fired up.”

As for comparisons with neighboring Santa Clara County, Hoppin said the two counties are apples and oranges.

“Santa Clara County is the greatest economic engine of the last 100 years in the world,” he said, adding that the union’s initial proposal that has since been revised would have cost the county $115 million over two years. “We just don’t have the same resources as Santa Clara County.”

As evidence that their issues are real and not simply a negotiating tactic, Olkowski-Laetz pointed to recent reports from the Santa Cruz County Civil Grand Jury describing chronic issues in the behavioral health division. In one report from 2023 titled “Diagnosing the Crisis in Behavioral Health: Underfunded, Understaffed and Overworked” the local investigative group wrote it “urgently recommends increasing (Behavioral Health Division’s) staffing to meet the overwhelming demand of mental health services in this county.”

“The only people who seem to not understand is (county) management,” said Olkowski-Laetz.

Immediately after the final speaker from the union finished making their comment, the workers began streaming out of the room with a booming call and response chant, making it clear that the union wanted a new contract “now!”

“If we don’t get it?” a union member leading the chants shouted.

“Shut it down,” the crowd roared back as it moved out of the chambers, down the hall and out of the building.