Vanguard Sacramento Bureau Chief
SACRAMENTO, CA – The now nine-day strike by Sacramento County attorneys – including about 300 criminal public defenders, child support services lawyers and criminal prosecutors – entered a brief cooling off period Friday afternoon to last through Monday, according to Sacramento County Attorneys’ Association President Matt Chisholm.
Chisholm, at a news conference here Friday, said the strike break is designed to get both sides together, noting the strike will resume Tuesday if no headway is made.
But, at the same time, he also announced the filing of a Unfair Labor Practice complaint by Sacramento County, charging, “For more than two years while in negotiations and then impasse procedures with the Sacramento County Attorneys’ Association (SCAA), the county of Sacramento has engaged in a course and pattern of bad faith conduct that, in totality, amounts to unfair labor.”
Chisholm, at the presser Friday, did take pains to explain the “mitigation” taken by the SCAA, including honoring trials underway, and some preliminary hearings with attorneys allowed to attend in the interest of “public safety.”
But, except for what Chisholm admitted are “some” members not honoring the picket lines, about 230 county lawyers are on those lines.
The unfair labor practice complaint, filed Thursday, “shows the county’s bad faith,” said Chisholm, adding the county’s first offer to SCAA was “designed to be rejected,” which, he added, actually worsened the “position of many of our members.”
The “unfair labor practice” complaint, filed with State of California Public Employment Relations Board and made available to the Vanguard, disputes the county’s “assertions in the media and elsewhere (that) there is currently no full and complete MOU between the county and SCAA. The parties have been at impasse for two years regarding equity increases and retroactive payments for the 2022-2023 fiscal year. “
The complaint adds, “The county has a duty…to act in good faith during applicable impasse procedures…the county under a totality of the circumstances evaluation has failed to do so to the continued detriment of SCAA members, the criminal justice system, and the general public.”
The complaint claims Matt Connolly, the county’s chief labor negotiator, “even before the parties reached impasse is illustrative of the bad-faith and pretextual approach to the county’s participation in the current impasse procedures,” noting the county “grossly misrepresented” its position.
“The county had no intention of respecting the outcome (of a factfinding arbitrator) if it was not in their favor. On the contrary, the county used factfinding as a means of delay to prevent good faith negotiations from progressing,” the union wrote in the complaint.
The arbitrator’s 62-page report recommended in June much of what the union has sought, including cost of living increases and an “equity adjustment of 5.5 percent” to make the SCAA membership “minimally competitive with other jurisdictions.”
Recruitment and retention of experienced attorneys in both the District Attorney’s and Public Defender’s Offices have been a key component to the union’s claim it has been losing good lawyers to private practice or other jurisdictions.
But, maintain the strikers, “Not only did the county breach this duty (to abide by the arbitration), but its conduct even before and then after the report was issued establishes a singular motive…to enter into and remain in impasse to preclude and frustrate further negotiation of current or retroactive terms related to equity increases and retroactive pay to the detriment of SCAA members.”
The SCAA has charged the county wants the union to agree to a condition to not ever strike, calling the county’s “conduct during the roughly two-month period since the completion of the fact-finding report continues to evidence bad-faith.
“The county has issued misleading and entirely inaccurate statements to the public about SCAA and SCAA’s position (to create) bias and negative views of SCAA and its members, emailed the represented parties with inaccurate information about protections and work requirements during a strike, and made a predictably unacceptable and seemingly discriminatory offer that has indicia of retaliation against SCAA members for exercising their protected and legal right to strike.”
The SCAA complaint alleges the county has “an incentive and motive to keep the negotiations at impasse. As long as impasse continues, SCAA is forced to remain bound by the partial agreement from December 2022 and with no resolution of the contract terms that are currently disputed. SCAA is forced to remain without a proper MOU between it and the county.”
The SCCA insists the county’s offer would reduce “retirement benefits,” and is designed to “perpetuate the impasse and frustrate negotiations over the current contract and retroactive benefits.”
The county “disseminated—and continues to disseminate—misleading information that misrepresents the county’s purported offer, current attorney salaries, and the status of an existing contract-specifically, the lack thereof between the parties,” the complaint adds.
The county, the complaint continues, has “acted in bad faith in an effort to deprive SCAA of its right to strike by directly emailing its members false information related to a potential strike,” noting the email was “clearly an attempt to intimidate SCAA members choosing to participate in the strike by increasing the burden on them regarding illness under the threat of disciplinary action.”
The SCAA argues, “When viewed in totality, the only reasonable conclusion is that the county approached this entire process with bad faith that initially permeated negotiations and now impasse and execution of statutorily mandated impasse procedures.
“The county has been engaged in a consistent practice of delay for three years, refusing to negotiate in good faith, a practice which continues to this day.”
