As you may already know, the County made their insulting offer of a 2% salary increase and NO pay increases until October.
One minute they call us heroes, and the very next, the County negotiates like the frontline is disposable. They’re low-balling us because they’re ready and willing to sell out our essential services to the lowest bidder.
Our fight for the frontline isn’t just about fighting for fair compensation, though that’s very important. We’re also fighting against the “Uber-fication” of County jobs, because the threat of contracting out our jobs to for-profit corporations is very real.
We don’t need to look any further than the healthcare sector. More and more hospitals are relying on non-union “travel nurses” to undercut public sector workers, and bypass the strong safety protections that we stand up for. We witnessed this throughout the pandemic, including here in LA County.
It’s no mystery that anti-union Amazon, who infamously made their warehouse workers use empty water bottles for “pee breaks,” has launched a multi-year effort to expand into health care — they’re calling it “Amazon Care.” Amazon’s billionaire CEO Jeff Bezos knows there’s even more profit to be made by eating up public sector jobs and dollars at our expense, when County officials don’t respect the frontline.
Witness what’s happening to our fellow union members at 2-1-1 LA. Management blatantly wants their jobs contracted out and is fine with opening the bidding process to Big Tech companies like Amazon, Google, Deloitte, and others.
Bottom line: If they contract out our jobs, we’re out of work. But we’ve worked way too hard, especially during the pandemic, to let that happen.
Despite all the campaign rhetoric during election season of doing all they can to keep America’s middle class strong, so far, not one member of the Board of Supervisors has put a stop to contracting out.
We’re marching on the 31st to protect the frontline and defend our good union jobs from the job killers like Amazon, Uber, and more low-road corporations. Be there with us on Thurs., Mar. 31 at 10 AM in downtown LA.