We are fed up with broken promises by the LA County Chief Executive Officer when it comes to social worker caseloads – and, yesterday morning, we delivered that message in-person straight to county management at the Hall of Administration in downtown LA.
Soon afterward, our message began resonating in the media, too. Our rally and march on the boss got media coverage in the LA Daily News – which includes all Southern California News Group publications, including the Pasadena Star-News, the San Gabriel Valley Tribune, the Whittier Daily News and the Long-Beach Press Telegram.
We also got TV news coverage on Telemundo 52 throughout the day and into the evening.
Hundreds of us took time off for the big rally and march on the boss yesterday because this issue is just too important to ignore. It affects our quality of life at work, it affects our safety and it affects the safety of the children and families we provide services to.
All of us at our union deserve better than this. Remember: County management agreed to reopen our contract specifically on the caseload issue if our union successfully lobbied the state for more funding. We did our part – we delivered $300 million. But the county didn’t do their part. They keep pretending our deal never happened!
Well, that’s not going to happen – and we sure didn’t let it happen yesterday. We got fired up by the updates we received from BU 723 Bargaining Team member Monica Vera and Sharonda Wade, an SEIU 721 Executive Board member who is in the Supervising CSW Bargaining Unit.
Not content to rally on the doorstep of the Hall of Administration, hundreds of us marched directly into the building from the Temple St. entrance and loudly let everyone know what we wanted: LOWER CASELOADS NOW.
“We still have outrageously high caseloads in several key areas,” said SEIU 721 President David Green, himself a longtime Children’s Social Worker at LA County. “We’re talking about specialized units like RFS, LOC and Adoptions. They have not seen the same relief as Regional Offices programs.”
Ultimately, we delivered an official letter from our union to the CEO making our demands clear.
We left reminding everyone: WE’LL BE BACK.
We put this message on blast on our social media accounts. And we WILL be back if that’s what it takes.
Until then, follow us on Facebook, X (formerly known as Twitter), Instagram and YouTube for the latest news about our union. Stay tuned for more updates from us on the casework issue.
And stay #UnionStrong!
