MAHONING COUNTY Agency workers go out on strike

Commissioners think the union violated a no-strike clause in its contract.
By BOB JACKSON
VINDICATOR COURTHOUSE REPORTER
YOUNGSTOWN -- Eighty employees of the Mahoning County Child Support Enforcement Agency hit the picket line this morning in a dispute over wages.
The workers, represented by the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Local 3577, are asking for a 5 percent wage increase and a $1,000 signing bonus.
They are in the last year of a three-year contract but want to reopen wage negotiations. The workers received 3 percent raises in 1999 and 2000, and their hourly wage ranges from $10 to $13.78, said J. Kevin Sellards, county human resources director.
The union was picketing at the CSEA office on Commerce Street, the county administration building on Boardman Street and at the Job and Family Services building on North Garland Avenue.
Sellards said no other unions that represent county workers have walked out in support of AFSCME, and he does not expect them to.
County commissioners and officials at the Job and Family Services, which oversees CSEA, say the department has a $1.3 million budget deficit and can't afford the raises.
The sides met for a mediation session Sunday, but were unable to come to an agreement. They were scheduled to meet again at 4 p.m. today.
Complaint filed: County Administrator Gary Kubic said the county has filed an unfair-labor practice complaint against the union, alleging that it violated a no-strike clause in the collective bargaining agreement. The complaint is pending before the State Employment Relations Board.
Kubic and Sellards said the county would seek a temporary restraining order today in common pleas court, partly to limit the number of pickets and partly because of the no-strike clause.
"The contract language says that they can't strike and we can't lock them out during the term of the contract," which expires Dec. 31, Sellards said.
The CSEA is open and is being staffed by supervisors. Support payments won't be affected because that's done in Columbus, not locally, officials have said.
County commissioners' position was supported in an independent fact finder's report last month. The fact finder said it would be irresponsible to grant raises given the agency's dire financial condition.
The union has rejected that report, and President Marcel Trevathan said hourly workers want the same treatment as supervisors who got raises last year.
He said the agency was $880,000 in the red at that time, but commissioners approved raises anyway.
"Are they broke or aren't they? It seems like they are conveniently broke now," Trevathan said.
Kubic said that raise was recommended by a fact finder, even though there was a deficit.
The difference is that since then, commissioners have laid off 16 Teamsters from CSEA, and the fact finder in the AFSCME case has upheld their position on funding, Kubic said.
Staffing: Commissioners have said the agency is in a budget deficit largely because it is overstaffed. Some 40 employees were hired in 1997 to help with conversion to a state-mandated Support Enforcement Tracking System, which took collection and distribution of child support out of the county's hands and moved it to the state level.
The system is now in place and those extra employees are no longer needed, Kubic said.
Commissioners tried to get back to original staffing levels through attrition, not replacing 24 employees who left the agency since 1998. The 16 who were laid off last month make up the balance of the 40.
Kubic said 40 other counties in Ohio are experiencing the same budget problems with their CSEA as a result of the SETS conversion. "It's not just us," he said.