COUNTY EMPLOYEES BACK; COURT REPORTERS, CHILD SERVICES WORKERS RETURN FROM WALKOUTS.Byline: Michael White There are multiple public figures named Michael White or Mike White, including:
Associated Press (AP) Cooperative news agency, the oldest and largest in the U.S. and long the largest in the world. Los Angeles Los Angeles (lôs ăn`jələs, lŏs, ăn`jəlēz'), city (1990 pop. 3,485,398), seat of Los Angeles co., S Calif.; inc. 1850. County operations returned to normal on Friday as thousands of child services workers and court reporters returned to work after staging walkouts to pressure management for higher pay and reduced workloads. Superior and Municipal courts throughout the county were crippled Thursday when more than 400 court reporters walked off the job, forcing some judges to postpone cases and others to use tape recorders tape recorder, device for recording information on strips of plastic tape (usually polyester) that are coated with fine particles of a magnetic substance, usually an oxide of iron, cobalt, or chromium. The coating is normally held on the tape with a special binder. to record proceedings. The child services workers, who handle adoptions and child abuse cases, were off the job for three days when negotiations deadlocked dead·lock n. 1. A standstill resulting from the opposition of two unrelenting forces or factions. 2. Sports A tied score. 3. over their demand for lighter workloads, which are now as high as 100 cases per social worker. Union members contend they have too many cases to adequately protect children. A few social workers remained off the job Friday in unauthorized sickouts, but services in most offices returned to usual levels, said Valerie Harragin, negotiations chairwoman for Local 535 of the Service Employees International Union. ``We're very happy that the social workers have returned. A substantial number have returned. We're getting back to normal,'' said Victoria Pipkin, a spokeswoman for the Department of Children and Family Services. Harragin termed the strike a success but said some of those who returned to their jobs did so reluctantly. ``People did not want to come back after the three-day strike,'' she said. ``The rank and file do not trust management and didn't trust that the negotiations would be successful in reaching an agreement that would be successful to them. But we are trying.'' The union wants contract language that would guarantee fewer cases per worker. The county could accomplish that by hiring more social workers and sending some administrators back into the ranks, Harragin said. Pipkin said the county has hired about 500 new social workers during the past year, but an increase in reports of child abuse has kept individual caseloads high. About 3,000 cases have been opened in the past three months alone, she said. ``We cannot control child abuse reporting. You can't say how many people are going to call in to the hotline on a given day and that unknown factor triggers our caseload case·load n. The number of cases handled in a given period, as by an attorney or by a clinic or social services agency. caseload Noun ,'' she said. ``Calls come in, we have to answer them, make an assessment and decide whether we're going to open a new case. . . . That's why it's a thorny thorn·y adj. thorn·i·er, thorn·i·est 1. Full of or covered with thorns. 2. Spiny. 3. Painfully controversial; vexatious: a thorny situation; thorny issues. issue.'' At courthouses, judges were able to put their tape recorders aside and resume regular operations, said Juanita Blankenship, the county's administrator of litigation An action brought in court to enforce a particular right. The act or process of bringing a lawsuit in and of itself; a judicial contest; any dispute. When a person begins a civil lawsuit, the person enters into a process called litigation. services. Court reporters want the county to boost its offer of a 10 percent pay raise over three years to 12 percent. |
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