Sacramento County Prosecutors Agree to Temporary Halt in Strike – Association Files Unfair Labor Practice Complaint Against County

Vanguard Sacramento Bureau Chief

SACRAMENTO, CA — The nine-day strike by Sacramento County attorneys — including about 300 criminal public defenders, child support attorneys and criminal prosecutors — entered a brief cooling-off period Friday afternoon and is expected to last through Monday, according to Sacramento County Attorneys Association President Matt Chisholm.

At a news conference Friday, Chisholm said the strike pause is intended to bring both sides together, noting that the strike will resume Tuesday if no progress is made.

But at the same time, he also announced the filing of an unfair labor practice complaint by Sacramento County, charging: “For more than two years, while in negotiations and then at an impasse with the Sacramento County Attorneys Association (SCAA), Sacramento County engaged in a course and pattern of bad faith conduct that, taken as a whole, amounts to unfair labor.”

At Friday’s press conference, Chisholm took pains to explain the “mitigation measures” taken by the SCAA, including: honoring ongoing trials and certain preliminary hearings that lawyers were allowed to attend in the interest of “public safety.”

But, with the exception of some members who, as Chisholm admitted, are not respecting the picket lines, about 230 county attorneys are on those lines.

The unfair labor practice complaint, filed Thursday, “demonstrates the county’s bad faith,” Chisholm said, adding that the county’s first offer to the SCAA was “designed to be rejected,” which, he added, actually made “a lot of our members’ situation worse.”

The “unfair labor practice” complaint, filed with the State of California Public Employment Relations Board and made available to Vanguard, challenges the county’s “assertions in the media and elsewhere (that) there is currently no full and complete memorandum of understanding between the county and SCAA. The parties have been at an impasse for two years over equity increases and retroactive payments for the 2022-23 fiscal year.”

The complaint adds: “The County has a duty…to act in good faith during applicable impasse proceedings…the County, given the totality of the circumstances, has failed to do so to the continued detriment of SCAA members, the criminal justice system, and the general public.”

The complaint claims that Matt Connolly, the county’s chief labor negotiator, “even before the parties reached an impasse, exemplifies the bad faith and pretextual approach to the county’s participation in the current impasse proceedings,” noting that the county has “grossly misrepresented” its position.

“The County had no intention of respecting the outcome (of a fact-finding arbitrator) if it was not in its favor. Rather, the County used fact-finding as a means to delay good faith negotiations,” the union wrote in the complaint.

The arbitrator’s 62-page report in June recommended much of what the union had been asking for, including cost-of-living increases and a “5.5 per cent equity adjustment” to make SCAA members “minimally competitive with other jurisdictions.”

Recruiting and retaining experienced attorneys in district attorney and public defender offices has been a key part of the union’s claim that it has lost good lawyers to private firms or other jurisdictions.

But, the strikers maintain, “not only did the County fail in its duty (to comply with arbitration), but its conduct before and after the release of the report establishes a singular motive…to enter into and remain in an impasse to prevent and frustrate further negotiations on current or retroactive terms related to capital increases and retroactive wages to the detriment of SCAA members.”

The SCAA accused the county of wanting the union to agree to a condition never to strike, calling the county’s “conduct during the approximately two-month period since the completion of the investigation report continues to demonstrate bad faith.”

“The County issued misleading and grossly inaccurate statements to the public about the SCAA and the SCAA’s position (to create) prejudice and negative opinions about the SCAA and its members, emailed represented parties inaccurate information about protections and work requirements during a strike, and made a predictably unacceptable and apparently discriminatory offer that bears indicia of retaliation against SCAA members for exercising their protected and lawful right to strike.”

The SCAA complaint alleges that the County has “an incentive and interest to keep negotiations at an impasse. As long as the impasse persists, SCAA is obligated to remain bound by the December 2022 partial agreement and without resolution of the terms of the contract that are currently in dispute. SCAA is obligated to remain without a proper memorandum of understanding between it and the County.”

The SCCA insists the county’s offer would reduce “retirement benefits” and is intended to “perpetuate the impasse and derail negotiations over the current contract and retroactive benefits.”

The county “has disseminated – and continues to disseminate – misleading information that misrepresents the county’s purported offer, the attorneys’ current salaries, and the status of an existing contract – specifically, the lack thereof between the parties,” the complaint adds.

The county, the complaint continues, “acted in bad faith to deprive the SCAA of its right to strike by directly emailing its members false information related to a potential strike,” noting that the email was “clearly an attempt to intimidate SCAA members choosing to participate in the strike by increasing their sick pay burdens under threat of disciplinary action.”

The SCAA argues: “Viewed as a whole, the only reasonable conclusion is that the County approached this entire process with a bad faith that first permeated the negotiations and now the impasse and the execution of the statutorily mandated impasse procedures.

“The County has engaged in a consistent practice of delay for three years, refusing to negotiate in good faith, a practice that continues today.”

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300 Criminal Defense Attorneys, Child Support Lawyers, Criminal Prosecutors, Sacramento County Attorneys’ Association Strike Nine Days Sacramento CA Sacramento County Attorneys’ Association President Matt Chisholm Strike Pause Designed to Bring Both Sides Together Strike Will Resume Tuesday If No Progress Made Unfair Labor Practice Complaint by Sacramento County