August 31, 2015
By John Quinn, LaborPress USA
Ontario, Calif.- More than 1,200 San Bernardino County public employees were joined by State Treasurer John Chiang and District Attorney Mike Ramos at a town hall meeting at the Ontario Convention Center August 22nd to protest the County Board of Supervisors' broken promises.
County workers perform crucial jobs their contract promises a step increase every year. Last year the County started holding back those wage increases for months or even a year. In June, the County agreed to make up for the step increases it had held back, but then reneged on the agreement days later.
Despite reporting budget surpluses each year since 2005, the San Bernardino County Board of Supervisors has asked public employees to take cuts in wages, healthcare and retirement and now pays employees far less than public employees neighboring counties.
"We were proud and excited to witness the terrific turnout of San Bernardino public employees at the event," said Randy Korgan, Teamsters Joint Council 42 Organizing Director. "These employees, who are now members of Teamsters Local 1932, are members of the San Bernardino community. They work hard every day in order to make San Bernardino County a better place to live. They deserve to be paid good wages and to be treated with respect on the job. We will not stand for this wage theft."
San Bernardino Public Employees are part of the Teamsters Public Service Division which represents over 273,000 employees at city, state and federal facilities and related businesses across the United States.
"I'm proud to be part of the Teamsters Union," said Ginger Hicks, eligibility worker in the County Transitional Assistance Department since 1998. "The Board of Supervisors promised to raise our wages, but now they are going back on that commitment. We heard from elected leaders that they support our fight to keep what we were promised and I believe that now we that we are members of the Teamsters we will get results."
