Local and County elected public officials including labor and civil rights activist Dolores Huerta joined the Kern County workers’ protest and demanded that the County address the staffing and vacancy crisis.
Download the B-roll, a worker interview and photo stills here.
Bakersfield, Calif. – Early Tuesday morning on July 16th, outside the County Administrative Building on Truxtun Avenue, Kern County workers represented by the Service Employees International Union, Local 521 (SEIU) formed another informational picket line protesting a staffing crisis potentially being compounded.
On July 2nd, the workers’ union received a budget presentation from the Kern County management team. Kern County Interim Chief Administrative Officer Elsa Martinez admitted that many departments, including the Roads Department and the Department of Behavioral Health and Recovery Services, are targeted to eliminate budgeted vacant positions. Ms. Martinez would not confirm how many budgeted positions are being targeted to be cut or when or why the plan will be implemented. The county is not in financial distress.
Kern County admitted that they DID NOT consider service levels when they decided to plan for the elimination of positions. This means that if a county service, for example, Child Protective Services, has yet to be able to meet the needs of the community over a period of time, management is still eliminating positions that need to be filled to keep children safe in permanent homes.
After the protest, participants attended the 9:00 a.m. Kern County Board of Supervisors meeting, where half a dozen county employees delivered public comments and shared their work experiences detailing why eliminating budgeted positions would intensify the staffing crisis.
The following community and labor leaders addressed workers before the 9:00 am Board meeting:
- Dolores Huerta, Co-Founder of the United Farm Workers Union and the Founder of the Dolores Huerta Foundation
- Riko Mendez, Chief Elected Officer for SEIU Local 521
- Leticia Perez, Kern County Board of Supervisors, District 5
- Alex Garcia, Mayor of Wasco
- Kim Salas, Candidate for Kern County Board of Supervisor, District 5
- Flor Olivera – President of the Democratic Women of Kern
REMARKS FROM PARTICIPANTS
“I work for the residents of Kern County; they need reliable emergency communications for all public safety and first responders. But we have our hands full, and we are doing more with less. We lost our two most experienced technicians [to other employers with more competitive pay] and had trouble recruiting qualified replacements.” Jonah Tilton, SEIU 521 member and Kern County Communications Technician.
“Imagine finally being approved for housing only to be turned away because there is no one left [in the Department of Behavioral Health and Recovery Services] to help you. That’s because the staff that is supposed to be there left elsewhere for better wages.” Samhain Night, SEIU 521 member and Behavioral Health Peer Specialists
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Service Employees International Union, Local 521 represents 53,000+ public- and nonprofit, private-sector workers in California’s Bay Area, the Coast, and Central Valley. Under a Community First vision, we are committed to making sure the needs of our community, and the vital services we provide our community, come first. We believe our communities thrive when residents, elected leaders, and workers recognize that we are all in this together when it comes to our safety, health, and well-being.
