For social workers with the Los Angeles Department of Children and Family Services (DCFS), Friday marked their second day on the picket line with no progress being reported towards reaching an agreement with the County. Social Workers initiated the strike due to low pay and high caseloads which prevents them from properly investigating reports of abuse, neglect, and dependency as well as providing other emergency services. The strike is being led by Bob Schoonover, president, of the local Services Employees International Union (SEIU) 721 which represents approximately 3,500 social workers.
As a former child welfare investigator, I fully support the efforts of the L.A. social worker’s strike, and I hope it will help elevate the plight of public sector social workers from their current invisible status. As a result of the Great Recession and self-imposed austerity measures from all levels of government, public sector social workers have silently shouldered the burden of responding to the increased need for services despite having resources and manpower levels less than they were before the recession.
Public Sector social workers lack the national lobbying power of teachers, law enforcement, fire fighters, and nurses which often leaves us out of any legislation protecting educators and first responders from cuts. Social Services agencies are also not required to maintain any accreditation standards like schools, hospitals, and police departments which means administrators and government officials are unregulated in their policy making. In this case, if the union is unsuccessful in negotiating reduced caseloads for the workers, there is no other body of government to seek redress.
The federal government only monitors outcomes and whether a social worker completes cases within the allotted time frames. It does not take into consideration how many cases the social worker has on his/her caseload. Every day, social workers are forced to maneuver a broken system while trying to restore hope to children and families in need of help, but what happens when the social worker’s hope is gone?
Social workers and other key stakeholders who have taken an interest in the LA social workers strike have been quite vocal in either their support or opposition. According to a post from a social work forum against the strike, Annette Mahoney-Cross an administrator with a New York Child Welfare agency stated,
“So I have to comment on the strike of public child welfare workers in LA. I finally had time to read articles from other media outlets and I cannot support this work action. I am an administrator at one of the largest public child welfare agencies in the country in a suburb of New York City. I am also a union leader who sits on the board of directors of my union.
In NY public employees are prohibited from striking as per the Taylor Law, with good valid reason. There appear to have been other options available to staff and in fact two union delegates stepped down because they felt intimidated by union officials, Yes it is abundantly clear they more staff need to be hired, but why has the union not directed a work action before a full on strike? Workers refuse new cases, get written up and then use the grievance process. Involve the Child Welfare League of America to discuss recommended caseloads? These are only a few options which could have been explored, but SEIU does seem to like to strike first to try to force management’s hand. Sadly the only ones to suffer will be the families.” via Facebook
In my opinion, I believe the above stated view is limited in its thought process while failing to take into consideration the larger picture. In this country, Red states have the highest poverty rates, reliance on social welfare programs, and the poorest outcomes for children living in America, and social workers in these states are barred from unionizing as a result of Right to Work legislation. By continuing with the strike, LA social workers are not only exposing systems failures preventing social workers from providing quality care to children and families, but they have the ability to become the voice for other social workers who have been silenced.
Despite outcries of opposition, support appears to be growing for the social workers’ strike and is evidenced by the comments on the SEIU Local 721 Facebook Fanpage. You can also stay up to date with SEIU 721 on Twitter @seiu721using the hashtag #721strike.
https://twitter.com/barack4p/status/408991898334793731
Photo Credit: SEIU 721 Facebook Page
A friend bought my attention to your use of my comment from the SJS Facebook page. As a licensed social worker who has worked in public child welfare for over 15 years I assure you that I have a solid understanding of what the serious systemic problems are in child welfare. I work to address them in my professional position as well as my position as a union leader. I worked as a field investigator, ongoing services worker and front line supervisor for over 10 years before becoming an administrator. Oh and for the record (at least here in NY) we do not make “double” what front line staff earn. Most times it is not more that 5% or 10% more with a significant increase in workload and responsibility. In my position I work directly with the field staff in decision making as well as administrative tasks. My critique was of the union actions, not of the workers. In fact when I learned of what was happening I wanted to support their work action. however when I researched it I could not do so. Several union delegates stepped down because they felt threatened and harassed by union officials. That is unacceptable. These officials were not working in child welfare they were SEIU officers. I reached out to SEIU to ask some of the questions I posted to SJS and despite several tries they never responded. At this juncture in time unions are not in good favor with the general population and work actions such as this harm progress that many unions have worked so hard for. This is one of the reasons that laws like the Taylor Law with the Triborough Amendment are so important. They prohibit public employees from striking, but in return guarantee current contract provisions until a new CBA is ratified. So a little take, but then a little give. As far as right to work states we should be fighting to repeal the Taft-Hartley Act instead of doing things to damage the labor movement. The strike in LA accomplished very little locally for LA and absolutely nothing federally. As far as money being poured in to child welfare I have no idea where you are going to graduate school Ms. Johnson or where you obtained that information but child welfare programs are woefully underfunded both by the federal government, state and local municipalities. Title IV-E reimbursements have been significantly cut in the past 10 years leaving the states and local government to make up the difference which they don’t have.
I have worked for a state agency before and the local government could care less about the welfare of children. They are more interested in the numbers of closed cases than actually making a difference. Its a shame that these workers had to resort to going on strike to get their issues heard, but I am proud that they did. Who is protecting the social workers’ families while they work long hours into the night? Who is looking out for the social workers who can barely find child care because of their work hours. I am proud that there was a strike and I hope they get everything they ask for.
How disappointing to see the response of an administrator on here with nothing but criticism. This is a good example of what cps workers put up with constantly no matter what we do. It is disheartening and contributes to a lot of the turnover we have. It is not surprising however that administrators of child welfare do not support the social workers. After all administrators are making nearly double that of social workers. As a graduate student my eyes have really been opened to how much money is being poured into child welfare, but it never reaches the workers or the families we serve. Why? Because administrators and drones monitor our outcomes with impossible standards and then stand in criticism against us. I wish we could do more to expose this part of child welfare.
One of the hardest hit of public sector workers are social workers. Hard work & conditions. Low pay for dangerous work.