More than 300 social workers and other employees of Summit County Children Services are off the job today after eleventh-hour talks failed to reach a contract settlement.þþMembers of Communications Workers of America Local 4546 headed for picket lines this morning, after negotiations broke down about 10:30 p.m. Sunday and the contract expired at 12:01 a.m.þþ``We countered their offer; they rejected our offer,'' said Robin Schenault, union president. ``They don't want to bargain in good faith.''þþCSB spokesperson Louise Miller blamed the breakdown of the talks on the union's refusal to accept ``a very reasonable offer.''þþShe said the union counter offer ``had very minor changes -- nothing of significance.''þþBoth sides had been expecting the worst.þþEarlier Sunday evening, several hundred union members gathered at the Teamsters union hall on Grant Street, where they were told no progress was made in negotiations thus far.þþ= [100.0]Schenault said ``face-to-face'' talks weren't even held during the afternoon session. Instead, two mediators from the State Employment Relations Board met separately with the two sides.þþ``Nothing has happened,'' Schenault said.þþAbout the same time the employees met, a CSB official finalized an advertisement to be published in the Beacon Journal this morning, laying out the agency's arguments in the deadlocked talks.þþThe ``Open Letter to the Citizens of Summit County'' also promises that despite the strike ``management staff are working to continue providing services to abused and neglected children.''þþKatrina Pappas, CSB's legal counsel, said the advertisement was purchased ``to have some communication to our citizens that we're still open for business.''þþPappas had hoped the last-minute CSB proposal -- that lengthened the contract offer from a year to 18 months and provided some wage improvements -- might lead to a settlement.þþBut she also confirmed that all offers are off the table if an agreement wasn't reached by the Sunday deadline.þþThe three-year contract ran out March 31, but was automatically extended for 90 days, and then for two more weeks.þþPappas reaffirmed the agency would not consider granting another extension.þþLawrence W. Vuillemin, the union's lawyer, declined to call the job action a strike -- contending that the union has offered to continue working while negotiations continued.þþ``Their refusal to accept to our offer to continue to work is tantamount to a lockout,'' he said.þþThe two sides are locked over the issue of caps on social workers' caseloads -- disagreeing even over the basic numbers.þþCSB officials argue the caseloads ``are within acceptable standards'' -- averaging 20 families per worker per month in the intake department, which investigates reports of abuse, and 13 families per month for other social workers.þþThe union says some of its members are handling two and three times those numbers.þþThe issue was not resolved by state ``fact-finder'' Robert G. Stein, who reported in May that the caseload issue requires a more sophisticated analysis than he was prepared to offer.þþThe issue will be tackled by an outside expert to be hired next month by a blue-ribbon panel appointed by county Executive James B. McCarthy to investigate CSB.þþMcCarthy created the panel in response to public furor about ``the Kenmore Six'' case of a girl and five severely underweight boys removed from their Kenmore home after police found three of the boys wandering the streets in late April.þþThe recommendation to hire an outside expert ``from a nationally accredited organization'' came from the social services department of the University of Akron, which was consulted by the panel.þþCSB had planned to hired its own outside expert, but scrapped the idea after the blue-ribbon panel announced its plans last week.þþ``We didn't want to duplicate,'' Pappas said.þþThe blue-ribbon panel's report is not expected to be done until late October.þ
Source: Akron Beacon Journal
