Monterey County workers rally against staff shortage
SALINAS, Calif. (KION) Essential county workers rally, demanding the Monterey County invest in public health and community services and end county worker shortage.
Service Employees International Union, Local 521 represents more than 3,000 workers in Monterey County. According to the union, there are over 600 active vacancies across different sectors. Monterey County’s Behavioral Health Supervisor Yvette Carreon says this staffing shortage is a crisis that is impacting the entire community.
“If you don't have enough workers, then there's nobody to respond that really just is as simple as that," said Carreon. "So that's why it affects not only us, it affects the whole community because we don't have enough people to respond to these essential emergency crises.”
Carreon also says this adds a lot of pressure on workers on top of the challenge they face in retaining these workers already.
“One of that is the rise of healthcare," she said. "The rise of the cost of living in this county, even though people want to work here, they're proud to work here, they need to go somewhere else in order to afford a house, in order to afford a just a fair living for their family to support that.”
Monterey County Director of Human Resources, Irma Ramirez-Bough said the county has invested over six million dollars in public services, including to behavioral health.
In a statement to KION, she says in part, "the County has not "walked out" of negotiations and continues to be committed to reaching a collective bargaining agreement with SEIU Local 521 that will guarantee base wage increases and a higher employer contribution towards the cost of employee health insurance than what they currently receive.”
Jennifer Jean-Pierre with the California Nurses Association said these county workers need more help with staffing and it needs to happen sooner rather than later.
“When we don't have the adequate staffing we need for our patients, our patients are the ones who suffer," said Jean-Pierre. "And we don't want that to happen any longer.”
The county also said, both parties are still in negotiations. But the county says they’re hopeful that an agreement will be reached soon.
