United social workers

I had the dubious pleasure of watching the televised session of the Board of Supervisor’s meeting on July 16, 2002. During this somewhat lengthy session, I was appalled when I heard county social workers possibly having to pay up to $600 a month for medical coverage in the near future.

These workers are all that stand between abusive parents/caregivers and innocent children who are beaten upon, raped, molested and otherwise mentally and physically traumatized. These social workers are not even paid a decent salary or given appropriate benefits.

The Board of Supervisors has the audacity to treat people who have our children’s future in their hands as second-class citizens. Are these social workers going to have to forgo putting their children in decent childcare or choose between medication for their sick children and food? I urge the Board of Supervisors to see if they could live on the salaries they now pay social workers, who provide food, medical attention and adequate housing for their children.

To put the salaries of those involved into perspective, the secretary to the Board of Supervisors earns $3,400–$4,134 a month and has a qualification of typing at 45 wpm; the special assistant to the board earns $3,746–$4,555 and requires only one year of experience with public relations/governmental analysis. The county executive earns almost $85 an hour. Yet a master’s degree-level social worker makes just $3,430–$4,171 monthly.

My daughter is a social worker who works 10–12 hours a day regularly, has a master’s degree, and yet cannot make ends meet! After two years in the field and four years’ experience, her take-home pay is $1,250 every two weeks (after being on-call four or more days a month, sometimes working 20-hour shifts). Do not she and her co-workers deserve a living wage?

I ask the readers of the Sacramento News & Review to petition the Board of Supervisors to agree to a reasonable contract now; a contract that will not only keep social workers in Sacramento County and provide care for their families, but will enable them to work with dignity knowing they are being paid for performing an extremely stressful job.

Workers in the county have held job actions, sickouts and breakouts and will continue to do so until they have a fair and reasonable contract. These workers don’t want to strike, but they will!