More Than 465 Orange County Workers Strike Over Stalled Contract Talks; County Says Contingency Plans in Place
ORANGE COUNTY (Santa Ana) — More than 465 Orange County employees represented by Teamsters Local 952 went on strike beginning at 4 a.m. on Tuesday, October 13. The union describes the walkout as an unfair labor practice strike: after seven months of bargaining, the two sides have not reached a new contract agreement, and the union has filed an unfair labor practice charge alleging bad-faith bargaining by the county.
Picket lines went up at 6 a.m. at locations across the county. At 11 a.m., the union held a news conference outside the County Administration Building at 400 W. Civic Center Drive in Santa Ana, while the Board of Supervisors was meeting inside. Local 952 Secretary-Treasurer Eric Jimenez and Gloria Alvarado, executive director of the Orange County Federation of Labor, took part in the news conference.
The striking workers are employed across OC Public Works, OC Waste & Recycling, OC Community Resources and other county operations. The union warns the strike may delay road and flood channel maintenance, landfill operations, parks and beach maintenance, and repairs to county and first responder vehicles.
At least one service impact has been officially documented. In a notice issued October 13, the City of Irvine said the Frank R. Bowerman Landfill in Irvine remains open and accepting waste but delays may occur because of the strike; the landfill's public compost pickup area and its asphalt and soil delivery services are temporarily unavailable until further notice, and a compost distribution event scheduled for October 17 has been canceled. The city said the strike is expected to conclude at 7 p.m. Tuesday and that traffic delays are likely on Bee Canyon Access Road near the landfill entrance.
On the bargaining dispute, the union says the county made little meaningful movement during negotiations and is refusing to include retroactive pay in a new agreement. The union says it asked to begin bargaining as early as December 2025 and began submitting proposals in March, alleging the county did not move meaningfully until August. According to Voice of OC, the county's offer on the table is a one-year contract with a 3 percent raise and no back pay for the months the old agreement sat expired; the Teamsters, the sheriff's deputies' union and the county's AFSCME local have all rejected it. The union also points out that the Board of Supervisors previously voted to raise supervisors' salaries by 25 percent, an increase of about $49,000 per supervisor annually, bringing their annual salaries to more than $244,000.
Jimenez said in a statement that the union has done everything in its power to reach a fair agreement but has been met with months of delays. Union spokesperson Christian Castro said the Board of Supervisors told the union it will have a proposal for them after the board's closed session on Tuesday.
In a statement issued last Thursday (October 8) in response to the strike threat, the county said it respects the rights of its employees to engage in lawful strike activity under California law, that its priority remains ensuring the continuity of essential public services, and that it has contingency plans in place to minimize service disruptions. The county's earlier statement did not address the union's allegations regarding the pace of negotiations or retroactive pay. As of publication on Tuesday afternoon, the county had not released details of any proposal following the closed session.
Published by GSM · USA (original Chinese edition)
Photo: 圣安娜市政中心一带的橙县老法院大楼，Nkpug摄，Wikimedia Commons，CC BY-SA 4.0
