Unusual Sight: Dispatchers Leave Center for Picket Line

Only a rookie dispatcher and a trainee were left to work the consoles of the Tulare County (Calif.) sheriff’s comm center after dispatchers walked off the job to join a picket line of striking union workers.

County sheriff Bill Witman said the walk-out left the center “a little thin” but that some duties were shifted to other agencies and deputies picked up the slack. He said no major problems occurred during the walk-out
The dispatchers’ job action is the only one in recent times involving an actual walk-out. There have been perhaps five other instances of dispatchers joining picket lines around the country.

Union officials said five sheriff’s dispatchers participated in the picket line, along with a county fire dispatcher. They said union officials had told them that the dispatchers would not be participating in the planned job action.

But union officials said they had left the decision to participate up to individual dispatchers. “We asked employees to make sure there were enough dispatchers to handle emergency calls,” said Tom Abshere, area director for the Service Employees International Union Local 521.

Abshere added, “If the county was really concerned about public safety, they would have taken this in front of a judge.” He said the dispatchers would have obeyed a judge’s order not to leave the consoles if the county had applied for a court order.

Dispatcher Edna Perkins and four co-workers walked out of the sheriff’s comm center in Visalia at midnight, and said she didn’t reach the decision lightly.

Perkins, 52, says she makes $1,600-a-month income after 22 years of service. She would not have left work if the county had declared the dispatchers “essential workers,” limiting their ability to strike.

“We were fully prepared to stay,” Perkins told a reporter while she picketed. “But the county chose not to take those steps.”

The county’s chief administrative officer, Jean Rousseau, said he recommended the supervisors not obtain a court order, relying on union assurances that the strike was only going to last a day, and that plans were in place to replace any dispatchers who left work.

“Was it an ideal situation? Of course not,” Rousseau said. “Did we have contingency plans in place? Absolutely.”