Solano County reaches labor agreement with public defenders, prosecutors

FAIRFIELD – The Solano County Board of Supervisors approved a tentative agreement with public defenders and prosecutors on Tuesday with no substantial changes to the offer that spurred the union to strike in February. 

The contract that the union ultimately accepted included the same general wage increase as the county’s February offer, a 6% cost of living adjustment over the three year period of the contract, which increases the attorneys’ salaries by 3% the first year, 2% the second and 1% the third year. 

“We are basically losing money because the inflation rate is higher than our pay increase,” said one Solano County deputy public defender who spoke with the Vallejo Sun.

Three union members who spoke to the Vallejo Sun on the condition of anonymity because they feared retaliation said the agreement is the result of management efforts to diminish union bargaining power by sidestepping the office’s ethical responsibility to clients. 

Public defenders began a six-week strike in February but ended it before reaching an agreement because they felt that management and other non-union employees were advising clients to waive their right to a speedy trial to avoid the cost of paying private attorneys during the strike, the three employees said. 

Public Defender Elena D’Agustino flatly rejected the claim in an email to the Vallejo Sun. “Any suggestion that management attorneys advised clients to waive constitutional rights for the purpose of influencing labor negotiations or reducing county costs is categorically false,” she said. “To do so would be a violation of our ethical duties.”

The public defenders had been negotiating a contract since October when their strike began on Feb. 24. They argued the county’s offer would lead to staffing problems that impact the quality of the county’s legal services because skilled attorneys would leave for counties with more competitive pay. 

The public defenders are part of the same bargaining unit as the county’s prosecuting attorneys and their salaries are set by the same contract. However, the union decided that only the public defenders would strike because the county has certain limitations when it comes to covering prosecutors’ workload.

In order to reduce the impact on their clients, the public defenders opted for a hybrid strike format in which they continued to defend their existing clients but refused to take on new clients. 

Because the U.S. Constitution guarantees legal representation to those accused of a crime who cannot afford an attorney, the county is required to provide counsel for defendants. With the public defenders unavailable, it would be more expensive to hire outside attorneys for criminal defense.

However, the union public defenders who were still in the office and in court said that they began to notice an unusual pattern in how the Public Defender’s Office was handling new cases during the strike.

According to the attorneys who spoke with the Vallejo Sun, D’Agustino, her chief deputy public defenders as well as “at-will” employees and interns who are not union members took on all of the new cases and frequently advised clients to waive their right to a speedy trial.

There are times when it is beneficial for a defendant to waive their right to a speedy trial, such as when the defense needs additional time to conduct an investigation. But according to public defenders who spoke with the Vallejo Sun, many of the cases in which clients waived their rights did not fit that criteria.

It can be better for defendants not to waive their right to a speedy trial, one public defender said, because if the prosecution is unable to build a convincing case within the time limit, the charges can be dismissed. Delays in a defendant’s case can also lead to employment or other life consequences due to their involvement with the justice system.

In many cases, the attorneys said that management or non-union employees would show up to arraignments and recommend that clients waive speedy trial rights so they could conduct an investigation. But when those clients called into the office to speak to their attorney, no one would be assigned to the case. 

“Sitting there every day watching people's rights be violated, watching cases that I know I could get dismissed, or I could set for trial, or I could do more – that was hard to see,” one deputy public defender said. “These are people that are getting hurt, they aren’t just pawns. It was really hard to balance that when you have to take a stand against the county.”

D’Agustino said that management did take on heavy case loads during the strike but cases “were assigned to private counsel at the county’s expense when management attorneys could not effectively and ethically represent additional clients.” 

“Decisions regarding speedy trial waivers were based only on the individual circumstances of each client's case and the client's informed choice,” said D’Agustino. 

D’Agustino also sent an email to staff on March 22 obtained by the Vallejo Sun which  addressed the striking public defenders and argued that pay was “secondary” to their mission.

In the email, D’Agustino recalled the commitment of New York public defenders she worked with in the mid-90s. “The salaries were so low that many of them had second jobs,” she wrote. “But it was a calling, something that you had no choice but to do, and the pay was secondary. 

“The idea of rejecting a client for any reason related to compensation is an anathema to my approach to this work,” D’Agustino wrote. “That said, I recognize the generational change - that where I have been happy just to be in the room, newer lawyers are rightly arguing that the conditions in the room are unacceptable.”

Two of the attorneys who spoke to the Vallejo Sun said that the email struck them as dismissive of the effort they put into their cases and heavy workloads that they take on.  

Expressions of solidarity in the office also increased tensions. During the strike, union members put up posters with various pro-union slogans. One of the posters that read “Strikes are temporary, being a scab is forever,” seemed to be particularly triggering to management, said one of the attorneys. 

After the posters had been up for about two weeks, D’Agustino announced a new policy prohibiting the posting of political messages in the office, the employee said. The ban included material related to union advocacy unless it was for specific union business and was first approved by management.

The county has been negotiating a number of labor contracts since the fall of last year and all but one of bargaining units are now under contract. 

In March, Solano County reached an agreement with Service Employees International Union Local 1021, the county’s largest labor union. The contract includes the same general pay increase of 6% over the contract period. All of the union contracts approved so far this year include a provision that requires the county to raise the general base pay rate if any union negotiates a higher base pay increase. 

However, the SEIU contract included additional “market equity increases” on top of the base rate for certain classifications. These increases were effective the first pay period following the union’s agreement.

For example, under the SEIU contract, information technology analysts received an increase of 13.8%. According to a county-commissioned study, Solano County pay for information technology analysts was 16.8% below average. 

The public defenders and prosecutors bargaining group was seeking a 12% total increase over three years. 

Costa Kerestenzis with the Teamsters Local 150, which represents the attorneys’ bargaining unit, said in March that the county’s study shows that current pay for Solano County attorneys is 8% below average. 

Kerestenzis said that the study includes counties like San Joaquin, Yolo and Placer in calculating the average. But when compared to just the Bay Area counties, Solano is 20% behind, he said.