A Call to Action at CFS: Why We Must Act Now
Dear OCEA member,
As you may know, a critical CFS Membership Meeting is scheduled on Zoom from Noon to 1 p.m. this Thursday, Feb. 20. Login details are at the end of this email. I encourage all members to attend, as we will review the results of the recent CFS Social Worker Survey and discuss next steps.
In advance of this Thursday’s meeting, I want to reaffirm that OCEA remains committed to holding CFS executive management accountable for the toxic workplace culture they have fostered through years of disfunction, overwhelming workloads, gaslighting, and an ongoing disregard of worker needs.
For decades we have stood together to protest, confront, and remedy County failures in the workplace and at the negotiations table. We have together fought for adequate bilingual pay, for fair wages and benefits, for worker safety at the 840 Eckhoff building for COVID protections, caseload caps, transparency around workplace rotations, and for common-sense negotiations proposals for you and your co-workers.
Former CFS Social Worker Kerensa Schupmann joined the OCEA staff to advocate on your behalf full time. If you have not read her recent letters, you can do so here and here.
Kerensa has worked with members to confront workplace issues and make improvements to CFS on multiple occasions: first in the CFS Caseload Management Forum—which ultimately failed due to management’s failure to commit to transparency—and again with the CFS Labor Management Committee last year.
The LMC is a joint committee between workers, union representatives, and executive management that—at many County agencies—has successfully addressed workplace issues, built better ways to do work, and more. Unfortunately, once again, due to CFS executive management’s lack of transparency and failure to participate in a meaningful way, we chose to disband the LMC in January to take a more direct approach toward making substantive changes within CFS.
The recent confusion and secrecy around the implementation of worker rotations reaffirms that one thing remains the same: CFS executive management does not care about CFS staff working conditions.
Your overwhelming response to the CFS Social Worker survey spoke volumes about the culture and working conditions of CFS. Now it’s time to stand together once again to remind management that it is workers who make the County run and that it is workers who have the power when we have strength in numbers.
This is a fight we must wage now, because the County’s inaction demands it. You deserve true, immediate, cultural and systemic change.
I hope to see you online Thursday. We have important issues to discuss.
In Solidarity,
Charles Barfield
OCEA General Manager
OCEA CFS Membership Meeting on Zoom
12 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 20, 2025
Zoom details were sent to home emails. Register for emails at ocea.org/register
Publication Date: February 18, 2025
