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Job & Family Services employees urge commissioners to return to bargaining, cite service delays and safety concerns
Summary
Multiple JFS employees and community members told the board the strike has left clients waiting for benefits, delayed Medicaid determinations and placed staff in unsafe working conditions; speakers asked commissioners to resume negotiations and provide a living wage.
Several current and former Job & Family Services staff used the public-comment period to press the board to return to the bargaining table and to describe operational problems they say have followed the labor action. Jennifer Verda, who said she has worked at JFS for 29 years, described home visits in which staff face infestations and threats and said: "As a APS worker you go into houses that are infested with roaches, bed bugs, fleas, the smell is horrible in some houses, and some floors are covered with usually pet feces." She told the board many JFS workers earn about $18 an hour and urged the commissioners to negotiate a living wage and fair contract.
Other speakers raised complaints about a county-produced video they described as misleading and said that remote-work characterizations understated the workload. Carrie McNeal said the numbers and demands cited in the video were "not only misleading but incorrect" and said staff had been working without a contract since September. Jennifer Gentile, a nursing-home business manager and former JFS worker, described delayed Medicaid processing and specific patient-care consequences: she said an application submitted with full verification last month had not been processed and that families had experienced disrupted skilled-therapy plans while waiting for county determinations. Several speakers pressed the board to resume talks immediately.
