The Santa Cruz County Community Counseling Center (SCCCC), the parent corporation for the Head Start Program, publicly expressed disbelief that workers would be willing to strike over non-economic issues. Parent Leader Paola Rojas says she understands easily.

According to Rojas, elected parent leaders who make up the Parent Policy Council have submitted no fewer than three petitions to the agency in the past twelve-months. Federal mandates require that parents have a say in how the program is run along with the agency’s Board of Trustees. “But SCCCC has done everything it can to stop us� says Rojas. Not only have petitions been ignored but Administrators have attempted to intimidate us and walked out of meetings when confronted.

Workers, too, say the agency is not listening. Last week, they voted to give their negotiators strike authorization. The message to SCCCC is that time is running out. For workers, the long negotiation process has deepened divisions with the agency. Workers voted for a union because of heavy-handed agency actions; the difficult negotiations have only strengthened the workers’ resolve. Agency non-responsiveness to workers and parent leaders has convinced workers that they must hold out for binding arbitration to assure fairness when grievances arise.