LA County government workers rally for higher pay

About 3,000 Los Angeles County government employees staged a rally Tuesday asking for an end to a five-year salary freeze.

Wearing purple and yellow T-shirts, the government workers gathered in front of the county government building and chanted slogans asking for "more jobs, better pay and healthcare for all."

Los Angeles County, the most populous in the United States, hasapproximately 100,000 people working in the public sector. It instituted a pay freeze five years ago to address a soaring deficit.

Thanks to various spending-cut measures, the LA County budget is expected to return to balance for fiscal 2013-2014.

Health service worker Alina Mendizabal told the rally LA County, with its improved financial status, could take the lead and narrow the wealth gap in Southern California.

Keenan Sheedy, who has worked for the county for 41 years, told Xinhua it was time for the county to give workers a pay rise.

"Many of our workers are low paid. They have really struggled, living paycheck to paycheck, trying to buy food and pay for gas. All the prices are going up, so our members are really struggling," Sheedy said.

He said he and other county workers were providing services to 10 million Los Angeles County residents and most of them were low paid.

"We do believe that, since we have made sacrifices in the past five years, we have made sacrifices for our retirement, and now the Los Angeles County has tided over the budget deficit and the financial condition is in a better shape, the demand for a pay raise is reasonable, and the county can afford it."

Oscar Valladares, a county government worker for eight years, told Xinhua county workers were not as well paid as the general public thought. About 20 percent of government workers in Los Angeles County earned an average annual salary of 25,000 dollars and that was lower than the average pay in private sectors, he said.

The rally comes as the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors considers a proposed budget of 24.7 billion dollars for the coming year.

Lillian Cabral, who has worked for the county for 35 years, said she had 11 years to go before she became eligible to retire with benefits.

"I have sacrificed long enough, living paycheck to paycheck, robbing Paul to pay Peter," Cabral told the board members at a hearing inside the county government building, adding some workers lost their homes to foreclosure, while others were barely hanging on.

"Give us what we have sacrificed and worked hard for," she asked the board members.