In a move that could bring Santa Clara County’s legal system to a near standstill, hundreds of Superior Court clerks and other workers late Monday notified the court that they will go on strike Wednesday.
The threatened strike, which would be the court’s first in 14 years, caught officials off-guard, giving them only 36 hours to come up with a contingency plan to provide limited staffing for hundreds of crucial services, such as arraignments, bail hearings and requests for domestic violence restraining orders.
The Superior Court Professional Employees Association, which represents 333 clerical workers and 50 janitors, legal researchers and family court mediators, had been threatening to walk off the job Aug. 15. That’s the day the Superior Court has planned a grand opening of its crown jewel, a new $191 million Family Justice Center near St. James Park in downtown San Jose to handle family court cases.
Now, barring a breakthrough, the court will have to scramble to assign midlevel managers to handle clerical duties in essential court hearings. But canceled hearings, delayed trials and possible closures of some courthouses are considered inevitable. In addition, the backlog in processing court documents, which had already drawn complaints from local attorneys and judges, would get worse.
See full article at: http://www.mercurynews.com/crime-courts/ci_30195187/santa-clara-co-court-cle
Categorized in: Legal Procedure
| << previous | next >> |