A sea of raised fists, a chorus of shouts.

“What do we want?”

“Our fair share!”

“When do we want it?”

“Right now!”

Public-sector workers have been striking everywhere throughout Los Angeles thousands of them, seemingly on every street corner.

And why shouldn’t they? They’re bulletproof.

The near-invincible status of public-sector union employees in Los Angeles has come about through the potent combination of the recent political ascendancy of former labor leaders and those sympathetic to their cause, as well as civil service protections dating back almost 100 years.

In essence, having civil service protection plus the right to strike gives most government workers in L.A. an additional layer of protection that private-sector workers lack when they call for a strike. That protection makes it much more difficult, if not impossible, to hire permanent replacements, which is one of the greatest fears of private-sector employees when they strike.

“As a rule, your job is secure if you are a public-sector employee who goes out on strike,” said Warren Kinsler, a partner in the law firm of Atkinson, Andelson, Loya, Ruud and Romo, which often represents public-sector employers in labor negotiations. “Public employee unions have got to take comfort in the fact that, if they go on strike, government agencies are not going to fire them. And even if they could, in most cases, they lack the political will to do so.”

That’s because the labor movement has been able to call on its tremendous political clout in the region. Many former union leaders are now serving in government posts, and unions have become a major force in political contributions and get-out-the-vote drives. Additionally, Democrats, traditional allies of labor, control Sacramento and make up the majority of local elected officials.

The clout of labor was clearly on display in the recently concluded transit strike. Even though Metropolitan Transportation Authority employees are one of the few public-sector groups not to enjoy civil service protection and thus could be replaced in a strike situation, an overwhelming majority of MTA board members quickly swatted down the idea of hiring replacement workers as politically unpalatable.

“Can you imagine the MTA or county supervisors ordering in replacement workers?” county labor federation organizing director John Barton asked rhetorically. “Supervisor Mike Antonovich brought (that possible course of action) up in a local newspaper and the public outcry was so much against it that the idea was dropped like a hot potato.”

Roots of job protection

Civil service protection does apply to the other L.A. public-sector unions in contract talks. In California, this protection can be traced back to the early years of the 20th century and was a reaction to rampant patronage politics and corruption so frequently found in major Eastern cities. The idea was to insulate civil servants from the whims of political leaders by granting them the equivalent of lifetime tenure; they could only be fired for “just cause.”

However, the extent of this civil service protection has become a real issue in the dispute involving county workers. As of late last week, expectations were running high that the labor dispute would be settled within days. But union leaders were nonetheless complaining that county officials have been exploiting an obscure clause in the county code that says county workers can be terminated if they don’t show up for three days.

“There have been letters that have been sent to county employees and deputies have gone to people’s homes and threatened to proceed with termination along the lines of job abandonment if they go on strike,” said Mark Tarnawsky, spokesman for Service Employees International Union, Local 660, which represents more than 40,000 L.A. County workers.

County officials acknowledge the clause exists, but say they haven’t taken any actions based on it.

“Realistically, if the employees did go out on strike, it would be difficult if not impossible to conclude they intended to resign from the job,” said Les Tolnai, principal deputy county counsel.

However, the county has gone before the County Employee Relations Commission to challenge the legitimacy of SEIU’s strike. If the strike is found to be illegal, then Tolnai said the county might be able to invoke this clause.

This argument will turn on rulings made by the California Supreme Court in the late 1970s that gave public-sector workers a limited right to strike if the collective bargaining process plays out and agreement is not reached on a contract.

This was seen as a major victory for public-employee unions.

“It gave public-sector workers rights that private-sector workers didn’t have,” said Kent Wong, director of the Center for Labor Research and Education at UCLA. “That’s a major reason why 38 percent of the public-sector workforce is unionized but only 10 percent of the private-sector workforce is unionized here in California.”

These dual public-sector advantages of civil service protection and the right to strike also exist in 30 other states and most major metropolitan areas, according to Ron Peters, professor of labor relations at the University of Illinois.

However, the extent of these rights varies from state to state. For example, Peters said that in New York, public-sector workers have the right to strike, but when they do, they are hit with sanctions under a law requiring employees to pay a fine of one day’s wages for every day they are on strike.

Peters added that in recent years, it has been teachers’ unions that have taken the most advantage of these rights.

“There has been an increase in the number of teachers’ strikes over the last five years or so,” Peters said. “These protections play a role, although the underlying factor is that teachers’ salaries have not kept pace with the wealth accumulation taking place in the private sector.”

That is part of the argument being advanced by United Teachers Los Angeles in their ongoing contract negotiations with the L.A. Unified School District.

The district is offering the teachers a 20 percent raise over the next three years, while UTLA is seeking an 18 percent pay hike for this year alone. UTLA rank and file (some 40,000 schoolteachers who do enjoy civil service protection) voted Sept. 28 to authorize a strike should negotiations fail.

That, of course, would be just the latest in a string of such actions in recent months. Nearly 7,000 bus drivers and mechanics walked off the job for 32 days. And more than 40,000 county workers went on strike for a day before their leaders heeded pleas from Cardinal Roger Mahony to return to work.

In that dispute, county officials as of late last week were offering a 9 percent hike in wages over three years, while county workers were seeking a 15 percent hike. County workers staged rolling one-day strikes in early October, leading up to a countywide strike on Oct. 11. But that strike was called off after Cardinal Mahony’s intervention.