We Need it Now: Stakeholders Deserve to Weigh in on New Contract with City Unions

GUEST WORDS-Three weeks ago the leaders of the Coalition of LA City Unions, representing more than half of our city’s workforce, reached a tentative agreement with the City on their new contract. 

The Neighborhood Council’s Neighborhood Budget Advocates learned today that the Mayor’s Office has refused our request to review the deal points of this contract – until AFTER the unions vote on ratification. 

The Advocates asked for a 60-day period to review and comment on the agreement – we need to understand its provisions and report on it to the stakeholders. Waiting until after the unions’ ratification vote is not acceptable since it will surely pass. And this will surely lead to passage by a City Council that would never, could never, vote “no.” 

This is the furthest thing from the transparency suggested in the City Charter (Chapter IX, Section 907), that the City is to provide to Neighborhood Councils “a reasonable opportunity to provide input before decisions are made.” 

In 2013, Mayor Eric Garcetti ran on a promise of no raises to city employees as well as the idea that they should be asked to pay 10 percent toward the premiums on their generous healthcare plans – plans that have been totally paid by the City up until now. 

In addition, candidate Garcetti supported moving toward cost-saving pension reforms, along with changes to the practice of paying full salary to workers on leave due to injury. 

So why has every contract negotiated under the mayor’s administration included pay raises somewhere in the deal?

According to the LA Times, labor “won concessions that Mayor Eric Garcetti had resisted.” Apparently he has decided that ‘”buying labor peace” is more important than fulfilling campaign promises – or at least more important than allowing taxpayers to SEE the terms of a new contract they are paying for before it’s a done deal. 

The people have the right to see what is in the contract before the unions officially ratify it. Not to grant this request is a breach of the stakeholders trust.

 

 (Jay Handal is chair of the West Los Angeles Neighborhood Council and Co-Chairs the Neighborhood Council Budget Advocates Committee.)

 

 

-cw

 

 CityWatch

Vol 13 Issue 69

Pub: Aug 25, 2015