DWP Contract Approval
From City News Service...
The City Council has approved a contract that will result in large raises for Department of Water and Power employees.
The council voted 10-3 to boost salaries for about 8,000 DWP employees by 16.25 percent over the next five years, costing the city an estimated $68 million.
To take effect, eight council members needed to vote in favor of the contract.
Councilmen Bernard Parks, Greig Smith and Dennis Zine cast the dissenting votes.
More on the fall-out shortly....
The City Council has approved a contract that will result in large raises for Department of Water and Power employees.
The council voted 10-3 to boost salaries for about 8,000 DWP employees by 16.25 percent over the next five years, costing the city an estimated $68 million.
To take effect, eight council members needed to vote in favor of the contract.
Councilmen Bernard Parks, Greig Smith and Dennis Zine cast the dissenting votes.
More on the fall-out shortly....
Posted by Anonymous @ 9/20/2005 01:12:00 PM
58 Comments:
This just shows who the councilmembers who had guts are. Does anyone know which councilmembers received campaign donations from the Union IBEW?
Did Parks, Smith or Zine endorse Huizar?
The fallout begins.
FYI From City News Service...
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Alger slams Union Contract
September 20, 2005 - Los Angeles- In what is described as a risky move for a Democrat, Assembly candidate Jim Alger (D-Northridge) slammed the Los Angeles City Councils approval of a contract with IBEW which gives enormous raises over several years.
"This contract is not good for the people of Los Angeles, and sets this city up for a major financial crisis down the road" Alger said earlier today. "This contract is anticipated to cost the city nearly $70 million that we don't have now, and that doesn't begin to calculate the weakened bargaining position we are now in with other labor negotiations. That is flat out irresponsible."
Alger is best known for his successful defeat of the attempted 18% DWP rate hike last year and his organizing of the city's Neighborhood Councils in forming a Memorandum of Understanding with the Department. He is currently the only Democratic Candidate for the 38th State Assembly District seat being vacated by Republican Keith Richman.
-END-
FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT
Mike O'Connell
661-310-0414
Pretty risky move Jim... but yet another good one for the people of LA.
Every day that goes by you show more and more that you are the real deal. Hope it works for you.
I like the post that someone suggested about a week ago, suggesting that the council should not approve the DWP contract, let the workers go on strike, fire them, and replace them all with displaced workers from Hurricane Katrina.
2:09 Probably all of those putos, but I'll look into it.
Those idiot DWP union members flooded city council wearing T-shirts that read "Will Strike If Provoked." Another threat.
Antonio once again shows total LACK of leadership. Why wasn't he man enough to take a stand like a Mayor should? You have city employees with similar job titles making 20% less now then DWP. These idiot council members gave in to threats. No balls, no guts, no brains
Go ahead Mayor Ass, delete all of our comments, we pretty much got used to your communist censorship.
You only allow what you feel is not too damaging to friend/foe Villaraigosa.
At the risk of sounding like a Democrat, I have deleted the posts that compare this to a sex crime.
It cheapens the experience of anyone who has actually been raped.
You boys will have to find some other term to express your outrage.
Blog away dum dums.
Cheers,
Mayor Sam
Like our Governor once said,
They are owned by the UNIONS!
Post all you want about Villaraigosa just don't use that term. You see I have left all the other criticism up.
Oh and whichever of you dum-dums that posted what you said about Villaraigosa in the article about Simon Wiesenthal, you are one sick fuck disrespecting a great man's memory.
4:29
Sorry that you have no empathy, but it actually feels that way! A horrible violation, financially, mentally, physically and anything else you want to insert that equals abuse.
4:31 I didn't get to read that article you mention, but it must have been bad...
I think you are being a little dramatic.
Los Angeles, get ready for the abuse that AV and his Union pals are going to do to my once great city.
I'm show ashamed that he has betrayed me. Villaraigosa is like Judas.
And Sam, why are you deleating posts that though described this as a sexual act but in fact this is what it is. Even one that contained an actual article relating to the DWP raise. The council and IBEW union are people abusing and gaining control of something without someone's consent.
Don't make me come down here and give u a whooping like I did in '73 AND in '81
At least Alger had the guts to stand up to the unions.
Way to go Jim!
Villaraigosa knew what was coming.
What else did you think was gonna happen? The council and Mayor are bought off.
Comprados---Vendidos!
Estamos jodidos.
"The council and IBEW union are people abusing and gaining control of something without someone's consent."
Even a fair Republican like you would understand that. Unless you're not really a republican (like the Sam Yorty I knew) Unless you're masking as an Yuppie-elitist "Progressive"
Oh yea, blackmail was used as the power outage
Cardenas should ask for the review of work orders given to the employee claiming it was given "improper written instructions."
What a Mess
What a coverup
I hate our council
I hate our Mayor
We are f&%^ed!
I agree - Mayor Sam has never been a fan of any union, especially public employee unions.
Mayor Sam claims to be Republican, but his comments have always proven to be Left Elitist psycopath protecting AV
DWP better think twice about threats written on stupid shirts they wore. If I see you on my property I will call the authorities and sue you and get my money back from your abuse.
What did you expect from these spineless leadershipless councilmembers. They'll put the city at risk because their afraid to make the right decision. They are afraid of IBEW and will sell their own mother out. Darcy scared them into submission and poor Antonio will bend to Darcy. I'm sure no one was suprised from the vote, whatelse did you expect
For the CD 14 campaign, I was thinking of helping Huizar, because our Mayor supports him. I am so upset that I will not volunteer for him or support the sham that exists in our city council and mayor.
Their loss
You're the boss Mayor Sam. From hence forward we will only refer to what Brian D'Arcy did to Villaraigosa as buggery and we will only say that the taxpayers of this city have also been buggered by the Mayor and the union guy.
4:45 Agree with you 199%
DWP employees don't care where the money comes from, us taxpayers. Do you think they give a shit that we the taxpayer have to pay higher rates for this disgusting monopoly?
Nope!
Majority of these workers are not affected, they do not live in this area. They live in Inland Empire, San Bernardino County, and Riverside County.
"At the risk of sounding like a Democrat, I have deleted the posts that compare this to a sex crime.
It cheapens the experience of anyone who has actually been raped.
You boys will have to find some other term to express your outrage."
Here's a definition for you on what rape (I'm using this word as a verb instead of a noun which you are comparing it to.)
From merriam-webster online:
http://www.m-w.com/cgi-bin/dictionary
Main Entry: 1rape
Function: transitive verb
Inflected Form(s): raped; rap·ing
Etymology: Middle English, from Latin rapere
1 a archaic : to seize and take away by force b : DESPOIL
2 : to commit rape on
- rap·er noun
Main Entry: 2rape
Function: noun
1 : an act or instance of robbing or despoiling or carrying away a person by force
Lyn Shaw-Hilfenhaus is NOT a filed candidate. She merely CLAIMS to be running but has not even bothered to send out a fee-free 501 form.
Therefore Alger is correct, he is the only candidate for the 38th. Also, given his impressive stature, I would ignore a left wingnut like Hilfenhaus whos only claim to fame is she married a Union Boss as well.
In this definition, the force was the IBEW union strike, Possible media exposure to Mayor Villaraigosa and the Blackout that Councilman Zine referenced to.
Alger tried to steal a Kerry group but was stopped??? What kind of BS joke is that???
Here is a newsflash, Kerry lost and the rest of the world moved on. I think the fact that Alger hasn't aligned himself with the left wing communists in the Democratic Party actually make him a candidate I would consider, and I AM a Republican who happens to live in the 38th.
My Husband is a democrat, and he likes Alger as well because Alger has proven, today again, that he is beholden to the PEOPLE and not just a special interest group.
GO JIM GO and forget what these Lyn whosyamacallit fans have to say.
PAY TO PLAY, PAY TO PLAY, PAY TO PLAY, PAY TO PLAY, PAY TO PLAY
My GOD! 16.25% over 5 years. That's over 3% each year. What a crime. What an outrage.
You mean someone making $50,000 this year is going to be making $51,500 next year. What the fu-k! That's over $100 more each month. Things have gone too far!
Actually it is 16 - 32%... that is the big rub.
Not fond of the gun-to-the-head tactics of the unions either.
According to the Secretary of the State of California located at:
http://cal-access.ss.ca.gov/Campaign/
Candidates/List.aspx?view=intention&
sort=RACE&electid=7
Jim Alger is indeed the ONLY DEMOCRATIC CANDIDATE FOR THE 38th ASSEMBLY DISTICT.
Here are the search results:
ALGER, JIM
ASSEMBLY DISTRICT 38
DEMOCRATIC
ACCEPTS SPENDING LIMITS - YES
BARRIENTOS, MARY
ASSEMBLY DISTRICT 38
REPUBLICAN
ACCEPTS SPENDING LIMITS - NO
MC LEAN, SMYTH CAMERON
ASSEMBLY DISTRICT 38
REPUBLICAN
ACCEPTS SPENDING LIMITS - YES
So to the germ that wants to promote some other candidate, when she licks a 37 cent stamp maybe just maybe we'll talk about it but next time you want to call Alger out, GET YOUR FACTS STRAIGHT!
This is not AV's issue but rather an issue that was handled by Hahn. Don't mix apples with oranges!
ubrayjo2
Are you single and heterosexual?
I hope so.
Mentiroso! Liar! Anon 6:09
This is very much an AV issue, his compadres want more money to park in the hills during work hours to sleep.
More money for those Saturday BBQ's during work hours.
More money for on the job chatting instead of working.
More money for trips paid by the Taxpayer
should I go on?
What did you delete Mayor Sam, there were 41 comments, it's now 39?
Zine was saying he's worried about the 6% ceiling that can go over in the next 5 years. The fact is there are city employees with the same job titles in the same position making 20% less. That's the big issue. WE can't find money for more cops, we're building a billion dollar new hotel near Staples, Grand Avenue development and guess who will eventually end up paying? US, the taxpayers
Here is the problem w IBEW and Darcy. Its not the salaries-though they should be the same rates for all city workers-its that the IBEW has added almost 2,000 new jobs in the last 5-6 years, after the DWP GM and board had a buy out program that helped retire over 4,000 unneeded workers and which helped the DWP in retiring a 4 billion dollar debt. They keep adding these unneeded jobs while still making it impossible for managemnet to fire or promote people the way they should be allowed to. Im a democrat and a liberal but am so fed up by these public employee unions. Im pretty sure Im going to vote for Prop 75. They are not progressive and they hurt the workers ( terrible morale at these aganecies).
I'm also a liberal democrat. I never thought I would say this but
"I am thinking of changing political parties"
I JUST LOVE THIS CITY!
OK - Bobby Aquino and his thugs at EAA have gone to impasse with over 50 items to address. They've only addressed seven of those items. At this rate, the clown Aquino will again go into the next contract phase and settle right before he needs to start working on the next contract for his misrepresented members.
If Bobby and Angel were smart, and that's a big "IF", they would start talking parity. Although they lost DWP to IBEW they still have us members in the regular City who'd love to get a better deal than SEIU.
Julie's lame protest was pathetic and she was out gunned by the CAO and the collection efforts on behalf of the Katrina victims - she announced early enough for the CAO to issue a policy to all GM's and to have personnel out there taking deptartment and truck numbers along with pictures of the employees violating city policy.
I'm rambling but this city is a laugh full of amateurs. You'd have to pay for this entertainment, but we all have front row seats to this blatant self serving example of IGM - I Got Mine - mentality.
Good night - sleep well and go Booby and Angle.
I am a liberal Democrat who is outraged at the DWP contract approval. Not enough to switch parties, but enough to think long and hard about any one of our councilmembers who buckled under to this ludicrous union pressure and campaign money.
I am also pro-union. I think they have a place. Not in the public school system and perhaps they're just a tad too strong in city government.
It's getting really old.
To anon 6:09:
I have asked the same question of ubrayjo2 without ever getting an answer. So either he is gay or it isn't his picture.
Adorable, absolutely adorable.
ubrayjo2 is adorable, it is a shame if it is not his pic.
wonder why he won't comment on our question.
ubrayj02 has to be gay, has anyone seen his pathetic blog?
http://ubrayj02.blogspot.com
LOS ANGELES AREA CONSUMER PRICES
UP 5.2 PERCENT FOR THE YEAR, AND 0.8 PERCENT IN AUGUST
Check out this link for the Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI stats for Los Angeles.
http://www.bls.gov/ro9/cpilosa.htm
Congratulations IBEW members. I hope the city recognizes that the cost of living is indeed skyrocketing and provides other city employees similar increases.
LA DAILY NEWS
Big raises for DWP
City Council approves union's plum contract amid strike threats
By Beth Barrett, Staff Writer
Faced with more than 200 DWP workers wearing T-shirts threatening a strike, the Los Angeles City Council on Tuesday approved a controversial five-year contract that gives some of the city's already highest-paid workers raises of up to 28 percent.
The contract - approved 10-3 by the council - had been hotly debated for nearly two months, coming amid water-rate hikes, questions about union-wage parity, concerns about the city's labor negotiating process and threats of a strike by Department of Water and Power workers.
The deal, which takes effect Oct. 1, guarantees salary hikes of at least 16.8 percent to 8,000 members of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, Local 18.
It also includes a unique provision that ties annual raises to the national consumer price index, which rose last month, meaning workers will get 3.8 percent raises next year - already more than the 3.25 percent guaranteed in the pact.
The five-year deal is expected to cost at least $70 million, and as much as $130 million if inflation climbs to 6 percent in the future.
Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa criticized the negotiating process and called for reforms to the "outdated" method of labor-management relations "that brought us to the brink of a strike that would have paralyzed our city."
Villaraigosa, who was backed by the IBEW during his mayoral campaign, said in a statement that he supports the contract.
"Once the contract was presented to membership, anything short of approval would have been unjust," he said.
But Villaraigosa and City Controller Laura Chick said they will launch a comprehensive review and reform of negotiating policies and practices, with recommendations expected by next April.
"Too often, the city of Los Angeles has been stuck in a time warp, making decisions in the same way over and over again, without stepping back and asking is this the best way to do this," Chick said in a statement.
While supporters said the contract was a good-faith action with a union that had already ratified the contract, critics said it widens the salary gap between utility staff and other city workers doing essentially the same jobs.
"It's pure politics," said Jim Alger, president of the Northridge West Neighborhood Council, who last year was part of a grass-roots effort that forced the council to block a 7 percent water rate hike on top of the 11 percent rate increase.
"The problem is you're dealing with people who aren't looking beyond the next five minutes. I blame the council. They set the terms."
San Fernando Valley council members Dennis Zine and Greig Smith joined Finance Committee chairman Bernard Parks in opposing the deal.
IBEW business manager Brian D'Arcy applauded the council, saying the union had scheduled a strike vote for next Monday if the council had rejected the contract.
"I'm just pleased it's over," D'Arcy said. `'We wanted stability, and we wanted to have a cost-of-living increase. We've had it since the mid-`90s and it's actually a lower floor."
DWP General Manager Ron Deaton said the rising consumer price index will add about $2 million to the cost of the contract, bringing the total to about $16 million in salary increases next year.
The utility has proposed a 3.8 percent water rate hike next year as part of a 17.9 percent increase over the next five years.
Deaton said about a half-percent of that increase would go to the salary hike at the contract minimum, while the maximum would require about an additional 1 percent increase.
D'Arcy dismissed some council members' concerns about disparities with wages for other unions.
During the last fiscal year, DWP workers got a 5 percent increase under their previous contract, while about 10,000 other city workers were covered by a union that had agreed to forgo raises because of the city's fiscal crisis.
"They make choices. If I brought my members zero, I would be hanging from that rafter over there," D'Arcy said.
Since fiscal 1999, DWP workers have gotten 30 percent in salary hikes and civilian workers 25 percent - while the regional consumer price index has risen about 19 percent, according to city records.
Julie Butcher, general manager of Service Employees International Union, Local 347 - which had demanded a review of citywide pay policies in the wake of the IBEW contract - said the deal has changed the bargaining dynamic in the city.
Butcher said the SEIU and other unions will be "hard pressed to believe the city" in the future when it claims to have no money for raises.
Valley Councilman Tony Cardenas, who chairs the Commerce, Energy and Natural Resources Committee, where the contract was debated earlier, called the contract "viable and fair." He was joined by Valley council members Wendy Greuel and President Alex Padilla.
Greuel said her approval of the contract - which was negotiated with instructions approved by the council, then ratified by the IBEW's membership - hinged on concerns about an unfair labor practices complaint and the fact the utility had no formal strike plan if 95 percent of the work force walked out on Oct. 1.
In opposing the contract, Smith cited wage disparities with other unions. He noted that a DWP automotive dispatcher could earn $80,221 - 61 percent higher than the $49,903 a nonutility worker in the same position would get.
D'Arcy, however, called it an aberration, and said there was only one person at DWP currently in that class.
In an unrelated development, Villaraigosa accepted DWP commission nominee William A. Burke's decision not to pursue the post amid questions raised by City Attorney Rocky Delgadillo over other boards Burke sits on.
Beth Barrett, (818) 713-3731
beth.barrett@dailynews.com
To the poster who said "not fond of 'gun-to-the-head' tactics."
What is it you don't understand about union politics? When is it that they DON'T use "gun-to-the-head?"
That's what unions are all about.
And WHICH moron here thought ANTONIO VILLARAIGOSA would EVER not bend over and show a UNION where to insert it?
This is VILLARAIGOSA! People, please... you bought him KNOWING he was labor's puppy dog.
Get some reality going here! Now every union that does city work is in a line running around the street. If you think GRAY DAVIS made sweetheart deals - you ain't seen NOTHING yet!
Yeah, pretty hard for Antonio to be a man and take a stand when the IBEW gave him campaign donations.
How the hell is city council going to deal with the other unions when their contracts are up and they want the same exact deal DWP got?
Those moron council members were all grandstanding because the media was in chambers. They sounded like a bunch of pathetic politicans
I can't believe that Uncle Tom Bernard Parks, Antonio and Laura Chick could be grandstanding the way they did. They're directly responsible for allowing non of the negociations to take place and to ask the seriuous question and bring this to the table.
My goodness, I'm ashamed to be an Angelino right now.
Well, I did just go to Ubrayjo2's blog and he's not gay and his blog isn't the least bit pathetic. I have an even bigger crush.
He's awfully smart, awfully young, does tons of fun stuff like surfing, bmxing and hiking and he's physically beautiful.
Thanks for the link though, oh jealous man.
I'll add it to my favorite places and admire him from afar as he's too young to do anything with. Or to.
Rumor has it that several of the labor people at the CAO's office are going to be taking the fall for the bungling in the city contract negotiations. Tops among them are Menkus and Cooper. This whole smoke screen about a study to be performed by Cornell University is to serve that end. Everybody knows when the city commissions a study they already have a result in mind and the result that's going to come back from this one is that the mayor's office should handle negotiations. This will also serve to curtail the power the CAO has glommed on to.
City Hall Staffer
Some of you EAA members need to get past the third grade. IBEW Local 18 is a strong union, but they couldn't get the raise and MOU's we just won until we the employees at DWP let management know that we would walk out to the man. We watch the way you snivel like small birds sticking their beaks up waiting to be fed. Your union will never be stronger than your weakest members, just like any chain. Grow up, take responsibility and for Christ's sake stop sniveling.
Lineman
To the anonymous city staffer:
If this is true, then Fujioka loses some of his "perceived" power? Yes?
Shut Up Lisa Sarno! Joe Ramallo!
Lineman is correct. EAA members had the opportunity during the previouse negotiations to strike and they voted not to walk. BIG mistake. Remember, even when the DWP engineers were represented by EAA they were getting better deals than the rest of the City because the DWP units were willing to walk.
Those you who have not settled your contracts have to be willing to walk the picket lines if you want a better deal than those of us who have settled (Thanks Julie).
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