DWP Rate Hike/High Salaries Cause Half The City Workforce to Demand The Same...TODAY! (Here Comes Billy Idol To Sing)
ZD VIDEO SUMMARY OF THIS STORY
[UPDATE: SHOW UP TO THE DWP COMMISSIONER'S MEETING 111 S. HOPE ST. (DWP HEADQUARTERS) Tuesday October 2 @ 1:30pm AND TELL 'EM WHERE TO PUT THEIR RATE HIKE!]
I heard Rod Stewart - "Tonight's The Night" on the radio (union negotiations), so that must mean I'll be hearing THIS ONE tonight around midnight. "In the midnight hour...she cries, "More, more, more!" Billy Idol - "Rebel Yell"]
O.K. TODAY'S A GOOD DAY. THE DWP SHADY BULLSH*T FINALLY HIT THE MAINSTREAM FAN!
AND NOW BLOGS CAN DO WHAT THEY DO BEST: ADD THE STUFF THEY DIDN'T SAY. AND NOW MAYOR PRO-TEM ZUMA DOGG HAS DECLARED THE WEEK OF SEPT. 30, 2007, "DWP IS SHADY AS F*CK" WEEK, WITH STORIES ON ALL THE CAST OF THIS HBO/SOPRANOS STYLE TV SHOW.
Maybe I can get a quote from Joe Ramallo for one of the stories, this week in celebration of, "DWP IS SHADY AS F*CK" Week, here on Mayor Sam's Blog.
ZD says, get ready for the obligatory "all-nighter" -- pulling out some (staged reluctant) agreement; and, oh well...looks like the taxpayers of Los Angeles will be picking up the tab. They'll probably do a 5-year inflated ajdusted contract with a good "percentage increase" upfront. (But what do "I" know?)
BY BETH BARRETT, Staff Writer
09/30/2007
(Daily News) Editor's Note: If you read only one story today, I hope it will be this one. The DWP's bloated salaries, poor management and soaring rates are the most glaring example of what's wrong with Los Angeles city government. We think this is so important we've put up the salaries of all 8,500 employees here at dailynews.com.
See how your pay compares with theirs. - Ron Kaye, Daily News editor
As the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power seeks a hefty taxpayer rate hike, a Daily News review of salary data shows the average utility worker makes $76,949 a year - or nearly 20% more than the average civilian city worker.
DWP salaries are on average higher than city and far higher than private-sector workers' even as the utility has come under fire for recent power outages and another round of rate hikes: A 9%, three-year electric-rate hike and a 6%, two-year water-rate hike.
The salary disparities have emerged in recent days as a crucial issue in intense negotiations with six unions representing nearly 22,000 city workers - about half the work force - whose contracts expire today.'
[ZD: SO NOW, IT'S "TIC FOR TAC" TIME. I LIKE "NOW AND LATERS" BETTER, Y'ALL!]
Brian D'Arcy, business manager of IBEW Local 18 that represents 8,080 DWP workers, defended the pay scale and said DWP workers' jobs are unlike any others.
"It's a much more industrial environment, much tougher work, more complicated and more skill that's involved. There's not a lot of room for error over here," D'Arcy said. "Even among the clerical workers, the predominant clerical is customer service
representatives. I wouldn't want to do their jobs, take complaints."
But Jack Humphreville, a member of the Neighborhood Councils' DWP oversight committee, predicted ratepayers will resent the salary levels. "I don't think the public is going to be overjoyed," Humphreville said. "It's just another example of what's going on at City Hall with the unions dominating the political environment with huge campaign contributions."
IBEW was a major contributor to Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa during his mayoral campaign, and he signed off on its last contract despite the controversy shortly after taking office. A spokesman said Villaraigosa has not taken a public position on the utility's rate-increase request. [ZD: HE DOESN'T HAVE TO...HE HAS HIS HOMIE JOE RAMALLO RUNNING T'INGS!]
"(But the mayor) is committed to addressing the issue of parity in a fiscally responsible manner," said defeated crybaby mayoral spokesman Matt Szabo. [ZD: CAUSE THEY DON'T WANT A CITYWIDE EAA REPEAT PERFORMANCE ON TV, AT THIS MOMENT.]
FULL DAILY NEWS STORY INCLUDING COUNCILMEMBER QUOTES AND ALL THE NUMBERS/DAILY NEWS FINE RESEARCH
add to this story: zumadogg@gmail.com
p.s. According to a study by Huron Consulting Group earlier this year, the total cost per full-time employee in fiscal 2007 was $142,400 a year including health care, death benefits and disability, workers' compensation, medical services, employee health benefits and training. [ZD: Oh good! I say pull the plug on "college preparadness" and plug in the plug on vocation training for THESE kinds of jobs! DOH!]
[UPDATE: SHOW UP TO THE DWP COMMISSIONER'S MEETING 111 S. HOPE ST. (DWP HEADQUARTERS) Tuesday October 2 @ 1:30pm AND TELL 'EM WHERE TO PUT THEIR RATE HIKE!]
I heard Rod Stewart - "Tonight's The Night" on the radio (union negotiations), so that must mean I'll be hearing THIS ONE tonight around midnight. "In the midnight hour...she cries, "More, more, more!" Billy Idol - "Rebel Yell"]
O.K. TODAY'S A GOOD DAY. THE DWP SHADY BULLSH*T FINALLY HIT THE MAINSTREAM FAN!
AND NOW BLOGS CAN DO WHAT THEY DO BEST: ADD THE STUFF THEY DIDN'T SAY. AND NOW MAYOR PRO-TEM ZUMA DOGG HAS DECLARED THE WEEK OF SEPT. 30, 2007, "DWP IS SHADY AS F*CK" WEEK, WITH STORIES ON ALL THE CAST OF THIS HBO/SOPRANOS STYLE TV SHOW.
Maybe I can get a quote from Joe Ramallo for one of the stories, this week in celebration of, "DWP IS SHADY AS F*CK" Week, here on Mayor Sam's Blog.
ZD says, get ready for the obligatory "all-nighter" -- pulling out some (staged reluctant) agreement; and, oh well...looks like the taxpayers of Los Angeles will be picking up the tab. They'll probably do a 5-year inflated ajdusted contract with a good "percentage increase" upfront. (But what do "I" know?)
BY BETH BARRETT, Staff Writer
09/30/2007
(Daily News) Editor's Note: If you read only one story today, I hope it will be this one. The DWP's bloated salaries, poor management and soaring rates are the most glaring example of what's wrong with Los Angeles city government. We think this is so important we've put up the salaries of all 8,500 employees here at dailynews.com.
See how your pay compares with theirs. - Ron Kaye, Daily News editor
As the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power seeks a hefty taxpayer rate hike, a Daily News review of salary data shows the average utility worker makes $76,949 a year - or nearly 20% more than the average civilian city worker.
DWP salaries are on average higher than city and far higher than private-sector workers' even as the utility has come under fire for recent power outages and another round of rate hikes: A 9%, three-year electric-rate hike and a 6%, two-year water-rate hike.
The salary disparities have emerged in recent days as a crucial issue in intense negotiations with six unions representing nearly 22,000 city workers - about half the work force - whose contracts expire today.'
[ZD: SO NOW, IT'S "TIC FOR TAC" TIME. I LIKE "NOW AND LATERS" BETTER, Y'ALL!]
Brian D'Arcy, business manager of IBEW Local 18 that represents 8,080 DWP workers, defended the pay scale and said DWP workers' jobs are unlike any others.
"It's a much more industrial environment, much tougher work, more complicated and more skill that's involved. There's not a lot of room for error over here," D'Arcy said. "Even among the clerical workers, the predominant clerical is customer service
representatives. I wouldn't want to do their jobs, take complaints."
But Jack Humphreville, a member of the Neighborhood Councils' DWP oversight committee, predicted ratepayers will resent the salary levels. "I don't think the public is going to be overjoyed," Humphreville said. "It's just another example of what's going on at City Hall with the unions dominating the political environment with huge campaign contributions."
IBEW was a major contributor to Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa during his mayoral campaign, and he signed off on its last contract despite the controversy shortly after taking office. A spokesman said Villaraigosa has not taken a public position on the utility's rate-increase request. [ZD: HE DOESN'T HAVE TO...HE HAS HIS HOMIE JOE RAMALLO RUNNING T'INGS!]
"(But the mayor) is committed to addressing the issue of parity in a fiscally responsible manner," said defeated crybaby mayoral spokesman Matt Szabo. [ZD: CAUSE THEY DON'T WANT A CITYWIDE EAA REPEAT PERFORMANCE ON TV, AT THIS MOMENT.]
FULL DAILY NEWS STORY INCLUDING COUNCILMEMBER QUOTES AND ALL THE NUMBERS/DAILY NEWS FINE RESEARCH
add to this story: zumadogg@gmail.com
p.s. According to a study by Huron Consulting Group earlier this year, the total cost per full-time employee in fiscal 2007 was $142,400 a year including health care, death benefits and disability, workers' compensation, medical services, employee health benefits and training. [ZD: Oh good! I say pull the plug on "college preparadness" and plug in the plug on vocation training for THESE kinds of jobs! DOH!]
Labels: mayor antonio villaraigosa
Posted by Zuma Dogg @ 9/30/2007 11:48:00 AM
26 Comments:
"defeated crybaby mayoral spokesman "
Only defeated crybaby I see is a Mutt in exile lobbing his bullshit from Ohio.
Go fuck with their politics and maybe when your all grown up you'll know what the fuck your talking about. Defeated, crybaby puppy.
Who needs this fucking blog? We can get this shit from Dailynews.com!
Some of these people are emergency workers who need to be available 24/7 for outages, broken pipes, etc. I see them all the time at odd hours. But what business do a bunch of useless, uneducated whiners who have wasted countless man-hours of city staff have criticizing anyone.
It's disgusting the way these workers have their names posted along with their salaries. The did not sign on for that sort of public disclosure when they took their jobs. Shame on Beth Barrett, pushy pushy reporter if ever there was one.
The D N public comment on this topic includes some workers irate about this violation of their privacy. Now any busybody neighbor can learn not only a job salary range on average, but THEIR income.
One guy is also worried about ID theft -- ANY info online is one part of the puzzle crooks need.
I hope these employees sue the Daily News.
I'd like to see Beth Barrett and the other D N snoops post their own salaries, ages and other identifying information BEFORE they do this for their victim/ subjects.
Here he goes again, ZD, intrepid reporter, explaining the obvious.
Did he discover DWP?
Why doesn't any DWP employee tell us about the nepotism at the DWP where jobs are awarded to relatives and friends. The engineer title is given to employees who have not engineered or designed anything at the DWP. The engineering and design work at DWP is done by outside engineering contractors, a few DWP engineers supervise the engineering work and many "engineers" at DWP are technicians receiving an engineer’s wage.
If the jobs at DWP are so terrible why are they mostly given to friends and relatives and not the most qualified applicant? Of course employees at the DWP stay a very long time because they know they can't get such an easy and high paying job elsewhere.
And only a small percentage of DWP employees actually work around any high voltage danger.
2:11pm,
Chandler Voice: Did I SAY I discovered DWP? Maybe some people are outside the Daily News distribution area. (It isn't as wide as LA Times.) Am I allowed to blog like the rest of the world? Anyway, the Daily News story is ONE post about DWP and I have been making them throughout...with WAY more to come. And YOU know the DN/LAT/Mainstream can't cover things the way bloggers can. Otherwise, you and everyone else wouldn't be reading blogs.
My worst fears have been confirmed, the DWP is corrupt and full of employees being overpaid. I know Mayor VillaSalinas is responsible for the corrupt and lazy union employees at the DWP. The mayor and the illegal aliens are ruining the city; I remember when the DWP was an organization with pride and ethics. The old DWP had hard working people before Mayor V. ran the city. When we get a new Mayor the DWP will return to the lean, mean and efficient it was before.
MAV responsible for union employees? How 'bout exempt employees?
Anon 5:10 - Your worst fears may have been confirmed, but so have mine:
ZD is the Mayor Pro-Tem. That means that Mayor Sam is fleeing the coop and leaving us in the hands of this delusional illiterate maniac.
That being the case, I am going to segue over to LA Observed, Six Meat Buffet and Theo Spark, all three of which have good content that has proper spelling, grammer, is cogent, understandable and does not have a delusional fool at the tiller.
"grammar"
Of course I suspected this all along, but to read these numbers just makes me sick.
The highest paid city employee is on medical leave? Isn't that just fucking typical and indicative of the entire disgusting mess that is the DWP.
We need to throw the bastards out and privatize the entire fucking system!
Gee how funny when clowncil wanted police officers to disclose all their information they said the public has a right to know. How does it feel DWP? Not very nice is it having everyone know your business. But the problem with polie officers is gang bangers can find out if those disclourses become public and there have even been movies done on how some police officers have been killed cause a suspect found out all their personal information because some low life politican thought the public should know. Let's post the financial info on all politicans, how much they make, IRS filings, addresses, where their kids work and make etc. Two way standard
The salaries of all governmental employees is public information. The taxpayers have a right to know how their money is being spent. Newspapers have printed this information for decades. To get it, they make a request citing the State Public Records Act. DWP knew they had to make the information public. I can understand why the people getting paid this much wouldn't want it to be public information, but that's the trade-off for having well paying job that you couldn't be fired from unless you became a serial killer. If you want to have some fun, write to the Chief Legislative Analyst and the City Controller and ask for the salaries of the staffers in the Mayor's Office and the City Council Offices.
Attention everyone get your popcorn and a large coke and watch the biggest pay to play show before your eyes starting Mayor Villar and the Unions.
If, you missed part one remember a few months after is election the Mayor paid back Brain De arcy the Leader Ibew.
DWP IS A FAILURE!!!!
DWP IS A FAILURE!!!!
DWP IS A FAILURE!!!!
DWP IS A FAILURE!!!!
DWP IS A FAILURE!!!!
Sorry crybaby...California Supreme Court has ruled that local governments must reveal employee salaries recently.
California Supreme Court Said...Local governments have a legal obligation to make public what they are paying virtually any employee, unless it is a police officer who can make an extraordinary showing that the release of the information would pose a safety threat. (08/27/2007)
MercuryNews.com said...In a ruling likely to ripple through city halls across the state, the Supreme Court overwhelmingly rejected the argument of public employee unions that salary information should be privileged under privacy protections. The justices sided with media organizations, including the Mercury News, which have argued that the public's right to know what it pays government workers outweighs privacy concerns.
Chief Justice Ronald George said (wrote, actually).."Counterbalancing any cognizable interest that public employees may have in avoiding disclosure of their salaries -- is the strong public interest in knowing how the government spends its money."
So in celebration of “DWP is Shady As Hell Week”, let’s do some basic information requests on everyone making over $100,000 at DWP!!! And if the requests are denied...we can sue they ass!
And ZUMA DOGG will be advising the City Council and city staff that the ruling means such information must be disclosed by name and salary -- any employee -- regardless of what they earn.
Simply on the realest...dough.
zumatimes.com
zumadogg@gmail.com
Employee/Job Title Annual/Salary
RAMALLO,JOSEPH MANUEL/EXEC ASST TO THE GM/$167,478.48.
Didn't Joe work for Villaraigosa before DWP?
DWP hike rate/Bullshit!!
First let's get these assholes to work..these guys spend hours at a time a sleep under brigdes, i have counted 10 guys kicking it, from 2-3 hours.. @ $20.00 per hour
that $600. daily,,, hiring Aliens seems like a good ideal after all?
Ramallo is Villar's former campaign communications director What does he know about running a DWP?
The public should refuse the DWP rate hike until DWP cuts some of those high-end salaries, gets rid of the nepotism and friendotism going on there, bumps untrained managers (friends and campaign managers of politicians), and provides more efficient service. And for cripes sake, no hiring of former gangmembers who I don't want anywhere near my house much less in my back yard.
What else did you say you were going to concoct a "lawsuit against the city for" now, mutt matt dogg? Don't they need some fleas there in Cleveland? Fleas falling into their apple pies, that spies are being paid to watch you eat because you're so (self) important? The three maniacs and racists on this blog urging you on are going to get you into read trouble, but why should they care?
To idiots who argue that because cops' salaries are now posted, means the DWP employees' should be too: real Zuma logic there. These workers had nothing to do with it.
Maybe next time your power goes out and no one shows up, ask a fleabag dogg and his mate matt to fix it. I'm sure they'll post their lack of salaries, no problem, it will serve you right to sit there in the dark with no water or power. Just a pair of homeless bums ranting and rapping in front of your house.
The bitterness and fearbased hatred of others jumps out of this blog.
Its not the guy who comes to your street to fix the lines in a storm that makes $167,500 a year...its the guy who sends him there. The guy making $167,500 a year NEVER GETS WET!
A REAL idiot said..."To idiots who argue that because cops' salaries are now posted, means the DWP employees' should be too: real Zuma logic there."
YOU are the one not using logic. Well, actually you are; but it's faulty logic.
It's a CALI SUPREME COURT RULING, Actually. And the ruling did not say, because we show cop salaries, we can show DWP salaries.
You must work for the mayoral takeover team...why else would you be defending no accountability.
YOU KNOW YOU ARE WRONG...WHY ARE YOU DEFENDING "WRONG". You have consitently used faulty logic and non-parellel analogies since the day I started to recognize your patterns. YOU ARE SUCH A LOSER.
Go ahead and privatize DWP. You'll see your rates climb faster than you can wink. Edison & PG&E are salivating to take over this business. Even the CPUC will enjoy a rate hike for once! FYI, DWP has not not had a rate hike in decades. Its infrastructure is crumbling. It reduced its workforce twice in the nineties. The emissions of coal & fossil-fuel generating stations affects your health and those of our children's. That's why DWP must invest in renewable energy and to do so requires funding.
DWP employees are dedicated and hardworking. Please do not paint a broad brush when you criticize the ones who do not deserve to be working at DWP (yes, we have those problems here too). But majority of our employees perform their work as expected and keep your power on and your water running. Heat storms, rain storms, winds and floods, our folks risk their lives to deliver the service you deserve. I've worked for both the City and DWP. The utility business is dramatically different. We face many regulations, including the demand for renewables, safety issues, and we have severe workforce challenges. Running a utility is no joke. Even with high salaries, we can't attract the skilled workforce that we need. Need a job? Look at our job openings and apply your heart out. If you qualify and pass the cumbersome civil service exam, we'll welcome you into the DWP family and get you working. And mind you, our jobs are not easy. If you're looking for easy jobs, then you can't be at DWP.
P.S. BTW, we serve the rate payers, not the tax payers.
11:31pm,
Nice post. It didn't go un-noticed. It is the best argument on behalf of DWP. I agree with all that. I think the problem/concern are the few powerful people at the top who shady and corrupt everything that they touch.
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