IBEW Local 18 (LA CA) Members To Get Negotiated Pay Increases

Thursday, August 18, 2005
Los Angeles panel gives pay increase a pass

Commission sends controversial agreement between DWP and electrical workers to the City Council
By David Zahniser
Copley News Service

The citizen commission that oversees the Department of Water and Power sent the Los Angeles City Council a controversial five-year pay package on Tuesday -- but only after its attorney told members they have no authority to weigh in on the salaries contained in the agreement.The DWP commission voted 3-1 to approve the agreement, but commissioners emphasized they were not endorsing the hotly contested plan, which provides raises ranging from 16 percent to 30 percent, depending on inflation.
"I think that we should move it forward but make it clearly articulated that we are very, very uncomfortable," said Commissioner Annie Cho, one of the four commissioners appointed by former Mayor James Hahn. Commissioner Gerard McCallum II questioned why the DWP panel has no ability to establish salaries or establish the length of the agreement -- which runs to Sept. 30, 2009. And he criticized the decision to tie the pact to inflation when fuel prices continue to rise.
"Here we're looking at gas prices going up to $3, and so we know today will not look like tomorrow," he went on. "Yet we're going with five years (of pay increases), with a different mayor, with a different commission." Two weeks ago, McCallum and his colleagues tried to postpone a vote so that the agreement could be decided by the new appointees of Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, who defeated Hahn and has criticized the pay package. Tuesday's vote provided the latest twist in the debate over the pay agreement, which was reached between city negotiators and 8,000 utility workers represented by International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 18. DWP General Manager Ron Deaton said the city charter gives only the City Council the power to establish salaries of DWP employees, not citizen commissioners. The agreement, which provides annual raises of at least 3.25 percent, has infuriated workers from other municipal unions who went without a raise last year in order to help the city through difficult financial times. The package also has drawn fire from neighborhood leaders, who had protested an 11 percent water rate hike carried out by the DWP last year.
Brian D'Arcy, who heads IBEW Local 18, did not respond to a request for comment. But hours after the panel voted, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa said he did not know that the commission had been deemed powerless to weigh in on the salaries of its employees. "All I can tell you is that I was not aware of it until you just mentioned it," the mayor told reporters. "But the important thing right now is that the council has an opportunity to act on it, and once they do, I'll weigh in." Villaraigosa has criticized the magnitude of the agreement but has also said he fears that any attempt to change it would prompt complaints that the city had committed an unfair labor practice. The agreement has already been approved by the members of IBEW Local 18. Councilman Dennis Zine said he had not seen the agreement, even though the executive employee relations committee -- a panel he serves on -- discussed the DWP negotiations on June 13. The panel referred the matter to the full council, which on June 28 gave direction to the city's negotiators on how to proceed.
Asked if he gave the instructions allowing the DWP pay package to be crafted, Zine said: "I'd say there was a discussion. I can't go into detail because it was EERC, but there was a discussion. I'll leave it at that." But former Councilwoman Cindy Miscikowski, who attended the council's DWP salary discussions, said Deaton and City Administrative Officer Bill Fujioka were "as strong as they could be" in telling council members, during closed-door discussions, of the need to support the proposed deal.
Fujioka and Deaton both pointed out that the union had the power to walk out if the agreement was not approved, she said. "There was an indication that ... the threat potentially was real, that the council didn't have many options to keep the (DWP) running if that were to occur," she said. "In light of a very hot season and power outages starting to occur, they'd have us over a barrel."