City Council Schedules Hearings on LADWP Labor Contract

By City News Service

City Council President Herb Wesson said Thursday he wants to open up private discussions of a proposed labor deal that would delay a scheduled salary increase for thousands of LADWP workers and settle a lawsuit filed by DWP union members.

Wesson will ask the full City Council in the coming days to hold public hearings, led by the chairs of the Budget and Finance Committee and the Energy and Environment Committee, on the proposed deal -- the terms of which would ultimately impact ratepayers' bills.

Wesson's announcement came as Brian D'Arcy, the head of International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, Local 18, which represents DWP workers, told the Daily News that he has become frustrated with the pace of the negotiations and will give the city until Friday before possibly withdrawing his proposal.

Wesson said Thursday the city would now be working against an "unwritten" Sept. 1 deadline to close the deal with the union.

The contract for IBEW, Local 18, workers does not expire until 2014, but workers are scheduled to receive 2 to 4 percent raises on Oct. 1. The deal on the table now would rescind those raises and freeze wages until 2016, when a 4 percent pay hike would kick in.

The proposed deal would also bring the retirement age up from 55 to 63 and require employees to pay more of their health care and retirement costs.

City leaders including Mayor Eric Garcetti have criticized the salaries and benefits of DWP workers, who are paid the highest among city employees and 25 percent more than employees at other utility agencies.

Wesson told reporters Thursday "there are very substantive things on the table" in the proposed labor contract, and that "a significant percentage of it can be viewed as good."

Wesson hopes public hearings will facilitate a "middle ground" between union leaders and Garcetti, who rebuffed the union's proposal last month.

"Inaction will only continue to increase the costs of our DWP employees, and in turn, increase the costs to the ratepayers, residents and businesses of this city," Wesson said in a letter addressed to the mayor and D'Arcy.

Wesson said today he has also spoken with Garcetti about the public hearings, which will include a study of the "pros and cons" of the labor proposal by the city legislative analyst.

Garcetti's spokesman, Yusef Robb, said today the mayor's office is "pleased to see a comprehensive and public analysis of how the DWP operates and its salaries, pensions, healthcare, work processes, pay disparity -- soup to nuts, top to bottom."

The union has also offered to settle a pending lawsuit as part of their proposed deal. City leaders are in the midst of settlement talks with the DWP pension board's union representatives who say the utility's pension system should not have to pay $183 million in retirement benefits to several hundred city employees reassigned to the utility's account books during a budget crisis.

Wesson told reporters today he did not want to risk the "possibility that things may not go in our favor."

"If we lose, then that's damn near $200 million," he said.

Garcetti said last month he "won't be pushed" into a deal and wants a plan that would result in "substantial pension reform" at the electricity and water utility.

Garcetti criticized the DWP's "antiquated work rules that cost people a lot" and said there was a "disparity between people who do the exact same work in two different locations in the city ... versus the DWP where those salaries are much higher."