Coalition of LA City Unions

Mayor Moves Forward on Transfers; Coalition Units Protected from Layoffs This Year
City Council to Review Budget Ideas

February 4, 2010

On Wednesday, thanks to strong action by members of Coalition unions, the City Council put on hold plans to make drastic and ill-advised cuts. Instead, they will take 30 days to discuss all options, including dozens of ideas submitted by City workers.

Today, the Mayor issued a memo that he will eliminate 1,000 positions from the General Fund. But let us be clear what this means for us.

No one in Coalition units will face layoff in this fiscal year. This is absolutely guaranteed thanks to the Coalition agreement of last year. The only impact on members of Coalition unions from the Mayor’s actions today will be:

1. To open up hundreds of opportunities for people to transfer out of general fund positions and into positions on special funds or in proprietary departments, and

2. To speed up the ERIP process slightly.

These are two of the key actions we have been pushing the City to implement instead of moving forward with short-sighted cuts and layoffs. We will continue to push them to move farther on each – expediting retirements and maximizing opportunities in proprietary departments, both through transfer and contracting in of work that can be done by City employees.

We encourage people to take advantage of transfer opportunities to move into special funded and proprietary department positions, where funding is more stable. Next year will be just as difficult as this year, and members who move out of general fund positions now will secure positions on other funds while making next year’s budget picture just a little bit better.

The Coalition of LA City Unions Demands that City Officials Immediately and Fully Implement our Agreement

January 26, 2010

See the Coalition’s letter to the CAO of January 22, 2010

As you have probably heard, the City’s budget situation has worsened over the last few months, leading to dire announcements from City officials and talk of 1,000 layoffs. The economic downturn has damaged revenues even more than anticipated. However, the situation has also been created in part by a blatant lack of management on the City’s part.

City leadership has not shown the urgency or initiative demanded by the scale of the City’s budget challenges. In fact, despite the refrain of “shared sacrifice,” there has been virtually no budget headway outside of our agreement and labor agreements with other unions. Some departments and programs have been allowed to ignore instructions and go over budget, showing a completely unacceptable lack of management.

Last year, City workers came together and did our part -- making real concessions, delaying COLAs, and above all, creating an innovative retirement program to move workers off the payroll with the least impact on services, pain to the City and to ourselves. We achieved a huge projected savings for Los Angeles. However, the City appears to be falling as much as $50 million short in taking advantage of the savings opportunities from ERIP and the Coalition’s budget agreement of last fall.

We demand that City officials immediately and fully implement our agreement to achieve the maximum in savings.

Per our budget agreement, Coalition leaders met with the CAO and his staff on Friday to begin reviewing mid-year budget data, with follow-up meetings to take place this week. The Coalition plans to stay informed and engaged as this year’s budget progresses and as planning for next year’s budget begins to take shape.

See the Coalition’s letter to the CAO of January 22, 2010

See the legal letter to City on breach of contract

See the January 20 editorial in the LA Times