Mayor Set to Battle Labor Allies

Their two-day strike, planned for Tuesday and Wednesday, threatens to disrupt services at the airport, in the Police Department and at the city's sewage treatment plant -- and, if other union workers honor the picket lines, it could affect scores more.

Beyond that, the strike draws new attention to the increasingly dominant place of public employee unions in local politics and risks embarrassing the mayor as he is poised to preside over the first significant walkout of municipal employees in a quarter-century, a period in which Republican Richard Riordan enjoyed relative labor peace, disrupted only by a Department of Water and Power strike in 1993 (DWP workers are public employees but are not paid from the city's general fund) and a walkout of 16 pilots at the Port of Los Angeles in 1997.

Democrat James K. Hahn, who served from 2001 to 2005, presided over even more placid labor times.

Already, the new threat has caused some disruption. The Police Commission met in emergency session Friday to consider the union's protest permit requests. Villaraigosa rescheduled a lobbying trip to Sacramento in order to be back in town when his employees walk out. And the city attorney's office is poised to ask a judge today to issue a restraining order that would require employees in essential jobs to report to work.

"Public safety and public service will be delivered," City Councilwoman Wendy Greuel said.

As odd as it may seem for Los Angeles' labor Democrat mayor to be facing off against his union allies, the conflict offers vivid evidence of the changed expectations for America's progressive city leaders -- and the expected walkout could actually end up benefiting the mayor against whom it is directed.

There was a simpler time for liberal mayors of America's big cities, a time when patronage trumped most other priorities. Tammany Hall supplied jobs to its legions of New York City supporters; the first Richard Daley staffed Chicago with loyal Democrats; breakthrough mayors such as Maynard Jackson in Atlanta and Tom Bradley in Los Angeles made their mark, in part, by opening their city workforces to African Americans.