L.A., workers reach deal on contract - The tentative agreement involving 22,000 city employees probably ends any chance of a strike. Both sides need to ratify the 5-year pact.
Officials with six unions that represent about half of the city workers in Los Angeles said Monday that they had reached a tentative agreement on a new contract, which probably ends any chance of a threatened municipal strike.
The deal covers about 22,000 workers, including trash collectors, traffic control officers, 911 dispatchers, clerks, street repair workers, librarians, some water treatment plant employees, custodians, park rangers, crossing guards and mechanics.
Although most details of the contract were not released, if ratified by union members and approved by the City Council, the pact would run for five years and be retroactive to July.
"This agreement is about ensuring that workers keep up with the cost of living as well as helping the city address whatever challenges lie ahead," said Barbara Maynard, the spokeswoman for the Coalition of L.A. City Unions, the umbrella group that represents the employees.
"I think it's a fair deal," said Karen Sisson, the city's chief administrative officer. "The city can afford this."
The unions had been negotiating with city administrators for months, but without the acrimony that usually marked past labor talks. Instead, the workers' previous contract was quietly extended for three months in June and then a new deal was reached Sunday night, only minutes before the old deal expired at midnight.
Sisson said the city used facilitators who helped keep emotion out of the talks.
The last contract agreement with a city union came after a period of discord. In August 2006, about 7,500 members of the Engineers and Architects Assn. staged a two-day walkout; in January they received a 9% raise over three years in a new contract.
Many of the workers involved in the current negotiations had been covered by a 2004 contract that gave them a 6 1/4 % raise over four years.
That raise has irritated employees and union leaders because a separate union that represents Department of Water and Power employees secured a better deal in 2005.
Officials with Service Employees International Union Local 721, the largest union in the coalition, entered the current talks with the goal of achieving a significant improvement. As recently as last December, the union talked of a potential strike and began distributing to the media a list of worker-friendly pop songs it promised to play on the picket lines.
