Factions in L.A. Hiring Dispute Unite Against U.S.

The U.S. Justice Department has accomplished what those who battled for and against affirmative-action programs for Los Angeles’ Police and Fire departments might never have felt possible: uniting them against a common foe.

The enemy: the Justice Department, itself.

Last week, Justice Department officials disclosed that they had informed 51 agencies across the country--including the two Los Angeles departments--to revise the affirmative-action hiring programs under which they are working.

In a letter to the agencies, the Justice Department cited a U.S. Supreme Court decision last year that, the department said, forbids preferential treatment for job seekers who have not personally suffered discrimination.

Ironically, both those who fought for affirmative action in Los Angeles, and the city, which initially opposed it, disagree with the Justice Department’s action and agree that the quota-based programs have been successful.

City officials and the attorney whose lawsuit prompted the Police Department’s affirmative-action program both indicate that they may fight the federal government in court.

Together, they fear that the Justice Department’s action could mark the end of hard-fought affirmative-action programs that have propelled blacks, Latinos, Asians and women into Police and Fire department jobs traditionally held by white males.

Although the long-term goals have yet to be reached, the departments slowly are reflecting the race and gender makeup of the communities they serve.

‘Steady Progress’

“We are making steady progress,” said Robert Cramer, an assistant city attorney who monitors the programs. “To achieve it overnight would be simply an impossibility. (But) progress has been made to achieve the goals.”

Statistics bear out Cramer’s claims. In 1974, when a lawsuit charging racial discrimination prompted the Fire Department to sign a consent decree laying out a wide-ranging minority hiring plan, there were only about 240 minority employees--blacks, Latinos and Asians--in the 3,000-member department. Ten years later, there were 195 blacks, 426 Latinos and 66 Asians, city records show. Together, they make up almost 23% of the department, compared to 8% a decade earlier.

In 1980, seven years after Los Angeles attorney Tom Hunt filed a lawsuit to force the Police Department to hire more women and minorities, the department agreed to a similar affirmative-action program. Department figures show that in 1980, there were 457 black sworn officers, 719 Latinos and 178 women, in a 6,559-member force. Today, Police Capt. Jack Smith said, there are 758 black, 1,042 Latino and 518 women officers.

“I think there has been an effort to change,” said Detective Tim Williams, vice president of the Oscar Joel Bryant Assn. Foundation, which represents 3,500 black law enforcement officers in Southern California. The organization is named after the first black Los Angeles police officer to die in the line of duty. “There has been a change, but there needs to be a lot more change.”

Black Officers Close

The departments’ goals and their actual employment levels are close in only one category, that of black police officers. According to the most recent statistics, 10.7% of the police force is black, only .4% from the goal of 11.1%. The department expects to reach that level in 1986, Smith said.

In contrast, 14% of the officers are Latino, well below the 22% goal, and 7% are female, a third of the 21% goal. Cramer said Latino officers should achieve parity in 10 years, while it will take 14 years for women to reach the goal.

The Fire Department’s goals are further away. Little more than 6% of its personnel are black, and it will take another 17 years to reach the 14% goal, Cramer said. Latino employees make up 14.2% of the department, and it will take 10 years to reach the 24.9% goal, he said.

Only 2.2% of the firefighting force is Asian. Cramer said it will be 24 years before the goal of 7% is achieved.

(The Police Department goals equal the proportions of women and minorities in the metropolitan Los Angeles area’s civilian work force, officials said. The Fire Department’s goals approximate the number of minorities in the city’s work force.)

Slowed by Proposition 13

Officials said the hiring of minorities was slowed--particularly in the Fire Department--by the aftereffects of Proposition 13, the tax-cutting initiative that caused wide city cutbacks.

“The department was doing very well until Proposition 13 came along and then they didn’t hire anybody at all,” Fire Commission President Ann Reiss Lane said. The department is currently studying further measures that could increase minority hiring, she said.

The City Council now has the option of siding with the Justice Department and revising its affirmative-action programs--or waiting to see if the department asks a federal judge to order the city to follow the department’s wishes. If that occurs, attorney Hunt and Assistant City Atty. Cramer said they will argue that the Justice Department’s ruling is too broad.

The Supreme Court’s decision--which the Justice Department cited--barred courts from ordering cities to lay off senior workers while protecting the jobs of minority employees with less seniority. Cramer and Hunt argued that the decision did not forbid minority quotas in hiring.

Hiring Goals Upheld

Hunt said that, in several past cases, the Supreme Court and lower federal courts have upheld the use of hiring goals to make up for past discrimination.

“What they (the Justice Department) are doing is being done for political reasons, to try and score some points with people who feel affirmative action is against their personal interest,” he said.