Officials, Workers Weigh Union Bid in W. Hollywood

When West Hollywood’s fledgling city government opened for business in late November, 1984, a dozen idealistic volunteers set up shop in a converted recreation office in Plummer Park. Hours were long, space was short, eagerness took the place of experience and everyone took turns answering the office telephone.

Eighteen months later, there are few traces of the government’s freewheeling early days. City Hall now takes up the entire second floor of a flashy Santa Monica Boulevard shopping gallery. The City Hall switchboard, studded with rows of buttons, is answered by receptionists. The city staff now numbers 55, complete with department heads, assistant department heads and desk nameplates.

Authorization Cards

But perhaps the most compelling evidence of the maturation of West Hollywood’s government has been the staff’s movement, in recent weeks, toward forming a union. More than two weeks ago, 75% of the city’s work force turned in authorization cards approving an effort to join the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME). Workers, city officials and council members all expect it is only a matter of weeks before the unionization process is completed.

“We’re still working out details, but we’re pretty much on our way,” said Abby Baker, a rent control counselor who is one of several city employees on a steering committee managing the unionization effort.

The formation of the union poses problems not only for the city’s top officials, but for the workers themselves and even for the City Council, which, in the end, has to make the decisions on how the city will deal with its municipal employees.

To the city’s senior officials, the union would be a new intruder in the process of government, a force that could either be helpful or disruptive. To the rest of the city’s workers, the union would provide a stronger voice within the bureaucracy, but also could stiffen relations between them and their supervisors. And while most of the city’s council members privately support the union move, they also realize that their policies could one day come in conflict with the aims of their staff.

Already, the promise of a union has altered relations between city employees and their supervisors. Both sides have been testing each other, searching for weak spots while keeping their own guards up. Still, discussions between the two groups have been amicable.

‘It Was Inevitable’

“I think the effort to organize reflects this city’s idealism,” said City Manager Paul Brotzman, whose time has been taken up increasingly in recent weeks by the unionization effort. “In a city as progressive as this one, it was inevitable that they (city workers) came together.”

Brotzman has been the city’s point man in dealing with the unionization effort. Since December, when city staffers first began talking seriously about forming a union, Brotzman and members of the union steering committee have met on a host of concerns, ranging from the unionization effort itself to city personnel policies.

Brotzman has said he will take no public position on the union movement. “My attitude is to treat employees fairly, whether we’re in a union or non-union city,” he said. “If the employees feel the need for an organization to represent them, the attitude of the city is, it’s up to them.”

But several council members and city staffers involved in the organizing effort say Brotzman has privately indicated a preference for a looser employees organization, not affiliated with any larger union.

Favored a Federation

“Paul did not want to see them organize,” said one council member. “He wanted them to have an employees federation without any affiliation.”

Members of the union steering committee say they were given the message early on from senior city officials. “We were asked (by those officials) to keep things basically the way they are now and not bring in a union,” said Deborah Potter, the city’s Economic Development Director and a member of the union steering committee. (It has been estimated that between a half-dozen and a dozen top officials will be exempt from representation.)

But that management position was undercut in closed sessions earlier this year when a majority of council members insisted that the city remain neutral on the union question. “Our formal position is that we take no stand,” said Councilman Alan Viterbi. “It’s the right of the employees to take whatever representation they wish. We will not impede the process.”

The closed sessions occurred in January, just a month after city workers began discussing the union option. “There were several general reasons why we started talking about organizing,” said one high-ranking city employee, who asked not to be identified. “A lot of us felt that the city was being run on benevolent paternalism. We had no role in the decisions that affected us, and a lot of the things we thought were important were being ignored.”

Comparable Worth

According to Baker, basic workplace issues had been left untended. “The council had committed to a study on comparable worth, (a defining of pay based on the skills required, rather than on tradition) but that’s still in limbo,” she said. “There’s no clear personnel policy on absenteeism and other issues. Job descriptions are vague.”

Baker and other city workers say that because West Hollywood’s city government has been confronted in its first 18 months with such major community issues as rent control, development and parking, it has had little time to devote to internal matters.

“We understand that there are a lot of pressing issues,” Potter said. “But we also realize that if we don’t speak up for our own concerns, no one else will.”

Steering committee members say that in a series of meetings earlier this year, different organizing options were presented to employees. Ultimately, a majority of employees favored a traditional union affiliation.

“We researched all kinds of representation, from the kind of loose, informal coalition that management preferred to affiliation with a national union,” Potter said. “People liked the idea that emerged. With AFSCME, we have our own local, but we can also draw on their national resources.”

20,000 Members

The union represents 20,000 members in the Los Angeles region, according to AFSCME spokesman Jim Grossfeld, including non-teaching staff at UCLA, Los Angeles city government clerical workers and Los Angeles County probation officers. It also represents city workers in San Diego and San Jose. Nationally, the union is the largest in the AFL-CIO, with 1.2 million members.

A minority of City Hall workers still harbor doubts about affiliating with an outside union. Some employees, who were union members in other cities, worry that a union in West Hollywood could change the close-knit atmosphere at City Hall. “It’s a loose, easygoing place right now,” one said. “A union could harden everything up, create an us-versus-them kind of mood.”

Others are torn between a union’s advantages and disadvantages. “I’m of two minds,” said Dori Stegman, an administrative assistant. “I’m worried that maybe we’re a little too premature and that a union would define things too narrowly. But I also think we need a voice and some resources behind us.”

In the minds of some union supporters, the need for a voice became obvious in January, when the city attorney’s office drew up a resolution which would have set in place a series of rules governing the city’s collective bargaining process. Union steering committee members said the proposal, known as the employer-employee resolution, contained a number of provisions which would have aided management, including language that would have made the city manager the final arbiter if negotiations between city and union had reached an impasse.

Resolution Was Tabled

Steering committee members asked council members to withdraw the document, and in a subsequent meeting, the resolution was tabled. Councilwoman Helen Albert, who was an active member of the teacher’s union until her retirement, said she agreed with steering committee members about some parts of the resolution. “I got the impression they (top officials) wanted more control,” she said.

Brotzman said the city has been studying the steering committee’s complaints and expects to submit a new version of the resolution soon. “The ordinance is not a negotiable item,” he said, adding: “But we’re happy to listen to any suggestions.”

Council members say the maneuvering over the employer-employee resolution indicates a new relationship emerging between top city officials and the rest of the work force. “Paul is trying to see how far he can push,” one council member said. “And the employees are starting to flex their muscles, too.”

But the fact that the maneuvering is occurring in a relaxed atmosphere has raised hopes that the union and management within West Hollywood’s City Hall can work together in solving problems, instead of through a clash of wills. Already, steering committee members have praised Brotzman for allowing them to distribute union information and discuss union business on company time--provided it does not interfere with their jobs.

Chance for Teamwork

“We think there’s a real strong chance for us and top management to work as a team,” Baker said. “This city has a progressive, exciting working environment and we ought to take advantage of it.”

The final hurdle for the union effort will depend on whether city officials call a vote in coming weeks. Under state law, the city can either simply recognize the union or ask that employees vote to determine the majority preference. Both Brotzman and steering committee members have indicated that they are negotiating over which classifications of workers might simply be accepted as union members and which would have to vote.

“If they can show that a classification overwhelmingly approves the union, we’ll probably accept it,” Brotzman said. “If it’s close, we might ask for a vote.”