San Fernando, Union at Impasse Over Pact : Contract: The talks stalled mainly over pay. The issue goes to the City Council, which can order more talks, implement one side’s offer or do nothing.

The city of San Fernando and the union representing half its employees agreed Tuesday that they had reached an impasse in their 4-month-old effort to negotiate a new contract.

Declaration of an impasse, due primarily to disagreements over pay raises, sends each side’s final contract offer to the San Fernando City Council for consideration at its Aug. 20 meeting. The council could implement one side’s offer for up to a year, force the two sides to return to the bargaining table or do nothing, negotiators said.

If the council decides not to act, the impasse would remain until March, when the next round of contract talks is scheduled. The pay and benefit scales of the old contract, which expired June 30, would continue to apply, but because no contract would be in effect, union members would be free to stage a work slowdown or to strike.

Local 690 of the California League of City Employees Assn. represents about 60 of San Fernando’s 115 municipal employees. It does not represent the city’s 30 police officers, who belong to a separate union, or management employees, who are not unionized.

Negotiators from both sides said money was the major reason for the impasse.

The city has proposed a two-year contract, retroactive to July 1, which would grant workers a 4% pay raise during the first six months and an additional 1.5% during the second six months, said Jane Herran, the city’s personnel director and chief negotiator. Workers would receive a cost-of-living increase of between 4% and 6% during the second year, she said.

The union has called for a pay increase of 6% for the first six months and 2% for the second half of the first year. It is seeking cost of living plus 2% for the second year, said Bill Shawhan, the union’s general manager and chief negotiator.

Tuesday’s announcement came one week after the union sent the city a letter unilaterally declaring an impasse in the talks. One union member disclosed the impasse declaration in a statement to the press Sunday, an action Herran said violated a confidentiality clause agreed to by the two sides before talks began April 13.

Shawhan apologized Tuesday for the “breach of protocol” and said the disclosure had not been authorized by the union. “That was not appropriate,” he said.