Workers Can Keep Their Moonlighting Jobs Secret : Burbank: The city may appeal the Superior Court judge’s ruling in favor of the employees’ union, which challenged the disclosure policy.

A Los Angeles Superior Court judge ruled Friday that the city of Burbank cannot require municipal employees to disclose moonlighting jobs to their city supervisors.

Although the preliminary injunction issued by Judge Ronald Sohigian marked a significant victory for the 650-member Burbank City Employees Assn., which filed a lawsuit opposing the policy, the ruling could be overturned at a future hearing or trial on the policy’s merits, city officials said.

Senior Assistant City Atty. Terry B. Stevenson said he would consult the Burbank City Council on Tuesday to see whether the ruling should be appealed.

The policy would originally have required all city employees to submit disclosure forms revealing details of their outside employment by Thursday and to receive permission from their department heads to take or retain moonlighting jobs.

Stevenson had said the policy would have allowed a department head to forbid an employee to take another job if it would reduce the employee’s efficiency in the city job or subject the employee to injury. He argued in court that the forms were the only way that the city could get information about employee moonlighting.

Under the policy, workers would also have been barred from taking outside jobs that provided no workers compensation insurance, that reflected poorly on the city or presented a conflict with the employee’s primary job.

The employees union represents city workers other than police officers, firefighters and electricians. Union officials speculate that about 10% of the city’s 1,200 workers have other jobs.

Sohigian said he agreed with the union’s position that the city policy was an invasion of privacy and was “a far-reaching inquiry into the personal affairs of all of its employees.” He added that the policy was too broad and general, and that a “reasonable, moderate, more focused and less intrusive effort to gather data and establish sensible procedures” would not present the same legal problems.

The judge also said the city should have negotiated with the union before seeking to implement the policy. Union officials claimed that the city refused to meet with them to work out an agreement.

John Rubin, an attorney for the union, said he was pleased with Sohigian’s decision.

“It vindicates the position we’ve been stating to the city all along,” he said. “It’s unfortunate that we had to take it to these lengths to get the city to reconsider its position.”

Union President Neil Hancock said: “It really was an invasion of privacy, a blanket policy. Instead of pinpointing the problem, it told employees, ‘Fill this out and we’ll know it when we see it.’ ”

He added that the union was “more than willing” to negotiate a policy with the city. He acknowledged that the city has a right to protect its interests, but said narrower guidelines are needed.

Stevenson said the judge “made an erroneous decision.”

“We’re confident we would prevail on appeal,” he said. “We don’t believe a public employee has a constitutional right to engage in conflicting employment outside of the city and to refuse to disclose that employment to his public employer.”