A Sense of Security for Workers : Workplace: Council grants permanent posts to 84 temporary employees who have been on the payroll for a year or more.

Eugene Malapira, 40, has spent the last four years working for an employer who gave him no paid sick leave, no paid vacation and no medical benefits.

Kenneth Graham, 23, has had the same employer and the same lack of benefits. With a wife and two children to support, he has stayed on the job for nearly four years.

“Since I’ve been here I haven’t missed a day,” he said. “They call me every time they need somebody, even in the evenings and at midnight.”

Graham and Malapira don’t work in sweatshops; their employer is the Pasadena Water and Power Department.

For years, the city kept dozens of laborers like Malapira and Graham in jobs labeled temporary--which translates to no benefits.

On Tuesday, the City Council put a stop to the practice. At the insistence of Councilman Isaac Richard, the council granted Graham, Malapira, and 82 others who have been with the city longer than a year, permanent jobs with full benefits.

“We’ve got a moral obligation in the city to recognize raw and unmitigated exploitation,” Richard said. “We’ve gotten them cheap long enough. Let’s just hire them.”

The change does not affect 136 temporary workers who have been with the city for less than a year.

City Atty. Victor Kaleta said the 84 workers will have to pass merit system tests before becoming permanent city employees. But Councilman Rick Cole said tests would be just a formality because the workers have already demonstrated their competence.

Councilman William Thomson said the action would be a one-time-only change to “compensate for past offenses.”

Richard, the newly elected District 1 councilman, objected last month to the city’s use of temporary help when he discovered the city had 220 temporary employees, most of them minorities, among its 2,000 workers.

Human Resources Director Sue Whitfield said many of the temporaries were unskilled workers given on-the-job training in the MASH program, Maintenance Assistance Services to Homeowners.

Under the federally funded program, city workers make minor repairs and spruce up homes belonging to low-income residents. MASH workers often continue job training in other city departments, Whitfield said.

Under city rules, temporary on-the-job training is supposed to last only one year. But the city has 47 MASH employees who have been employed longer, Whitfield said.

Other temporary workers fill vacancies in various city departments when special projects arise or jobs open up because of sick leave, maternity absences or departing employees. Those workers are limited under city rules to employment lasting no longer than six months. But another 37 workers have been with the city longer than that, Whitfield said.

“The temporary employment program was not monitored well,” Whitfield said.

But Richard accused the city of deliberately creating a class of “untouchables,” temporary workers promised regular jobs. Because merit system tests are not given to temporary workers, favoritism determines who stays on the job and who gets raises, Richard said. “If the boss likes you, you get a raise,” he said.

Cole acknowledged that exploitation had occurred but said that the low-level temporary jobs also gave unskilled workers training and a chance for permanent jobs. Sixty MASH employees last year found jobs with the city or with private employers, Whitfield said.

For Malapira, the council’s vote means that a four-year dream has finally come true. “Friends would tell me to go someplace else,” he said, “but I wanted to work for the city.”