Yaroslavsky Proposes Pay Freeze, Furloughs : Government: City faces a deficit that could reach $150 million. Union leaders see budget-cutting proposal as the opening shot in labor negotiations and accuse the councilman of grandstanding.

More than 40,000 Los Angeles city employees would suffer a salary freeze and be forced to take at least two weeks of unpaid leave every year under a proposal aimed at cutting $125 million from the city budget next year.

Setting the stage for a grim round of labor negotiations, City Councilman Zev Yaroslavsky on Monday proposed that the city eliminate cost-of-living raises and impose a “blackout” between Christmas and New Year’s Day. During that time, all but essential services would be shut down and workers would stay home without pay.

The proposal, intended to plug a projected $150-million budget gap for the coming fiscal year, also would require employees to take one day off each month without pay and would eliminate at least one of 12.5 paid holidays.

Yaroslavsky, who heads the powerful Budget and Finance Committee and sits on the city’s labor negotiating team, said the proposals would effectively reduce pay by 6%.

Mayor Tom Bradley did not endorse or reject the plan but said in a statement: “My priority is to maintain city services without raising taxes or laying off employees. That means everyone is going to have to sacrifice, including city employees. . . . Serious steps will be necessary. . . . “

Calling his proposals both “drastic” and “inevitable,” Yaroslavsky said, “These items could . . . enable us to keep all our employees on the payroll.”

Most of the city’s labor contracts--including police, fire, sanitation and clerical workers--expire June 30. The current three-year contracts gave most workers raises of 4% during each of the first two years and a 5% raise this year. The proposal would affect all city departments, including the departments of water and power, airports and harbors.

Most officials with the six unions representing city employees balked at publicly responding to the proposal, saying it was premature and improper to negotiate through the press.

“We’re concerned about these kinds of proposals out there before the opening of negotiations,” said Dave Trowbridge, general manager of Local 347 of the Service Employees International Union. “If we have to deal with this proposal, that would be the time.”

Some union officials called the proposal political grandstanding by Yaroslavsky.

“The whole thing is a political move on his part,” said Charles Leipold, business manager of Local 18 of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, which represents 8,100 city workers.

“It’s an intimidation tactic,” said Don Forrest, general secretary of the United Fire Fighters of Los Angeles, which represents about 2,700 firefighters citywide.

“He’s using the threat of layoffs to dump the city’s problems on its employees,” Forrest said. “Negotiations are a two-way street. Threatening us with massive layoffs doesn’t cut it.”

Union officials also warned that the move could seriously affect city services.

“I don’t see how the city can live with it,” said Leipold, whose union represents workers at the Department of Water and Power where a hiring freeze has eliminated nearly 200 jobs since April. “We’re down to the bare bones,” he said. “We’ve got a minimum of people trying to keep the joint together.”

Citywide, more than 2,000 positions have been eliminated by a hiring freeze.

Forrest, of the firefighters’ union, cautioned that the proposal could lead to a resumption of “brownouts,” temporarily shutting down more than a dozen fire stations around the city on a rotating basis. That tactic was tried earlier this year, but abandoned after complaints about response time.

Still, City Council President John Ferraro said the proposal is “a viable option worth investigating.”

“The city, like much of the country, is experiencing tough economic times,” he said. “It would be prudent to consider these proposals.”

The proposal will be considered by the Budget and Finance committee, as well as the Human Resources and Labor Relations Committee before going to the full council. If adopted by the council, it would set the parameters for city negotiators at the bargaining table.

Yaroslavsky said the city’s financial condition is “the worst I’ve seen in my 16 years” as a councilman and may rival that suffered in the Great Depression. He said he will forgo his pay raise next year.

The city began the year with a projected $180-million deficit that was closed by a combination of budget cuts and new taxes. But with revenues slowed by the recession, city analysts project the deficit for the next fiscal year, beginning July, 1992, will be $130 million to $150 million.

Recently, some public employees unions have been pressured to take pay cuts. Teachers in the Los Angeles Unified School District accepted a 3% pay cut and state employees are being asked to take a 5% reduction in salary.

Chief Administrative Officer Keith Comrie said that many cities, particularly on the East Coast but increasingly in California, are imposing salary freezes in addition to layoffs.