In Anaheim’s Elections, Look for Union Label : Politics: Mayor Hunter and Councilmen Ehrle and Simpson benefit greatly from support of city labor groups, and repay it with loyalty as council majority.

If there has been a decline in the election-year clout of labor unions, there is certainly no evidence of it in Anaheim.

From city electrical workers to the police, politicians here have courted their support as they do big campaign dollars from developers. In the past several local elections, hundreds of union workers have been ringing doorbells on behalf of Mayor Fred Hunter and Councilmen William D. Ehrle and Bob D. Simpson.

For these politicians, municipal labor endorsements have meant armies of precinct workers, and the money hasn’t been bad either.

Of the $83,822 city employee groups have contributed to Anaheim politicians since 1984, nearly $63,000 has been directed toward the continued candidacies of Hunter, Ehrle and Simpson, with the mayor collecting an overwhelming $38,610 of the total, according to campaign records.

An unabashed supporter of all city labor groups and a former police officer, the mayor said union backing has been tantamount to victory in three of four of his citywide campaigns.

“There is no higher priority than getting their support,” said Hunter, who this November will attempt to deflect a challenge from Councilman Tom Daly. “I would rather have firefighters walking precincts with me than get $50,000 from a developer. It’s called sweat equity.”

In return for their loyalty, employee labor groups--especially the associations of Anaheim police officers and firefighters--have helped assemble a consistent voting bloc on the five-member council sympathetic to their interests in contract negotiations.

At no time has the council’s labor loyalty been more evident than last month, when the coalition of Hunter, Ehrle and Simpson voted approval of an unprecedented moratorium on the hiring of outside firms to do city business.

Their votes have blocked management from seeking cost and work force reductions by hiring private companies without special consideration from the council. The votes also came at a time when the employee groups were considering key endorsements for the upcoming general election.

The moratorium vote, opposed by Daly and Councilman Irv Pickler, was described by one city official as a “classic case of power brokering” and an action that has since cinched for Ehrle and Hunter the coveted firefighter and police union support.

In the flood of local labor endorsements issued in recent weeks, Hunter has locked up labor commitments on every card and Ehrle failed to pick up approval from only the Anaheim Municipal Employees Assn., considered by most to be the weakest of the local groups.

Orange County political consultant Harvey Englander, who two years ago directed Pickler’s failed mayoral campaign, said the recent council action guarantees employee support of Hunter and Ehrle, putting an eager band of “credible” firefighters and police officers at their disposal.

For years, the police and especially firefighters have provided the necessary ground support--walking the streets distributing literature on behalf of their candidates. Their work, which extends to all facets of the campaign from securing telephones for phone banks to proofreading campaign literature, is support not easily bought and is valued more than their monetary contributions, Englander said.

“You cannot pay enough money to have a handsome firefighter knock on your door and say he is endorsing his buddy Fred Hunter for mayor,” Hunter said. “Everybody loves a firefighter.”

Both Hunter and Ehrle estimate that between 300 to 500 city employees could take part in their campaigns this fall.

The assembly of large volunteer armies has been particularly important to candidates here since the more than 110,000 registered voters are spread across a city that is roughly 26 miles long. And most every candidate agrees that there is no better form of campaigning than going door-to-door.

But there are those who have grown increasingly suspect of the roles municipal employees have played in the successful candidacies of Hunter and Ehrle, especially since the council is required to vote on resource allocations and labor contracts that directly affect the same people who have worked in their campaigns.

Chief among those critics have been Daly and Pickler, both of whom were quick to call their colleagues’ moratorium vote a case of political pandering.

“It’s clear to me that my colleagues have sold their souls to the labor unions,” Daly said a day after the vote. “It was 100% political. The employee unions wrote the script and Mr. Hunter read every word of it.”

Daly went on to call the action “one of the worst moments in Anaheim history.”

Although Hunter denies his decision was motivated by his desire to maintain labor’s support, he does admit he pushed the issue to a vote in part as a symbolic gesture meant to cast Daly in a negative light with local employee groups.

“I made Tom Daly vote that night,” Hunter said.

Daly’s campaign consultant, Lynn Wessell, said Hunter’s concern for labor’s backing “is not in keeping with a responsibility to represent all the people.”

“They (Hunter and Ehrle) have taken some extraordinary steps to lock up those endorsements,” Wessell said. “If you become a tool of any particular interest, you are limiting your voter base.”

Perhaps no one knows the power of municipal labor’s role in local government more than former Councilwoman Miriam Kaywood.

A council member for 16 years, Kaywood was surprisingly ousted two years ago by first-time candidate Simpson, the city’s former city manager and fire chief. Teaming with Hunter, Simpson plugged into the same employee-run phone banks and network of precinct walkers that has benefited the campaigns of Ehrle and Hunter.

“There’s no doubt in my mind that it (Simpson’s union support) changed the outcome of that election,” Kaywood said.

Not surprisingly, local labor leaders downplay their political influence, but a solid council record of support for labor does exist in addition to the moratorium vote.

In recent budget years, city officials have been forced to pare the city’s work force from 2,200 positions to the current 1,900. But the bulk of the cuts have been absorbed through attrition, leaving the number of actual layoffs at only six employees.

Anaheim Municipal Employees Assn. President Sharon Ericson said layoff notices could have been sent to as many as 40 city employees, but through a series of reclassification moves the number of layoffs was kept to single digits.

A longtime supporter of Hunter who worked the phones at the mayor’s headquarters on election night two years ago, Ericson remains a Hunter backer.

While there have been significant program cutbacks citywide, the Hunter-led council has managed to maintain the Fire Department at roughly full operation while recently adding six positions to the Police Department’s gang detail. Anaheim funded the police expansion by raising hotel taxes and diverting the additional money to the department.

The policeman-turned-mayor has also pushed for increased health benefits for retired officers and with his colleagues supported a recent shift change that allows officers to work 12-hour days in exchange for four days off each week.

The schedule change was aimed at spreading the force more efficiently throughout the city. Since its start last spring--making Anaheim the largest police department in Southern California to submit to such a change--it has proved wildly popular among the officers.

The mayor, however, did fall short on his 1990 campaign pledge to add 50 additional officers to the department during the term coming to a close this fall, but it has not seemed to damage Hunter’s popularity.

John Beteag, Anaheim Police Officers Assn. president, said the organization’s endorsement of Hunter reflects a long “relationship” with the mayor dating back to his decade of service with the department.

Fire Capt. Terry Wilson, a board member on the firefighters’ political action committee, says employee support has bought his department nothing more than a friendly ear.

“By being politically involved, it opens the door and allows us to speak to council members,” Wilson said. “I’m going to be a career firefighter here along with about 220 other men and women. We just like to know what’s going on. I don’t think we make much of a difference, though, because they are going to go back in a room and hash things out the way they want to.”

Hunter, facing his fifth citywide campaign, said no candidate since former Mayor William Thom has been able to able to assemble a similar brand of campaign support.

“It’s a humbling experience, going out and walking precincts,” Hunter said. “You can only do it if you have the bodies.”

Giving at the Office

In their numbers and with their money, Anaheim employee unions have played key roles in the continued candidacies of Mayor Fred Hunter and Councilmen William D. Ehrle and Bob D. Simpson. A former city police officer, Hunter has garnered more than half of union contributions since 1984, while Ehrle and Simpson have depended heavily on employee groups to walk city precincts and man campaign phone banks.

Here’s how Hunter’s contributions compare to other current city councilmen: Mayor Fred Hunter: $38,610 William D. Ehrle: $15,177 Bob D. Simpson: $9,150 Irv Pickler: $6,350 Tom Daly: $200 *

Group Efforts

Anaheim Police Officers Assn. has provided the most money. But if the funds from two firefighter groups were combined, they would top the city employee contribution ladder: Anaheim Police Officers: $29,625 Anaheim Firemen Assn.: $18,180 Anaheim Firefighters for Better Government: $15,052 Anaheim Coalition of Interested Voters: $11,350 Anaheim Municipal Employees: $1,235 Note: All amounts are from 1984 through June, 1991

Source: Anaheim campaign contribution reports