BUENA PARK : City Wins 2nd Legal Case Against Unions

An Orange County Superior Court judge has ruled in the city’s favor in a lawsuit filed by police and firefighters challenging the City Council’s action in April that imposed new labor contracts.

“We’re obviously disappointed,” said David C. Dorn, president of Buena Park Firemen’s Assn. “I’ll be taking the decision to the membership to see if they want to appeal.”

The city also prevailed in a second lawsuit filed by the Buena Park Police Assn., claiming that the city is not fairly compensating its members for sick time and holidays.

The lawsuit had asked the court to stop the city’s practice of giving only eight hours of pay and, instead, base benefits on the actual length of a workday.

Superior Court Judge William F. Rylaarsdam heard arguments in both cases on Tuesday but delayed his decisions until Thursday.

Lawrence A. Michaels, the city’s attorney, had argued in court that the council had the right to unilaterally impose the city’s last, best and final contract offer--and the judge agreed.

Because of the city’s financial crisis, the City Council imposed the labor contracts after city negotiators and association representatives could not come to an agreement.

Both police and firefighters had been working without a contract since October.

The judge “didn’t buy our argument that you can’t change the terms of an expired contract unilaterally unless you have an impasse procedure to allow you to do that,” said attorney Stephen H. Silver, who represents both associations.

“I strongly disagree” with the judge’s interpretation, Silver added. “But I do understand it, and I do appreciate the fact that the judge was prepared and gave it a lot of thought.”

The contracts imposed by the council offered no salary increases and reduced benefits, such as freezing merit increases and eliminating three out of 10 paid holidays.

The city made the reductions in benefits as a way to trim personnel costs to offset a portion of a $2-million budget deficit.

The reductions are expected to save the city about $445,000, city officials said.

City Manager Kevin O’Rourke said that the city had negotiated in good faith during labor talks and followed all the appropriate legal steps to try to resolve the dispute.

“To me, the lawsuits were strategies by the labor unions to hold the city hostage,” he said. “We were very pleased with the judge’s decisions.”