Talks to End 5-Day DWP Strike Said to Be at a ‘Delicate Stage’ : Negotiations: There is no sign of a breakthrough. Union officials say it is up to the City Council to come up with a management proposal.

Talks to settle the Department of Water and Power strike were described by all the parties Sunday as in a “delicate stage,” but there was no sign of an immediate break in the five-day work stoppage by 9,000 workers.

After a marathon 13-hour negotiating session that ended in the early morning, representatives of the strikers--the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 18 and the Engineers and Architects Assn.--said it is up to the Los Angeles City Council to come up with new management proposals.

“It’s hard for me to be too optimistic,” said Brian D’Arcy, business manager of the electrical workers. “We’ve had two long, hard negotiating sessions since the strike started, and I’m hopeful that if we get back to the table a third time they’ll be serious, and so we are at a delicate stage.”

D’Arcy said it is up to Los Angeles residents “to get the council off their ass” to resolve worker wage demands. The unions are asking for a 3.25% salary increase for both last year and this year. The council has offered 9% over the next four years.

But two City Council members who sit on a five-member city negotiating committee said the council can do nothing at this stage but wait for DWP and union negotiators to come up with a proposal that management can vote on.

On Sunday, Marvin Braude, an outspoken foe of making wage concessions to the unions at a time when other city and county workers have not been given such concessions, called D’Arcy’s comments “standard boilerplate for conflicts between management and labor.”

Council President John Ferraro said the unions are “the ones that should be moving themselves from a sitting position.”

The council can come back anytime during the Labor Day weekend if there is a tentative agreement, Ferraro said. But, he added: “I’ve been on the phone several times today, talking to our people and there’s just no reason to meet yet. There is nothing to discuss.”

But Bob Duncan, executive director of the Engineers and Architects Assn., insisted that “the council is going to have to get serious about (formulating) any meaningful offers in order for an agreement to be reached.”

Union leaders also announced that a labor rally would be held today in Griffith Park.

Meanwhile, DWP spokesman Mike Moore said the agency will send its attorneys into court Tuesday to seek a contempt citation against the unions, which have ignored a temporary restraining order directing them to return their members to work.

In an emergency, Moore said, the DWP might seek a court hearing even earlier.

D’Arcy said that in case of an earthquake or other incident that cut power in many neighborhoods, “we would send all our people back to work, in a heartbeat.”

Although Moore said the DWP had summoned additional security Sunday to respond to harassment of some of its supervisors crossing picket lines, he said such incidents had dropped off.

On Thursday, Los Angeles police arrested two strikers, one on a concealed weapons charge and the other for allegedly jumping into a vehicle of someone leaving work.

Moore said 500 supervisors were on duty Sunday. He said he did not know how many employees the DWP would normally have on hand on a Sunday during a three-day holiday.

The only outage the DWP reported Sunday involved about 80 customers in the Venice/Fairfax district, who were without water for a few hours while DWP supervisors repaired a leak.

Saturday, the DWP said 4,800 customers in the San Fernando Valley community of Sun Valley had lost power for 14 minutes. On Sunday, that was revised to 5,040 without power for 18 minutes and another 840 customers without service for seven hours.

D’Arcy accused DWP officials of not announcing all outages occurring. Moore said the DWP had been lucky that there have not been more than the ones it has announced.