City Workers Plan Job Action Today : Labor: Work stoppage will stall trash collection, sewer maintenance and street repair for several hours. Officials say participants may be disciplined.

Trash collection, sewer maintenance, street repair and other services are expected to slow to a virtual halt in Los Angeles for several hours this morning as hundreds of city employees walk off their jobs to protest stalled contract talks.

Members of Service Employees International Union Local 347 plan to rally outside City Hall at 9 a.m. and then address the City Council, the same tactic used by frustrated police officers in September. They will then return to work, union leaders said Monday.

The most direct impact of the job action on residents may be a delay of several hours in some trash pickups. Also, the parking enforcement officers who write tickets are expected to put down their pads temporarily. Some City Hall security guards, custodians and window washers also will participate.

“We don’t anticipate there will be problems,” said Charles Dickerson, president of the Board of Public Works. “But any time you have thousands of employees who say they will be away from their jobs, there may be problems.”

City department heads, seeking to control the job action, are refusing to give employees the morning off and threatening to fire or discipline those who participate.

“Employees who leave work without permission will be considered as absent without leave and may be subject to disciplinary action,” Patrick Howard, director of the Bureau of Street Maintenance, said in a letter distributed to workers last week.

The letter has scared some employees, but union leaders contend that it has emboldened others to participate. More than 35 buses have been chartered to shuttle employees to the three-hour Downtown rally, union officials said.

The service workers have been without a contract since 1992. Like all city workers, they have not had a raise in more than two years. “It’s totally frustrating,” said Dave Trowbridge, general manager of the union, which represents 6,500 employees.

The union is seeking the 9% raise over three years granted to Los Angeles Department of Water and Power employees, who held a nine-day strike in September. The service employees also are seeking increased job protection to shield them from Mayor Richard Riordan’s plans to privatize some operations.

The city made an offer to the union two weeks ago but it did not meet the union’s demands. Details of that offer were not made public. “They’re not satisfied with the council’s offer,” said City Administrative Officer Keith Comrie.

Councilman Zev Yaroslavsky, who chairs the council’s Budget and Finance Committee, said the city cannot reasonably withhold raises from city employees forever. But during tough economic times, it is the only reasonable course, he said.

“I understand their frustration,” Yaroslavsky said. “They have a right to petition their employer. We will hear them. But we also want them to hear us. We need their patience.”

The service employees contend that they are underappreciated workers.

“We are the glue that holds this city together,” union leaders say in a flyer to be distributed today. “We are the workers that nobody notices unless we are not there.”