Police Accept $50-Million Pact Offer

Los Angeles police officers have overwhelmingly approved a $50-million contract proposal offered by city leaders, sending the deal to the City Council for consideration later this week, the union announced Monday.

Los Angeles Police Protective League members approved the contract package 10 to 1. In contrast to this 91% level of support, 75% of rank-and-file officers voted against the last contract proposal endorsed by the city.

“This contract dispute has been a longstanding burr in our saddle,” said Gary Fullerton, a union director. “It’s been hurting our morale. This is one big problem that may be out of our way.”

The officers’ ratification vote of 3,155 to 317, cast in a series of sessions last week, brings the two-year dispute closer to an agreement than ever before.

The standoff has grown divisive at times and reached an impasse two weeks ago. Before the latest deal was struck, anxious city officials were bracing for a disruptive job action during the World Cup soccer tournament.

The city--torn between budget constraints and a stated commitment to public safety--started out in 1992 offering officers no pay increase. But city officials eventually came up with a $50-million package that includes a 7% pay increase, a 2% patrol incentive and a $1,500 cash bonus, the equivalent of a 12% hike spread over 18 months.

The contract would increase the salary of a rookie officer 2% beginning July 1--from $33,157 to about $33,820. The salary of a beginning lieutenant would increase from $61,658 to $62,891.

Officers’ salaries would then increase another 2% on Jan. 1, 1995; another 1.5% on July 1, 1995, and another 1.5% on Jan. 1, 1996.

The agreement, which applies only to the 7,400 LAPD officers ranked lieutenant and below, also includes $1,000 each in cash this year and another $500 next year. Patrol officers would receive an additional 1% raise this year and next, although that incentive would not become part of the officers’ pensions.

Although the deal is expected to be approved by the council, it may pass by a narrow margin. The council has delayed a vote until Wednesday to give Councilman Joel Wachs, an advocate of the deal who was out of town, time to return to Los Angeles.

“I think it’s going to pass, and I’m glad it’s over with,” council President John Ferraro said.

But there is strong opposition to the pact as well.

Some critics have focused on the mechanics of how the deal came about. Instead of going through the city’s formal negotiating committee, Mayor Richard Riordan, Councilman Richard Alatorre and others floated the deal to the union unofficially in a session at the Biltmore Hotel--before the council had considered the pact.

Typically, contract offers win preliminary approval from the council first, then go to the membership for ratification. The full council always makes the final decision.

The critics of the deal also contend that it is too costly, will drastically cut back the mayor’s effort to beef up police patrols and is liable to stir up other city employees who are being offered lesser deals than police officers.

In an open letter to Riordan distributed Monday, Councilman Marvin Braude predicted dire financial consequences if the deal is approved.

“Mr. Mayor, we all hope and pray our city will become safer and that the economy will grow and generate more jobs,” Braude wrote. “But what is the reality? There simply is no money for what you promise.”

But Alatorre, who appeared with union leaders at the news conference Monday, called the deal “a fair contract (that) is not going to bankrupt the city of Los Angeles.”

Among the most controversial aspects of the plan is the $1,500 in cash, which the city is calling a “signing bonus” or “equipment bonus.”

Other unions, however, regard that money as a backhanded way for the city to give officers retroactive pay--as the officers have demanded--for the two years they have worked without a contract. However, if the city called the cash bonus “retroactive pay,” hundreds of other city employees would be legally entitled to it as well.

Behind the scenes, council members have been working out an agreement to give other unions some sort of bonus as a sign of good faith. That proposal is expected to be made before Wednesday’s council vote.

“It’s fairness--plain and simple,” said Councilman Mark Ridley-Thomas.

Meanwhile, the proposal approved by the Police Protective League has prompted other unions--such as those representing firefighters and police officers ranked captain and above--to push for a comparable deal.

“We’re outraged,” said Julie Butcher, a spokeswoman for Local 347 of the Service Employees International Union, which represents 5,500 blue-collar workers. “We think we do essential jobs as well. Police officers are absolutely essential, but picking up garbage is essential too.”

Earlier this year, the blue-collar workers settled on a four-year contract with no salary increases at all. There is a proviso, however, that allows that union to reopen the contract next year.

While not faulting police officers for the deal they received, Butcher blamed the city for misleading other unions and said the police deal may prompt other bargaining units to use some of the same aggressive tactics that officers employed--erecting billboards critical of the city and staging high-profile job slowdowns, sickouts and protests.

“It looks like in-your-face labor negotiations are how we’re all going to have to operate,” she said.

Councilman Zev Yaroslavsky, the council’s budget expert, said he intends to vote against the deal for precisely that reason. He especially condemned a recent threat by union leaders to release embarrassing personal information about city leaders if they did not support a sufficient contract.

“The tactics that were used by the Police Protective League were unprecedented,” said Yaroslavsky, who leaves the council in the fall to join the County Board of Supervisors. “But they will set a precedent for the future. The word on the street now is if you want to get your way, you embarrass the city.”