Union Sues, Calls State Offices Seismically Unsafe : Earthquakes: Structural engineers found that Downtown building could fail in severe temblor, but California officials say there is no ‘immediate danger.’

In a case that could put the key question of what constitutes acceptable seismic risk in the courts, a state employees union sued Wednesday to close one of the busiest Downtown state office buildings as seismically unsafe.

The lawsuit in Los Angeles Superior Court by the Assn. of California State Attorneys and Administrative Law Judges pertains to the Junipero Serra Building at 107 S. Broadway, where 1,750 state employees work, and which is a frequent site of public hearings.

In December, the state Department of General Services decided to keep the building open while closing an adjacent parking structure as unsafe, even though it had been told by structural engineers that the building could fail during a severe earthquake. Still, the engineers said, the odds are that such a quake would not occur within the next five years.

Dennis F. Moss, the union’s attorney, said relying on the odds that there will not be a destructive earthquake is not good enough for the 100 union members who have offices in the Serra building as well as many others who sometimes use its facilities.

The complaint drafted by Moss declares that state officials have the duty to “refrain from occupying or maintaining any place of employment that is not safe and healthful,” and asserts that the Serra building has been determined to be seismically unsafe.

But Ann Richards, a spokeswoman for the Department of General Services, said the state does not believe that there is any “immediate danger” because it does not expect a major quake to occur immediately.

However, she said, the Wilson Administration knows that there is a potential problem and sought last year to get the Legislature to authorize the expenditure of money to retrofit the building.

“There was legislation we sponsored last year that would have addressed the problems of 107 S. Broadway,” Richards said. “That legislation died at the end of the session of 1994. But the governor in his 1995-96 budget has again proposed allocation of those funds to address the problems.”

Meanwhile, an appeal by the union to Cal/OSHA, the Division of Occupational Safety and Health of the state Department of Industrial Relations, to take action to close the building was rejected in a Feb. 6 letter to Moss from John Howard, Cal/OSHA chief.

Howard wrote, in part: “The division has historically declined to exercise authority to issue special orders for this type of statewide problem, which is best addressed either through promulgation of state remedial standards or the actions of state and local building officials who are authorized to assure that buildings are habitable.”

Moss said the letter amounted to an abdication of its responsibility and necessitated the lawsuit.

“OSHA’s response demonstrates the political nature of this issue,” the attorney said. “The agency with the obligation to protect employee safety is sticking its head in the sand in the face of the catastrophic loss of life in Kobe and the scientific evidence that Southern California is overdue for a major quake.”

The lawsuit comes at a time when members of the Seismic Safety Commission, busy putting the last touches on a report to Gov. Pete Wilson on the Northridge earthquake and its lessons, have been saying that a major problem in California is the unwillingness of state agencies to assume responsibility for enforcing seismic safety standards.