Ethics Panel Probes Union Allegations : Government: Three officials claim they were pressured by their bosses to make a $5,000 union contribution to a councilman.

City ethics authorities are investigating an allegation that three leaders of a municipal employees union were improperly pressured at work by their superiors to have their union make a $5,000 contribution to Los Angeles Councilman Richard Alatorre.

The alleged pressure came at a time when the union’s contract was being considered by an influential negotiating panel to which Alatorre belongs. The Municipal Construction Inspectors Assn. contract is still on the table.

One union leader said he was strongly urged to contribute by Richard Sanchez, a chief inspector in the city’s Building and Safety Department, three days before a Jan. 14 Alatorre fund-raiser at Sanchez’s Northridge home.

The allegations were detailed in an unfair labor practices complaint filed with the city Employee Relations Board, an agency that adjudicates collective bargaining disputes at City Hall.

Since then, the complaint has been referred for investigation to the city Ethics Commission, said City Administrative Officer Keith Comrie. In a letter last week to the employee relations board, Comrie said the Ethics Commission has begun a preliminary probe, as have the city’s Building and Safety Department and Board of Public Works.

City officials say the Ethics Commission’s concerns may deal with laws that forbid knowingly soliciting campaign contributions from public employees; using city offices, phones or other property to assist in such solicitations, or soliciting during working hours.

City Ethics Commission chief Ben Bycel refused to comment on his agency’s inquiry.

The official complaint does not mention Alatorre or allege that he knew of any improper solicitations. The councilman’s press deputy, Liz Chavez, said her boss knew nothing of the allegations and could not comment.

Union leader Mike Gruett, a senior building inspector, told The Times that he was contacted at his Mid-Wilshire office during work hours on Jan. 11 and was asked to meet with Sanchez at his office.

“He told me he wanted to talk about a matter unrelated to my work,” Gruett said. “He said a member of our board had committed to make a $5,000 contribution to Alatorre, that the councilman knew about it, and that we would lose face unless we followed through with the contribution.”

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Gruett said Sanchez’s appeal came only hours before a meeting of the association’s board of directors, whose approval would have been required for such a contribution.

“He said, ‘We know you can’t buy votes, but you are aware that Mr. Alatorre sits on the EERC (the Executive Employee Relations Committee, a panel that guides the city’s negotiations with its unions) and that you have a contract proposal pending before the EERC,” Gruett said.

“The way it was said was that this councilman had considerable influence and it wouldn’t hurt to make a contribution and a good, big, fat one at that,” Gruett said.

Louie Botticella, another union leader identified in the complaint as being the target of pressure from his superiors, refused to comment. Ted Marko, the third union leader cited, did not return calls seeking comment.

The union did not approve the $5,000 contribution at the Jan. 11 meeting. Instead, the union’s 15-member board voted to approve filing the complaint after Botticella, Marko and Gruett alleged that they had been approached by the managers.

The complaint is signed by Marko, president of the 800-member union.

It accuses three managers of exercising improper pressure. Sanchez did not return several phone calls seeking comment. A second manager, Robert J. Martin--chief of the Department of Building and Safety’s Bureau of Community Safety Administration--refused to comment.

The third, Charley Mims, a middle manager in the city’s Bureau of Contract Administration, denied Thursday that he had pressured Marko to contribute to the Alatorre fund-raiser.

Mims said the complaint is the product of internal union squabbling, the personal troubles of one of the leaders, and bad advice from the union’s attorney.

“I never talked to Ted Marko about making a contribution,” Mims said.

The complaint contends that Mims “professed to wield influence over MCIA’s board of directors and took credit for the recent defeat of two incumbent board members who had run for reelection” in a union election held only weeks earlier.

“By these actions,” the complaint reads, “management has interfered with MCIA’s internal union business and has attempted to dominate and control MCIA by implying that MCIA’s effectiveness as a bargaining agent and the tenure of its board members depends on political support (it provides to) friends of management.”

MCIA attorney Diane Marchant said her clients were pressed to have MCIA contribute $500 to Alatorre’s reelection campaign, the maximum that it could give under the city’s political reform laws, and another $4,500 to Alatorre’s officeholder committee, whose funds are not to be used for running for city office but can be used to pay for government-related expenses.