BELL GARDENS : Court Halts Move to Trim City Staff

A Superior Court judge in Norwalk has temporarily stopped the city’s move to lay off 13 employees pending a July 14 hearing.

In the meantime, employees, whose last day would have been Friday, will continue to be paid. The hearing will determine whether the city acted legally when it terminated the employees.

Superior Court Judge Lois Anderson Smaltz ordered the union representing the employees to post a $25,000 bond in the event that the court rules in favor of the city.

Union leaders, who view the court’s stay as a minor victory, say employees will go back to work Monday. Workers walked off their jobs June 13, a day after two-week termination notices were issued.

But city officials, who ordered the layoffs to help close a $4-million budget gap, are considering placing the employees on administrative leave.

The Service Employees International Union, Local 347, filed a complaint Tuesday to bar the layoffs.

Said union attorney Robert F. Hunt, “If the city was truly having financial difficulties, they should have sat down with the union in advance to explore alternatives to laying off people. The state law requires bargaining.”

The city contends it has the right to lay off workers or eliminate unoccupied positions under the contract.

“The union agreed that the city had the right to lay off employees without having to meet and confer. They waived [bargaining] rights,” said Debra Bray, an attorney with Liebert, Cassidy & Frierson, which represents the city.

The City Council, acting as interim city manager, voted for the layoffs early in June to close the budget shortfall. Yet the council revisited the issue Monday, deadlocking 2-2 on a motion to reinstate the employees to avoid legal battles.

“We are not going to risk going bankrupt because of the [fiscal] errors of our predecessors,” Mayor Maria S. Chacon said during the five-hour City Council meeting.

Councilman Frank Duran, who made the motion to reinstate the laid-off employees, was joined by Councilman George Deitch in voting to allow the workers to return to their jobs.

Councilman Rudy Garcia, who was absent Monday night, did not say which way he would have voted. But Garcia said Wednesday he “would be more than glad to reinstate the employees if we had money to pay them. It’s as simple as that.”

Before the council meeting, Chacon defended the city’s decision to eliminate staff, saying the city had to reduce bureaucracy to save services.

The city has added 42 positions since 1991, while the average salary increased from $44,900 to $61,000. The average household income in Bell Gardens is $24,000, according to 1990 Census data.

All workers received 16% pay increases during that time, costing taxpayers more than $4.1 million, Chacon said. The city still has 29 more employees than it did in 1991 for a total of 156, she said.

Meanwhile, revenues from the Bicycle Card Club, which provides 60% of the city’s operating costs, dropped by nearly $2 million.

At the meeting, protesters carrying union placards chanted for employee rights.

Inside city chambers, both sides invoked the name of United Farm Workers leader Cesar Chavez--his bronze bust standing at the doors of City Hall.

“Cesar Chavez lived and died for labor rights. You know what he stood for,” Sally Ramirez, a union spokeswoman, told Chacon. “But what you did was an attack on labor across the country.”