Unions Take No Blame for Deficit

Labor unions representing employees of the Los Angeles Community College District have refused a plea to reopen contract talks with the cash-strapped district, saying they were not to blame for its projected $13.1 million deficit.

“We did not create the deficit,” said Yvonne Owens, president of the Staff Guild at a board of trustees meeting Wednesday. “We were in negotiations 1 1/2 years to get a settlement. To ask now to reopen, we just wouldn’t.”

Owens described the members of her union, which represents the district’s 1,000 clerical and technical workers, as protesting the idea so loudly “they are singing high soprano.”

Although the state community college chancellor’s office contends that the expensive provisions of the employees’ three-year contracts are a major cause of the deficit that threatens the district, the staff unions reject that explanation.

They blame the financial problems on decisions by the board and the district’s top management.

“I hear you all talk about this ‘we’ stuff,” Staff Guild member Sherry Green told the board at a contentious meeting last Friday. “We didn’t do this. You did this. And if the state comes in to take over, I’d like to know whether they’d get rid of you all.”

Board members did not discuss the unions’ decisions publicly Wednesday, but did so behind closed doors. Their public meeting was delayed three hours while they met for six hours in closed session.

Board President Althea Baker said after the session that the union reaction was discussed, but she would not comment on the board’s negotiation strategy.

On Friday, however, board members told the angry workers that the deficit could not be eliminated without concessions from the employees because salaries and benefits account for 80% to 85% of the district’s General Fund expenses.

District officials and union leaders differ on the amount of the raises. The three-year contracts ranged from a 12% increase for administrators, clerical workers, custodians and other service workers to 16% for the faculty. At about the same time, all employees received a 2.75% cost of living raise.

When discussing the raises, district officials add the cost of living adjustment to the contract figure, but union officials do not.

The employee groups point out they had fallen behind the wages paid at other community college districts in the recession years of the early ‘90s.

Although they rejected a wholesale renegotiation, the unions left the door open for some accommodation by agreeing to talks with the district about saving money on benefits.

Trustee Elizabeth Garfield said the unions’ decision was “totally understandable. That doesn’t preclude discussions with the unions.”

Such talks could lead to a consensus that could spawn a deal outside the contract that would save money without disturbing the raises, union officials said.

Carl Friedlander, president of the Faculty Guild, said the unions have long been willing to agree to cost-saving changes in the district’s expensive medical plans, but have been rebuffed by district management.

Friedlander accused the top managers of exaggerating the deficit to attack the unions.

If the board does not come up with measures to end the fiscal year without debt, the state chancellor’s office has threatened to send in a monitor to oversee its operations.