Deputies Reject Contract Offer

Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies Tuesday rejected a proposed three-year contract calling for a 9.3% raise and an unprecedented incentive bonus for patrol officers, setting the stage for more protracted bargaining this year.

Officials with the Assn. for Los Angeles Deputy Sheriffs, which tallied the vote, originally had been seeking a 15% pay raise over three years. Union members rejected the contract 57.5% to 42.5%.

Late last week union officials said they believed the contract would be accepted by a large majority of their 7,000 members. Those officials declined to comment on Tuesday.

The contract negotiations are being closely watched by other unions in the county, which stand to gain similar raises, and by the city, as Los Angeles police officers gear up to begin negotiations on their new contract.

The contract offer, which called for a 4% raise this year followed by 3% next year and 2% in the final year, was the county’s only pay offer, according to its chief administrative officer, David Janssen, who oversees all labor negotiations.

“We are not particularly interested in moving off our proposal,” Janssen said, adding that rejection of the contract means the county probably will return to the negotiating table. “I’m disappointed.”

Any future contract offers will not include retroactive pay, Janssen said.

Both county and union officials had hoped to avoid the bargaining acrimony that marked the last round of talks three years ago. At that time, deputies staged massive sickouts, affecting courthouses and jails, and allegedly made harassing telephone calls to elected officials. That round of negotiations followed three years without raises for sheriff’s deputies.

This round of talks has not been completely without discord.

Some of the department’s 8,165 deputies have said the contract proposal falls short in several areas, including the overall raise.

“I’m not ecstatic either way,” said Deputy Joe Trimarchi, who works at the Lennox station. “On the whole, it has its pluses and minuses.”

Deputy Richard Bowman, who also works at Lennox and is not a union member, said he was disappointed with the contract proposal because he believes the raise should have been closer to 12%.

“Los Angeles is a big county and there’s a lot going on,” Bowman said. “You have to consider what you see every single day on television . . . the dangers, the things we’re dealing with. . . . We choose to do this job but we should be paid accordingly.”

Some deputies also complain that the 2% patrol-incentive bonus, which would apply only to deputies with three years or more in patrol jobs, should have been higher and made available to more officers. The reason behind the bonus is simple: Deputies too often spend a limited amount of time in patrol before seeking promotions to higher-paying jobs elsewhere.

Sheriff Lee Baca has said he wants more officers on the streets, not fewer. Moreover, the department has lucrative contracts with 41 cities to provide law-enforcement services, and officials of those cities want deputies patrolling their streets.

Meanwhile, a group of deputies who are trying to form their own union apart from ALADS urged officers to vote down the contract. Leaders of that group, called the Los Angeles Sheriffs Professional Assn. say they can form a separate union only with an expired contract; it expired at the end of last month.

“This leaves the window to decertify ALADS wide open,” said Alex Villanueva, an organizer of the group, who said deputies’ union used poor negotiating tactics.

Janssen, the county administrative officer, said he was aware that the smaller group was pushing hard to encourage deputies to reject the contract.

“This may not really be about salaries but about these other issues,” Janssen said.

County firefighters and probation officers already have accepted a similar contract and scores of other workers expect the same raises because of the so-called favored nations clause, which allows others to receive the same pay raises.

Although their own salary negotiations with the county are months away, the Service Employees International Union Local 660 kicked off its contract campaign Saturday with a rally in front of Staples Center--a pointed reminder of the upcoming Democratic National Convention.

Local 660’s 45,000 members have already rejected the county’s 9% pay offer and the union’s leaders say their members’ pay has gone down over the last 10 years because of budget cuts. As the economy booms, they argue that the county coffers are full enough to make up for lost ground, noting that 60% of their members are clerical or service workers making low wages. They say the county has not told any other unions, like ALADS, that it does not have enough money.

“Now that we’re at the height of prosperity, now’s the time we ought to be doing something for the vast majority of county workers who make barely above the poverty line,” said Bart Diener, the local’s assistant general manager.

Times staff writer Nicholas Riccardi contributed to this story.