Labor relations officer sides with L.A. on employee pension cuts

A Los Angeles employee relations official delivered a stinging defeat to city labor leaders on Thursday, saying they failed to meet a procedural deadline for challenging a rollback in public employee pension benefits last year.

In a 23-page report, Hearing Officer Luella Nelson recommended that the Employee Relations Board, a five-member panel that decides labor disputes at City Hall, dismiss a challenge to the City Council’s decision to cut pension pay for employees hired after July 1.

Council members voted in October 2012 to roll back the size of pensions and hike the retirement age for workers to receive full pension benefits. That initiative, which applied only to new hires, is supposed to save the city up to $4.3 billion over 30 years, according to city budget officials. But it drew fierce opposition from the Coalition of L.A. City Unions, who argued that the council had violated the city’s labor relations law by approving the changes without formal labor negotiations.

If the employee board upholds Nelson’s recommendation, the union coalition would have little recourse but to sue to overturn it. If the board rejects it, Mayor Eric Garcetti and the City Council would need to decide whether to wage their own court challenge.

Representatives of the coalition said they could not comment because they were still reviewing the report. City Administrative Officer Miguel Santana, the high-level budget official who recommended the pension changes, welcomed the report and called the pension cuts “a significant part” of the city’s effort to reduce a longstanding deficit.

“The report chronicles in extensive detail the numerous attempts the city made to build a consensus on a new pension plan with our civilian bargaining units, as we did successfully with police officers, firefighters and DWP [Department of Water and Power] workers,” Santana said. “Unfortunately, we could never get beyond the discussion of whether formal negotiations were required.”

The pension rollback last year drew boisterous protests from city workers, who compared then-Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa -– a backer of the pension cuts -- to Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, known for having an antagonistic relationship with organized labor. As the issue was debated, union activists at City Hall donned the “cheese-head” hats favored by Green Bay Packers fans and interrupted one council meeting with shouts of “We are not Wisconsin!”

After holding three days of hearings and reviewing scores of documents, Nelson concluded that the coalition did not file its challenge within 90 days of learning that the city intended to unilaterally impose the new pension reductions.

Those findings set the stage for a potential legal battle over the city’s pension costs.

The pension plan targeted non-public safety employees, such as gardeners, clerk typists and tree trimmers. Under the plan, spouses of retired workers would no longer be eligible for city-funded healthcare.

When it was approved, the hike in the retirement age was backed by Garcetti, who voted for the changes as a councilman. A spokesman for Garcetti did not respond to a request for comment on the matter.

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Twitter: @davidzahniser

david.zahniser@latimes.com