How Villaraigosa can achieve ‘shared sacrifice’

To bridge the city’s looming budget gap, as The Times has reported, Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa is asking city unions to trim payroll costs by 10% through furloughs, postponed raises and increased employee benefit contributions.

Villaraigosa is between a rock and a hard place. I know. In Ventura, the last of our eight unions recently ratified a 5% pay cut over the next 15 months. While residents demand that employees “share the pain” of the economic downturn, it takes extraordinary political leadership to get the unions to agree.

In these tough times, citizens are quick to complain that public employees are overpaid and underworked. People are angry. Their rage isn’t confined to Wall Street and corporate bonuses -- anyone cashing a government paycheck is routinely branded a freeloader.

I understand citizens’ gripes. Yes, the lifetime guaranteed benefits offered by our public pension systems are unsustainable. But so are Social Security and Medicare. Given the recent crash in the value of private sector retirement investment accounts, that alternative isn’t looking attractive either.

I also sympathize with the complaint that public compensation packages exceed those of comparable private sector jobs, particularly in distressed industries such as manufacturing and newspapers. Sure, it would be nice for parks maintenance workers to be able to afford to send their kids to college, but unless you work for government, it’s hard to make the case they should be paid more than they’d earn from a private landscape contractor.

Yet, despite the perception that public sector pay and benefits are out of whack, we were never overwhelmed by qualified applicants. Yes, there are public agencies that offered outrageous pay packages (the now bankrupt city of Vallejo comes to mind), but most public agencies struggled to hang on to their best people. Yes, Newport Beach has no problem attracting firefighter applicants (though the successful ones still can’t afford to live there). But in Ventura, we’ve had chronic problems finding applicants who meet our standards for paramedic skills and the increasingly sophisticated demands we make on emergency responders.

From the point of view of most public employees, the public expects first-class service on second-class pay. Public agencies almost never offer bonuses, opportunities for lucrative advancement or the pricey perks found in so many profitable private outfits. While jealous citizens resent unionized bureaucrats, public servants are equally incensed at the killing made by corporate pirates, pro basketball players and video-game designers. So when a mayor or city manager asks for concessions from public sector unions, the first reaction is often, “What part of no don’t you understand?”

From Ventura’s success at employing “shared sacrifice,” let me offer Villaraigosa some key lessons as he tries to persuade reluctant unions.

Set the example. I knew that if I was going to ask for 5%, I had to start by pledging to cut my pay by 10%. You’ll still be blamed and vilified, but if you don’t lead, no one will follow. Villaraigosa already deserves credit for taking a 12% pay cut himself.

Keep your cool. Bluster, threats and getting personal are all counterproductive. Getting to “yes” requires endless patience and consistency. When a union opened a meeting with the same proposal we’d rejected at the previous meeting, I could feel my blood pressure rising. I excused myself from the table, leaving it to the rest of our team to re-plow the same ground. I apologized at the next meeting -- and kept coming back until we finally got a deal.

Failure is not an option. The people you’re bargaining with get a paycheck from the same outfit you do. They’re your people. Don’t lose your faith in them or in the process. You won’t win a popularity contest, and you don’t have to persuade every holdout. You just need to persevere until you find common ground to achieve the goal.

Of course, in my case, I had a City Council that provided consistent, principled leadership that made my job much easier. Villaraigosa has a bigger city and a more polarized political environment. But this problem is bigger than all of us. “Shared sacrifice” is the only way out. Good luck to him -- and Los Angeles -- on finding a way to enlist public employees to embrace that solution.

Rick Cole is the city manager of Ventura.