City Employees Ratify Budget Pact

After a week of balloting, an umbrella coalition of city employee unions representing 22,000 members has just announced those members have ratified an agreement recently struck with the city's Chief Administrative Officer. Under its terms, employees belonging to the Coalition of L.A. City Unions will have their annual cost of living increases frozen for the next two years. In exchange, members will not be targeted for layoffs or furloughs. The negotiations, which lasted months, stalled at one point when Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa seemed to have changed his mind on a key union proposal to allow senior employees to opt for early retirement. The mayor relented and early retirement became a cornerstone of the agreement.

According to City News Service, coalition workers will get a 2.25 percent bump every July from 2011 through 2013, "and a 2.75 percent increase every January from 2012 through 2014 . . . . [and] cash bonuses equivalent to 1.75 percent of their salaries in November 2011, November 2012 and July 2013."

The two largest coalition unions include Service Employees International Union Local 721 and Council 36 of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees. One union, the Engineers and Architects Association, had refused to join the negotiations and was quickly named as a group whose members the city would seek to lay off or furlough. EAA went to court earlier this month to block the accord between City Hall and the other unions.