DELONG TELLS CITY UNION WORKERS TO ACCEPT FINAL OFFER OR HAVE IT IMPOSED
By LBReport.com
[From LBReport.com] In a mass e-mailing to Long Beach residents from his personal—not government—address and published on PublicCEO.com, Councilmember Gary DeLong writes that unions representing Long Beach’s police, fire and non-public safety employees should expect city management to declare an impasse in now-ongoing negotiations on pension changes and impose its “last, best and final” offer.
In a 9-0 vote on Feb. 1, the city council already authorized city management to make such a declaration regarding new employees, which would result in reduced pensions and a higher retirement age. But DeLong declares it’s “likely” the City won’t hire “any additional public safety employees until reduced pension benefits are in place.”
FULL COVERAGE ON LBREPORT.COM
9 Comments
This should be interesting to see how the unions react to this threat from DeLong and an earlier threat from Mayor Foster during his state of the city address. I’m not sure how this is considered bargaining in good faith, as required by law. I hope these very public threats don’t result in law suits against the city for violationg the National Labor Relations Act. I may be wrong, but it is my understanding that mandatory “take it or leave it” bargaining is an unfair labor practice.
I wonder whether DeLong consulted with City Attorney Shannon before declaring the city’s position.
(Disclosure)
I currently receive a PERS public safety pension as a service retiree from the Long Beach Police Department.
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With all due respect to Mr. DeLong and the remainder of the Long Beach City Council, I agree that public employee pensions must be reformed. The harsh realities of today’s economy require that all workers, public and private sector alike, make sacrifices toward helping to keep their employers financially solvent.
I understand -but do not agree with- the view, as Mr. DeLong alleges in his PublicCEO.com letter, that: “(i)t appears these unions would prefer to have fewer employees and reduced service levels rather than be our partner in meaningful change.”
In my view these unions are *not* averse to pension reform as part of a comprehensive program of cost reductions in the city. However, the city appears to be emphasizing this aspect of the challenge without sufficiently addressing other areas of inefficiency and cost-ineffectiveness throughout city operations.
To the best of my knowledge and personal experience, every single time city management has asked for reasonable concessions from its employee unions during lean economic times, those unions have more than done their part to help. Over the many years that I was a city employee, each time we were asked, we helped the city save millions and millions of dollars on the personnel side of the ledger. Every single time.
Just as I sometimes voted to “approve” a contract that included a pay raise, there were many other contracts that included no raises at all, or that included a reduction in benefits that we had previously negotiated for *in lieu of* the raises we did not receive.
Through his public letter, Mr. DeLong seems to be trying to either threaten or to publicly shame (or both) the city’s employee unions into agreeing to substantial pension reform. I respectfully suggest that this may not be the most constructive approach to achieving consensus and ultimate resolution.
Mr. DeLong seems frustrated and this is understandable. As an elected official he (along with the remainder of his Council colleagues) has a duty to operate the city as efficiently and as cost-effectively as possible. Other than volunteer groups, personnel costs are always the largest part of operating any organization and municipal corporations like Long Beach are no exception. It is reasonable, therefore, to seek to hold personnel costs down in Long Beach and those costs must reasonably include pension benefits.
However, even though personnel costs are the biggest slice of our fiscal pie, they are not the *only* slice and to ensure fairness *all* slices must be reduced appropriately. Right now I am not convinced that this is the case.
The city has declared an impasse and imposed wages and working conditions upon public safety employees in the past. I recall that to be a very ugly and difficult time to be a public safety employee for the city. It was a time that ultimately resulted in the departure of a significant percentage of my colleagues to various other police departments throughout the state. These were, almost to a person, senior, highly-trained and very experienced law enforcement professionals. Professionals that Long Beach taxpayers had paid a great deal to train and equip and employ only to see them seek employment elsewhere rather than continue to tolerate the wages they felt had become sub-standard and the working conditions they felt had become unsafe.
That difficult time also resulted in the departure of the Chief of Police. He was a person who many felt certain had been hired for the expressed purpose of “breaking the police union” and its considerable political influence in the community.
From the standpoint of staffing as well as morale, it took quite a few years for our fine police department and, indeed, our entire community, to fully recover from that difficult time in our city’s history. I would very much regret to see such difficult times return.
Perhaps an impasse will not prove necessary. Perhaps if city management can demonstrate to the employee unions in a reaonable and objectively verifiable manner that it is doing everything it can possibly do to cut costs in all aspects of city operations, perhaps then the unions will accept the inevitable. City management should make these efforts, however, because with rare exception, all of our city employees to excellent work, day and night, for the people of Long Beach.
Because of this our city employees deserve the best wages and working conditions we can afford to pay them. When we cannot compensate them in a manner that is favorably comparable to other workers doing the same work, they deserve to be assured that there is a very, very good reason.
Nice try, John, but until there is full transparency regarding all wages of all city workers, you’re blowing smoke. Also, it stands to reason that the reason city workers are getting fired now, is because back when days were better, the tried to suck every last penny out of the coffers they could, leaving very little “rainy day” funding for your coveted pensions.
I recall people squawking numerous times when certain wages of certain city workers being hired were made public, and those in positions of power either censored the complaints or laughed in their faces.
This is why I’m enjoying the layoffs. Bad financial management decisions by the unions made it so.
Collectively, most of you have earned this, especially the teachers.
Hi Jason, city employee wage information is, indeed, a matter of public record and fully discloseable once the appropriate request is filed with the city clerk’s office. Some folks simply do not seem willing to do what is reasonably required to access the information. Perhaps you are one of these people.
You seem a little confused about the proper roles of city management and employee unions. The unions have made no “bad financial management decisions” whatsoever. The unions are, in fact, extremely strong from a financial perspective. It is not the purview of any of these unions to make financial management decisions regarding city operations. That is rightly the responsibility of city management. So if city management has made bad financial decisions related to city operations, whether that be in the area of employee contracts or any other area, then it is they who residents should be taking to task.
One last comment concerning teachers: I think good teachers should be considered among the most valuable public workers we employ and we should pay them considerably more than we currently do. The challenge is that they are not paid any more than poor teachers, of which I think there are far too many. If we could make substantial cuts at the administrative level and do something to get rid of the poor teachers, we’d have a lot more public funds left to pay the good teachers what they are truly worth!
According to an August 2010 Long Beach Business Journal article, 574 Long Beach City employees make over $100,000 per year with the Port Director making the highest at $300,000. In 2006, there were only 166 city employees making over $100,000 per year.
At least 1,085 city employees made over $90,000 per year in 2010. There are a total of 5,481 city employees.
http://www.lbbj.com/manage/uploads/lbbj_pdfs/Club_2010.pdf
Thanks for the info, Mr. Ruehle. What’s your point?
[...] Beach who tell me that DeLong has demonstrated some promise, especially with his willingness to tilt swords with the city’s very strong police and fire public employee unions. By all accounts, Councilman DeLong is someone who covets a run for higher, partisan office if the [...]
Regarding pension reform, where was DeLong during his first four years of City Council? Check your history. DeLong didn’t leap onto the pension reform bandwagon until just the past year when he realized pension reform was the ONLY platform upon which he could run for city council re-election, followed by Congress.
Many times I have sat in council chambers during city council budget meetings when numerous concerned Long Beach residents questioned the economic sustainability of city employee compensation. For four years I watched DeLong literally and disrespectfully ignore those speakers and vote against them each time in favor of City employee compensation increases. Not once did he question where the money was coming from like some of his fellow Councilmembers.
I also know individuals who met with DeLong in private during his first term as Councilman to educate him on the unsustainable pensions. DeLong told them the issue was too “unpopular.”
It wasn’t until until after the wetlands fiascos that DeLong realized he needed a platform for his re-election to city council and jumped on the pension reform bandwagon.
I happen to agree with DeLong’s NEW position on pension reform as I do DeLong’s NEW position on Belmont Shore problem bar reform. What I want to point out is these new positions are 180 degrees from his first City Council term where he vigorously supported the opposite view. I see that as opportunism to garner votes, not advocacy.
DeLong has been Chairman of the City Council Budget Oversight Committee for over 5-years. Why didn’t DeLong question city employee compensation or pension benefits until just recently when he decided to run for Congress?????????