I said it; Eric Garcetti is an idiot, and I’ll say it again.

I am not your union leader polite and tactful that is Julie Butcher or any one of the polished Union speakers we parade in council chambers.

I’m much more a teamsters loud blue collar steel worker type, ask Mike Hernandez he felt my wrath when I called him out on his B.S. two months ago when he claimed ” we won’t be able to make payroll in june if you don’t giveback”

Guess what My paycheck cleared!

I called him out on it and asked him if we needed to hold job actions to get our point across that we are not giving anything back,  Fast Forward to today’s headlines having Eric Garcetti act like he hasn’t heard our NO GIVEBACK  message yet calling us out and telling us we will give in to him and the council demand we give up All of our pay raises Completely, asking those with families to pay 50% of the cost of medical insurance,  I guess they don’t understand the definition of benefit.

I guess the time is closing in on us to show what WE are made up of, are we going to roll over and give in to council demands and empty threats?

Is this power struggle something a short staffed city workforce needs to get shoved down their throat?

I think it is time that the City Council and the CAO along with the public get a taste of what laying off workers really means.

What would happen if most city workers stayed home or called in sick and didn’t show up for work?

Ask the council and they say not much, I beg to differ, this is Los Angeles home to the world champion Los Angeles Lakers and some 5 million other people, without us La doesn’t work, it would Fail.

We have civilian employees that handle vital mission critical duties in the city and those who don’t still provide quality of life service.

Without us Los Angeles would suffer, I think it is time we share “a day without a city worker” with our council people. In turn our friends at the LAPD and LAFD can call a tactical alert, and handle the work we do on a daily basis.

At the end of the day I bet we can get council to rethink the empty threats and take a second look at the budget presented to them and quit looking at us as a bank account they can make deductions from at their whim.

We work to hard and have already made our sacrifice, even when half of the council has yet to match our sacrifice.

Maybe I am just old school and think a coalition of unions as big as ours can actually look to it’s membership and say stay home and we can have an impact.

I’m looking forward to calling Eric Garcetti on his bluff and having a short work week very soon maybe this budget illness will spread!

But when you read this quote maybe it makes you as mad as it made me.

City Council President Eric Garcetti said  “I think that the closer we get to the 11th hour, the more people will be willing to make concessions,” Garcetti said.

Letter from the President: Layoffs Don’t Make Sense for LA
June 1, 2010 By Bob Schoonover SEIU 721 President

Bob Schoonover

In January we were facing a $600 million shortfall as projected by the CAO. Here in late May the ever-changing number seems to be about $100 million.

The City’s adopted a budget with a bunch of holes in it. The city wants to fill those holes with 761 worker layoffs now, add 1,000 more later, and throw 26 furlough days on top of all that–or fill it with worker concessions.

In meetings this spring with the CAO, Mayor’s office, and City Council, union members and leaders have had one consistent message: We won’t take any steps backward, and we have a better solution. Last year we made a tremendous sacrifice, voting to put off our contract raises and give up hours to see our city through this crisis. That’s hurt my family, and I know it’s hurt yours too.

So when politicians talk about how we need to “step up” with concessions, that’s why I told the Los Angeles Times two weeks ago, “We’ve already done that.” That’s why sanitation workers drove trash trucks with signs reading, “Don’t give up on LA, Mr. Mayor”–because to me, that’s what rejecting our sacrifice, cutting services and furloughing workers would mean.

What happens if the city lays off a Coalition member? Under our agreement, if even one Coalition worker is laid off we all get our raises. The City Council voted unanimously for that plan, so they can’t pretend they don’t remember.

Why would we give the city new concessions when we can’t get them to take the one we already gave? Without real leadership at City Hall, there’s no end in sight.

Here’s the alternative: Our work to find new revenues and management cost-savings has already shrunk the shortfall. Some City Council members have really stood strong for city services.  Street Services GM Bill Robertson is already on record saying that the general managers of the city had a plan for cuts without layoffs. This budget hole is not structural–it’s only there because of the recession. So it makes no sense to fill it with layoffs–a structural change that does long-term damage to the city’s ability to deliver the services people need in good times and bad.

Let’s look at the big picture. The city workforce has already reduced itself in just the last year by 3,500 workers through early retirement and normal attrition–down to 1997 levels. If you add those 700 to 1,700 layoffs coupled with furloughs the effects on public service and public safety will be dramatic.

It’s going to take the mayor and elected officials to get us out of this.

They said it all along, We want you to give up more.

They weren’t kidding. Early Retirement Savings and furlough hours weren’t enough to satisfy the Council and Mayor. LAPD Continues to hire LAFD budgeted for nearly 80 Million in overtime alone, Civilian workers will have to either give up the contract signed just last year and make up for some 63 – 110 million so that the Mayor can keep his anti gang program in force, this anti gang program it’s worth noting has nothing to do with the LAPD, it funds no cops and in the past has funneled money for gangs to buy guns.

With Inflation skyrocketing, convincing LA City Workers to take furloughs and pay cuts on top of giving up contractually guaranteed raises due to layoffs will be nearly impossible.

If civilian workers hold their ground they stand to gain a 5.75% raise and have more control over the furlough situation, if they re-open the contract again it would indicate the failing of the Coalition of City Unions and SEIU in particular.

All along Bob Schoonover has said we were standing firmly against any further concessions, “we gave enough”
“we will not give back again” were his words and now the fight is on to save jobs and save the salary of the city worker.

Taxpayers won’t pay less with this new budget, they will pay more and watch as the basic services they expect a city to provide vanish.

SEIU will be under the gun to begin working proactively to have job actions to highlight what the loss of it’s civilian workforce would mean to the public, or risks getting stuck behind the 8 ball. This coming just days after UAW forces Shutdown Boeing in a labor strike.

Our contract calls upon the City of LA to take steps to prevent layoffs, they have failed miserably at those steps. If Layoffs are imposed our salary rates are advanced by 1 year making a gain of 5.75% in the pay of the workers covered under the coalition contract. It is unclear how EAA members will be hit by this budget or unrepresented employees and members of the SEIU professionals organization.

City Council President Eric Garcetti estimated that the unions representing city workers would have to come up with “probably about $100 million” in concessions such as pay cuts, increases in their medical and pension contributions and elimination of bonuses within the next month and a half to save jobs and prevent drastic service reductions.

Los Angeles Fire Department spends Federal Grant money on Employee Physicals rather then Protecting the Public.

Los Angeles. We all know we are suppose to be in a budget crisis and the motion to be proposed to all council members includes a study of implementing reserve firefighters to supplement not replace our existing workforce in the LAFD.

“Without acting on this council could be setting the city up for potential litigation and liability because they will be made aware of a method to increase public safety and not acting on it could be potentially disastrous” said a prominent Los Angeles attorney.

What we have uncovered is just how many of them might need replacing and what they used Federal Grant money for. Despite having one of the best medical plans in the City, the Los Angeles Fire Department chose to spend  $ in a federal grant to fund not training reserve firefighters, but instead Medical Exams. Despite the State and Federal law which already mandates Physical’s for commercial drivers, they spent this money to learn that some of la’s finest weren’t fine at all. “From the EKG reviews, 92 members received heart scans and 40 received non-invasive angiography.”

It is safe to assume the Los Angeles Police Department aren’t alone in putting away the doughnuts.  Having unfit firefighters presents a liability to the City of Los Angeles and a serious risk to the public. Management should have been aware of the health and fitness of it’s employees.  Spending this money when 100% of the employees already had medical insurance covering the physical exams is shameful. But it is just another example of the LAFD misspending money in order to keep it’s empire alive.

Daily news reported that “a recently retired LAFD captain said the staffing system needs to be overhauled.”

After weeks of analysis LA City Workers.com analysts have concluded that the strategic use of Reserve Firefighters would immediately result in:

• Overall Decrease in response times with 10 percent more resources available.
• Decreased workload at all fire stations.
• Increased number of resources available for Mutual Aid Strike Teams.
• Increased number of resources for mandatory company training
• No Fire Stations browned out.

• Increased number of resources available for Natural Disasters, response to terrorist attacks, and major events such as train derailments.

• Increased number of resources available for pre-deployment and move-up coverage.

What’s the downside you might ask?  Money, Reserve firefighters taken into account result in a substantial loss to the nearly $80 Million, yes nearly $80,000,000.00 the department rewards it’s employees with. Training isn’t an issue because the LAFD would do the training so anyone telling you they wouldn’t be as well trained would be deflecting the real issue greed.

Equipment, it is also an interesting Federal Grant request the LAFD has made since fire stations are browned out new equipment would only collect dust, the real lack of interest comes from the refusal to allow reserve firefighters into it’s rank to protect the golden overtime goose.  One firefighter boasted “I make almost as much as the Chief in overtime”.  Overtime is only used when a department is understaffed; this only goes to boost the theory that Reserve firefighters are essential in maintaining public safety and increasing our protection against the dangers of terrorism and natural disasters but in life saving emergency response. Take everything that the fire chief said about the need for more funding and replace that with reserve firefighters it all pays off with a huge budget boost, federal grants to pay for the training instead of the equipment, and the saving of human life and property.

Is the LAFD putting their Overtime money before your life?

A young boy in Bel Air paid dearly to keep the fire personnel coffers bulging. Ask the 3 year old boys parents whose little boy passed away, his entire life in front of him, tragically drowned in the family pool as firefighters were responding elsewhere the browned out fire station unable to respond in an appropriate time this browned out fire station cost him his life because firefighters want to keep all of that overtime lottery cash instead of allowing Reserve Firefighters to protect our communities and save lives this priority is pretty clear now.

LAFD response time goal 5 minutes, response time for this incident due to brownout was over 11 Minutes, result Death of a 3 year old boy. Had reserve paramedics been on staff the life of this little boy could have been saved and countless others, so before you run to support your fire department in front of council you had better know the truth, the truth is they don’t care about you as much as they care about their overtime bonanza. Staffing cuts are not based on how much people pay in taxes either, clearly the Bel Air and Pacific Palisades area with the limited stations they have contribute far more to the tax base then other areas of the city yet they are shorted on how much in service they receive per capita.

Los Angeles firefighters average Six times more overtime than Chicago FD

Los Angeles firefighters average Five times more overtime than Houston FD

Los Angeles firefighters average Twice the Overtime of San Diego – a city that has roughly the same ratio of firefighters-to-residents as Los Angeles.

1,176 Employees in the LAFD earn over 100,000.00 in base pay alone.

Firefighters are brave, and we support them we believe that the Los Angeles Fire Department is the best in the world, but you might not know that According to the USFA’s Firefighter Fatalities Report in the United States in 2005, ” heart attacks ” are the most frequent cause of death for firefighters.

Sources: LA Daily News, Los Angeles Times, FEMA, USFA.

Same story new year.

Layoffs doomsday oh but wait give up 26 furlough days for EAA Members and 16 for coalition take a pay cut and we will call it even.

So So sorry to disappoint the Mayor but neither the Coalition of City Unions & SEIU, or EAA are considering anything less then a NO GIVEBACK policy.

With the departure of Bob Aquino from EAA reported earlier this week, and confirmed yesterday and the coalition of City Unions firm stance on no givebacks the Mayor and his scare tactics have only worked to solidify the workforce and the unions.

After working so hard to pass an early retirement plan that the workers footed the bill for and having all of the credit for that stolen by the mayor, the IBEW DWP fiasco giving them a 20% raise followed weeks later by a call for two day a week furloughs of civilian employees to pay for it civilian employees have had enough.

Most members of the unions can see for themselves the vacant positions cut and they understand how hard things would be on them financially if they did take any further pay cuts, if the Mayor does go through with a small number of layoffs, cost of living raises get moved forward which can only help most employees.

“We have sacrificed already,” said Cheryl Parisi, chair of the Coalition of City Unions. “We had an agreement to forgo our raises and not face a furlough. The city is going back on its word.”

“Each of the layoffs in his budget represent a service – a park, a library, a public safety service – that would be cut back,” said Bob Schoonover, president of SEIU Local 721.

Our message is strong, Keep LA Strong and Keep La WORKING!

Coalition of City Unions released their own budget which the Mayor has ignored keeping people working and the quality of life in LA.

It is clear and has been for a while this rhetoric is aimed at taking money out of our pocket and we are over the games that city hall wants to play we are organized and we will fight any attempt at layoffs or wage concessions for the membership.

It is time the mayor who is under recall, and the council understand, We have done our part now it’s their turn, get to work and fix LA don’t damage the workforce for years to come by looking at them as the only budget solution, it is shortsighted and foolish to keep going back to the well until it runs dry.

No Furloughs and No Givebacks Simple enough.

We simply can’t trust city hall and will fight them all the way.