The Famous Friday Drop.

After everyones gone home for the night, surprise an email pops up near 9Pm.

In the Excuse filled email the latest contract agreement.

After carefully reviewing the New Revised Draft Agreement which supercedes are previous ERIP, and our current contract, one thing is clear.  Were Still Screwed!

We were fed half holidays unpaid, which came up to a couple hours, now we are forced to randomly take 3.5 hours Every Single pay period.

Coalition members will be Willingly Furloughed nearly Two Weeks – 59.5 Hours

Bonuses no longer compound losing there importance and recognition of the hazardous life threatening duties performed Costing Workers Thousands! LAPD Officers Would NEVER tolerate this.

NO CASH OVERTIME – Comp time only. Federal Limit of 240 hours.

NO RAISES – EAA MEMBERS GOT THERE RAISES

There are no Real tangible savings other then the Furloughs.

We continue to put off Real cost savings which will only make us suffer in the long term putting everyone’s future at risk. If the council isn’t told no you can’t continue to spend in this fashion, one day we will wake up to a headline blasting City of Los Angeles files for bankruptcy.

It is up to us to be responsible and Vote NO on this deal the furloughs are a given, but risking our financial future on the hope the city will magically come up with money in the next year and not spend it on more cops is foolish.

Consider this, LA City council instead of actually saving money by canceling the Police Academy Class has only delayed it in the hopes that if we give back all of these things in our contract we will allow them to continue spending at an unsustainable rate. No Other Union has had to give up this much, why are we giving away so much?

Paying more for Early Retirement and adding these latest concessions will leave us far behind other workers, and Sworn will continue to make out like bandits.

We Do NOT have to keep shouldering the costs for early retirements and our failed unions desperate attempt to save face.

Look at the numbers and the long term consequences of this deal.

If We VOTE NO:

We Get a +3.0% Retro Raise

We GET another 2.75% Raise in Two Months

We Keep our CASH Overtime.

We KEEP our pride, and our contract whole.

We will still have a contract after the economy improves, and we will be able to negotiate things that will prevent using employee wages as a savings account.

If we Don’t we are opening ourselves up to continued abuse and more of the same.

Employees will not have there retirement increased without proper bargaining.

If we Vote Yes we are setting ourselves back 30 years.

We are going to allow the city to transfer people against there will, we are hurting everything as a collective bargaining group we are suppose to stand for.

Stop getting used as an ATM.

Below is a copy of an email obtained by www.lacityworkers.com from the Coalition of City Unions to it’s members.

It details the Slashing of 50% of our holidays, Removal of Cash Overtime, additional increases to member contributions,  removal of bonus codes, uniform allowances, boot allowances, and YES Furloughs for it’s members.

In Short; it is Horrible for remaining workers, bad for retirees (they lose 1% of their pension) and bad for the city as a whole. 

So who makes out?

City Council they get to spend our money elsewhere.

Mayor, he doesn’t look bad because of course he puts Public Safety first.

LAPD & LAFD, No one is fooled by this latest round of cutbacks, LAFD and LAPD are going to continue to enjoy their benefits,  raises, 100% retirement benefits, all on the backs of our Civilian workers.

My back is broken from carrying so much weight, Civilian workers have to pay for the LAPD’s May Day beatings, their other ‘lawsuits’ that cost the city millions & millions of dollars, LAFD feeds dog food to it’s employees, and everyone involved sues and gets paid, and civilian workers have to pay for their misdeeds.

I say it’s time the City of LA tell the LAPD find the lawsuit money out of your own funds, When you lose a $3.8 million lawsuit because you beat Rodney King, Take a pay cut, When you beat television reporters and crews at a May Day parade, cost the city 13 Million, take a pay cut!

 Here is the email, edited for truth and clarification.

Members will now contribute an extra 0.25% of their paychecks toward the City’s pension fund. ON TOP OF the additional 0.75 1.0% to start no Upwards Cap could go as high as 100% in final year to meet ERIP deadline Per the Contract,  no maximum, no yearly limit, the only guarantee in the contract is 100% Full Payback of the ERIP no matter what.
Coalition claims This is a clarification of the original early retirement agreement, due to a mistake of the actuary, who failed to account for the roughly one-third of City workers who will not retire from the City, but will leave for other jobs before retirement. When they leave, they take their retirement with them, with interest.  Segal will be asked to  comment on their ‘mistake’, Since it is very rare that professional actuaries make these ‘mistakes’.

This 1.0% will be paid for no more than 15 years, OR UNTIL 100%, Of the Early Retirement Incentive Program (ERIP) is paid off in FULL.

Immediate elimination of the pre-1983 defrayal.

That means if you were hired before 1983 and contribute less than 6% toward retirement, your retirement contribution will Skyrocket  to match the same 7% all City employees are going to make.

Retirees who take ERIP will lose 1% of their pension giving it back to the retirement fund.

Unpaid Furlough Hours: 79-hour pay period working one unpaid Furlough Hour per pay period Until July 2010 could be Extended depending on how large the raise increase and hiring of LAPD & the LAFD is.

Slash 50% of ALL holidays. 4-hour paid holidays, Workers will be able to use comp time or vacation time for the other four hours of pay or go unpaid.

Elimination of Uniform and Boot Allowance:
No Boot or Uniform Allowance until October 2010 on any boot and/or uniform allowances.

800 Club Slashed: Annual sick time payout deferred from January until August 2010.

The NO ERIP cash payout for participants Until, July 2, 2010.
The second payment will come on July 2, 2011, They still get paid from our increased contributions though.

NO CASH Overtime! No Exceptions! Overtime will only be compensated in time credited, not in cash. Usage of time credited still management discretion!

Eliminate bonus compounding. Workers receiving more than one bonus, e.g., bilingual pay and shift differential, and every other bonus have had one bonus compounded on top of the other, rather than both calculated on top of base pay. This major change will cost employees over $1.1 MILLION!
 
City Attorneys reimbursement for their dues to the California Bar deferred until 8/2010.

Why should I pay more just so long-time employees might retire?

We are facing the worst City budget crisis in memory. We are hoping 2,400 people retire or else we get furloughs and layoffs anyways, and we still have to take all the givebacks in the contract. Council, Mayor, LAPD, & LAFD our counting on US to giveaway everything we have struggled to achieve and all the gains we have made over the last 60 years so

THEY WONT HAVE TO GIVE UP ANYTHING! Council and mayor don’t want the public to know they misspent their money on parades and fee waivers or Lawsuits. They want to protect the City services everyone relies on at our expense.

We need to make sure our retirement is fully funded for the future, Vote no to save our pension!

The City has also committed to moving quickly to implement the terms of the agreement, the changes to the original ERIP, were forced onto us because the city council took a two-week vacation, and failed to approve the earlier plan. 

A large meeting for all Coalition of LA City Unions members will take place, possibly at the LA Convention Center, in the coming weeks so members can officially vote to ratify the agreement. The specific meeting time and location will be announced early next week.

I want to take advantage of the early retirement program. What are the next steps with early retirement? Can I retire now? Will I get the benefits if this does not pass?

You could retire now. City Council is required by law to read the ordinance implementing the program one more time, in 30 days, but Council has already passed a motion saying City employees can take advantage of this program, BUT ONLY if it PASSES!

We can not make these deep of sacrifices or we will never get them back, remember giving up your one floating holiday? Some MOU’s gave up 4 hours on Christmas eve, only to get an 8 hour holiday we would have gotten anyways.

4 Year contracts with 0% While the cost of living made it a real world -12% We have sacrificed we have not enjoyed the protections that the LAPD has had for their contracts, nor have we cost the city anywhere near as much in lawsuits!

Tell the City Council and the LAPD to pay for the lawsuits out of their own pockets NOT OURS!

V O T E   N O !

DEMAND A REAL VOTE

A FAIR AND HONEST VOTE

NO GAMES

NO VOICE VOTES

AND NO BS!

 

 

  Read more in our Discussion forums!!

City of Los Angeles and Coalition of LA Unions Conspire to keep Actuarial Study from reaching members prior to voting on contract.

Those are the latest accusations from employees forced to vote on ratifying there employment contracts.

Darren Whitfield a Spokesman for lacityworkers.com said, ” it’s inexcusable to force members to vote on an issue with such far reaching financial implications  in complete ignorance of the full financial ramifications.”

Lacers has not responded for comment, CAO representatives were unavailable after numerous requests, the Mayors office was silent on the matter referring calls to the CAO’s office, and the Company performing the Actuarial  Segal would only confirm that the Study was not near completion and had NO FURTHER COMMENT.

Actuarial Studies indicate such things as risk and financial viability.  Assumptions used can change the outcome dramatically, currently the issue of Public Pension funds using a return formula that is twice the rate of private pension funds is under scrutiny and could be reduced to match the private sector. Most people in the private industry conclude that using such a generous formula puts the retirement systems at risk of future failure from lack of funding.

Formulas used to determine the actual cost are also the cause of controversy because of the ease with which they are manipulated. Previous studies from Segal have come under scrutiny for failing to account for more then 1 scenario. 

LA union coalition members have been asked to vote without knowing the true cost of this plan and are ultimately responsible for repayment of the early retirement plan since the city has demanded it be cost neutral.

Under a worst case scenario city workers could be forced to pay up to 20% of there income towards this plan or take out loans in order to satisfy the repayment. These details seemed insignificant to mention to member’s as the only plan highlights were brief snippets of just how good the plan was. Current members have begun talking among themselves to determine a best course of action to prevent any plan such as this from getting a chance to see a vote without proper safeguards.

Some of the suggestions are .

• City Clerk run Official Elections meeting the California, LA County , and City of La Election codes to prevent voter fraud
• Forcing any  retirement plan programs such as the ERIP to meet full disclosure laws similar to SEC regulations.
• Independent Actuarial Studies.
• Requirements to Force a 2/3 majority vote before retirement incentives are approved when membership is Liable.
• Require Full Disclosure of Facts when sending items to a vote.
• Require a change to the administrative code forcing any union representing Los Angeles City Workers to face a reduction in members dues if they face a salary reduction.

These ideas have been brought forward due to the overwhelming bias and fraud that is underway in the current election which brings comparison to Saddam Hussein’s regime where 100% of the population voted 100% in favor of re-electing him to office.

Lacityworkers.com will keep you updated on the reform at city hall.

Prepare yourself for a Landslide victory in this so called election.

 

Here are some interesting links I found relating to retirement and erips etc.

http://itarumblings.blogspot.com/2008/05/lacers-early-retirement-window.html

http://ladailyblog.blogspot.com/2009/05/exclusive-villaraiogsa-budget-analysis.html

http://ronkayela.com/2009/06/heres-the-plan-is-it-good-for.html

As I sit in isolation in the woods to grasp the full ramifications of this new contract, I look upon the giant pines I surround myself with.

Tall strong weathered majestic pines which have stood for hundreds of years some well before our great city was settled. I think to myself about this new contract that has been proposed and wonder why our union can’t stand strong and instead like a tree with no roots just simply topples over.

How many years have blue collar, and civilian workers been cast aside in order to please the politicians?
How many times have we as a group seen other bargaining units prosper at our expense?

When we were offered a decent contract, we felt appreciated, respected, only to ne the first to get dragged to the table under a false shared sacrafice plan.

Shared sacrafice is a really catchy phrase used to disguise a layoff list and departmental cutbacks. It’s own definition leads one to belive it is shared by all which it isn’t, sacrafice would be accurate in that civilian workers and there departments have been sacraficed in order to maintain Sworn employees high standards of living, cover there shortcomings and civil liabilitys, and prevent the elected politicians from having to make a choice between a new squad car or a janitor, new facility upgrades for those who work 3 days a week, or a handful of sweeper operators to clean our streets.

When sworn employees ask they recieve, when civilian ask they hear excuse after excuse. When the pot is only so big and so many hands reach for there piece of the pie it is the politicians who make the same choice to sacrafice the civilian to keep feeding the sworn beast time and again.

Some how it is ok to sacrafice the civilians, constantly taking hit after hit for others mistakes. How is anyone ever going to reform a department if they are never forced to answer for there mistakes? 13 million for the LAPD may day incident, 125 million for Rampart, Rodney King 3.8 million.
Reward for beating media 3-12 hour shifts. Obviously I do not want to single out our brothers in blue nor having
actually been working at the may day event care to pass judgment on those events but to point out the large sums of money that this enforcement machine sucks from the budget.

In the end these overruns come from general funds after there special funds and reserves are used up. Money that could have been used to pay for our salary increases and COLAS instead is used to pay for legal settlements.

Wouldn’t it be nice to have these sworn departments put off equipment upgrades, and suffer the pain or “Share the sacrafice” other departments are forced to make?

Instead budget trickery and contract renegotiation is the order of the day.

We as civilians are called upon to sacrafice yet again, upon looking at this latest contract redo by the council I look back upon the pine trees I surround myself with this holiday weekend, if We continue with the city, constantly giving up everything promised to us when will we get ahead? When will we stand tall like the mighty pine? Unfair, to say the least, poorly written, and lacking in any real protection this new contract reopening attempt is a huge step backwards!

Partially sharing the pain and to be left wide open for more abuse it is time we take a lesson from the mighty pine we stand firm and refuse to accept these miserable terms.
Let us go back to the table and work out these issues so that we can all prosper.

Take a look for yourself the new contract is posted in the forums section for all to read, please note the wording used, it is not what we have been told it would be if you don’t understand ask someone who does or send it over to your own lawyer ask him or her if it leaves you open or protects you.

Enjoy your holiday weekend.