Mayor Eric Garcetti said Tuesday he will not back down and plans to talk directly with cops about the proposed one-year contract that was rejected, despite threatened legal action seeking to block him from doing do.
“As CEO of the city, Mayor Garcetti can and should speak with city employees, and it’s appropriate for him to do so,” spokeswoman Vicki Curry said. “Contract negotiations will happen at the negotiation table.”
Garcetti said last week he wants to make the effort personally to explain the terms of the contract as well as the city’s continuing financial problems. The proposal contained no cost-of-living increase but did provide some $70 million in overtime for this year and $50 million to buy back some of the $120 million in banked overtime.
The Los Angeles Police Protective League said it plans to file an unfair labor practices complaint with the city Employee Relations Board to block Garcetti and Police Chief Charlie Beck from discussing the matter directly with officers.
Protective League President Tyler Izen said the union understands the mayor’s intention but believes speaking directly would be a violation of fair bargaining rules.
“While we recognize the mayor’s authority to exercise his freedom of speech while addressing city employees, this right is not absolute,” Izen said.
“Several times since the LAPPL reached a tentative agreement with the city, the LAPPL has seen intentional misrepresentations by city officials about contract proposals, and now we have to deal with an expressed intent by the mayor to directly communicate with our officers, to allegedly clarify the city’s contract proposals.
“The attempted actions by the mayor will amount to an unlawful bypass of the LAPPL and will be challenged. The doors to LAPD roll calls are open for the mayor to discuss a number of issues but not the contract.”
Beck, at the Police Commission meeting on Tuesday, noted the city has been paying cash overtime to officers since July 1, even without approval of the contract by officers.
“During that time, we have accrued about $2 million in overtime work by police officers,” Beck said. “That would have resulted in time off, so this is a good thing for the health of the city, for Los Angeles police officers and the ability of the department to do its job.”
Beck said he is hoping to have additional discussions with the league on other matters contained in the proposed contract, including boosting the pay of about 1,000 officers who were forced to take lower salaries during the recession.
“We need to look at that, and the city wants to move forward,” Beck said. “Both of those issues (overtime and reduced pay) have an impact on the department.”
