Union Sues in Effort to Block DWP Layoffs

As the Los Angeles City Council signaled its support for dramatically downsizing the Department of Water and Power’s work force, the union representing 1,200 of the 2,000 DWP employees targeted for layoffs went to court to block the job cuts.

The lawsuit, filed by the Engineers and Architects Assn., seeks a preliminary injunction to stop the DWP and its new general manager, S. David Freeman, from proceeding with the layoffs in an effort to prepare the utility for the coming free market in electric power in California.

“Somebody needs to slow down the general manager, and it appears that a lawsuit is our only alternative,” said Bob Duncan, the union’s executive director. He accused the DWP’s management of engaging in unfair labor practices by flatly refusing to negotiate with the union over the layoffs.

Freeman called the lawsuit frivolous. “This is par for the course,” he said, predicting that the suit will fail. “I have the authority to lay off people if we don’t need them.”

And City Council members, meeting behind closed doors, affirmed their support of Freeman’s far-reaching plan to make the nation’s largest municipal utility more competitive by sharply reducing its staff to ease a crippling burden of debt on its power plants.

On an 11-2 vote, the council approved a $350-million buyout and severance package in an effort to minimize the number of layoffs, which would primarily hit white-collar engineers and managers instead of blue-collar electrical workers.

Councilwoman Ruth Galanter, who chairs a special committee on restructuring the DWP, said the city is moving forward with the job cuts to prepare the utility for competition. “We don’t have the time to sit around,” she said. “We don’t want to do things that are wrong, but we don’t have the luxury of studying everything to death.”

Galanter said the utility needs to slash as much as $4 billion in power plant debt in order to lower its cost of generating electricity.

“I wish it could be done without pain to hard-working, long-standing employees,” she said.

But Councilman Joel Wachs said the package of retirement incentives, severance pay and bonuses is “absolutely excessive and unnecessary.”

Wachs said the council was buying the support of the unions, particularly the powerful International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, by offering one of the most generous buyout packages ever given to public employees. “The council is giving away hundreds of millions of dollars,” Wachs said.

And he warned that DWP customers will end up paying at least $75 million of the cost. The remainder will come from a surplus in the utility’s retirement system created by the run-up in the stock market.

Councilwoman Jackie Goldberg expressed confidence that the DWP soon will be a leaner, more competitive utility. “I think there will be 2,000 fewer people at the DWP by February or March,” she said.

In seeking a court order to stop the layoffs, the Engineers and Architects Assn. said the job cuts will cause irreparable injury to the union and its members. The union also filed an unfair labor practice complaint with the city’s Employee Relations Board earlier this month and hopes to have an emergency hearing in late January.

“We hope the court will tell the DWP to hold off until that hearing is completed,” said Duncan, the union’s executive director. He added that Freeman has refused to negotiate on the issue of layoffs.

Freeman said he has the authority to eliminate jobs that are not necessary. The utility, he said, is not “a welfare agency” at which employees are guaranteed they will always have a job.

“Let’s get real here,” Freeman said. “We’re not laying people off without the means to support themselves.”

The package, part of a nearly five-year contract with the IBEW, includes severance payments of up to $50,000 depending on the length of service, plus a six-month continuation of health insurance benefits.