Tuesday, June 02, 2009

Apparently the mayor is a closet Republican

(full disclosure: I am an employee of the City of Los Angeles. I am writing this on my own time and on my own computer.)

L.A. budget passes with 1,200 layoffs

The Mayor and his negotiating team walked away from negotiations with the City's unions. He would rather raise the unemployment rate across the City than come up with a workable plan. A 10% cut in my wages means one less work day every pay period. That affects every single employee. How are we supposed to keep libraries open without people to staff them adequately? There has been massive upswings in foo traffic into our buildings. People are looking for help. Where are they supposed to go?

5 comments:

David Larkins said...

Yeesh, I'm so sorry to hear this! :/

St. Gavin is cutting a bunch of city jobs up here too. Our union actually rejected a contract negotiation that would have prevented layoffs at the expense of paid holidays, then realized what they'd done and called for a re-vote. Results come in tomorrow. ::fingers crossed::

shayera said...

I hope things work out for you guys.
I can't begin to tell you how much I hate this damn Mayor. He really really wants to fire people. Would you believe that for the last 2 years, he's refused to touch police and fire's budgets? They account for 70% of the total budget. The remaining 30% of us are being forced to cover everything. We can barely get paper. Or library cards.
Why would he rather pay unemployment benefits for 1200 hundred people instead of paying for early retirement?
Did I mention that the negotiating committees had worked out a plan for 5 years? And he walked away! 300 people, 26% of library staff would have been eligible to take early retirement. But he'd rather fire people.
Can you tell how much I hate this garbage?

David Larkins said...

Yeah, don't hold back--tell us how you really feel! ;P

Well, you now officially have a counter-example to rub Villaraigosa's nose in: the new contract passed with 84% of the vote! As the union said in a release today, that means we prevented 1500 layoffs, kept our raises, and still saved the City $31 million. Amazing what happens when parties are actually willing to talk, eh?

shayera said...

Wow. Gavin's definitely running for Gov. He's at least doing the surface work to make himself look good.
Antonio's got yet another news anchor girlfriend. Who did news reports about him AFTER they started going out, without disclosing it.

Demeur said...

I think I mentioned that this would happen several months ago. Thanks Bush!
We're having the same problems up here with our city and state governments. Our libraries are now having the same meetings. Their talking about cutting back hours and closing two day a week at our libraries.