The DWP agreement
Mayor Eric Garcetti may not have gotten all the concessions he wanted from Local 18 of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers (IBEW) at the Department of Water and Power (DWP), but he performed well in what was his first trial by fire as mayor.
In some ways, this labor negotiation started on the campaign trail in the race for mayor, when the union put all its chips on Garcetti’s rival, in hopes that they would get a better contract with Wendy Greuel.
But Garcetti won. That victory gave him the moral authority to demand more concessions in the contract negotiated by the IBEW with the previous administration and received with praise in the City Council.
The final agreement basically reduces increases and changes benefits for new workers. Perhaps the most significant concession is the establishment of a formal process for negotiating changes in work rules during the four years of the contract. As with everything, time will tell if this provision yields results in line with the mayor’s rhetoric, in terms of real changes at the DWP.
It was reasonable to think that the way the mayor handled this negotiation would set the tone for upcoming labor talks with other municipal unions. For example, it will be hard to demand that union members contribute directly to their individual health insurance when this did not happen with the DWP.
Anyway, the initial agreement reached a few days agowhich must be ratified by the union membershipleaves the mayor on solid footing with just a few weeks in office, after holding his ground against the tacit alliance formed by campaign contributions by Local 18 to City Council members.
