Building Trades News

City, Unions Engage in Mutual Gains Bargaining Process that Made Both Sides Winners

A united Coalition of LA City Unions, working together for first time, negotiated a contract that gives a 25.2 percent raise to more than 22,000 city workers. The strength and solidarity of the historic coalition along with a "mutual gains" bargaining process is credited with producing a contract that won a fair and long-overdue raise for city workers. The contract also offers significant cost-saving measures to the City. Building Trades craft unions, who represent over 2,000 of these workers, played a pivotal role in bringing the coalition together, noted BCTC Representative Daniel Villao.

"By remaining united, we were able to change the dynamic between the city and the unions," said Villao. In previous negotiations, the city was able to pit unions against one another, undercutting all of the Union's bargaining positions he said.

"The 6.25 percent pay increase in the previous three year agreement had not even kept pace with the cost of living increases," said Villao. "During that same period, the City Council approved a 10 percent rent increase in the rent stabilization program and workers lost ground."

The Coalition's first step was to survey each unions' membership. This allowed union negotiators to better understand and quantify the needs of city workers. The survey revealed low worker morale, a distrust of management, concerns about career paths, retirement and concerns over disparate treatment and salaries.

The next step was choosing to go with an innovative "mutual gains" collective bargaining process so that the City and the Coalition could better produce a "win-win" outcome. In contrast to adversarial bargaining approaches, "mutual gains" bargaining takes a problem solving approach towards the issues of both parties.

Through these negotiations, the City gained long sought after uniformity in language across multiple contracts. This will generate significant cost savings for the City in the administration of the agreements and standardizes work practices and bonus language among, other things for workers.

Both parties were interested in developing a solution-based grievance process. In the new contract, employees will have a grievance procedure that will more efficiently solve workplace issues by directing the grievance to the people who can most effectively resolve the issue. Additionally, the new grievance process will be 100 days shorter, translating into tremendous savings for the City.

The agreement also establishes a series of committees that have real value to both management and labor. These committees will address ongoing issues like gain sharing, work place safety and bonus structures.

The agreement also contains incentives for workers to make City government more efficient

"Part of their pay increase is contingent upon City workers reducing costs by $25 million," said Villao. "By having front-line employees review their practices and report areas where they see potential for ongoing savings, the agreement helps to foster a real dialogue between workers and management and creates environment that will translate directly into increased productivity and savings for tax payers."

Villao added, "When you couple the fact that a portion of those savings are going back to our members, and the development of long-term, efficient practices that are rooted in quality work, you have ground breaking territory for any public agency."

Members of the each of the coalition unions will vote on the contract. Then the contract will go before the city council for approval.

"Not only was the unity and strength of the coalition a historic moment for Los Angeles city unions, so too was the mutual gains bargaining approach," said Villao. "The result was that both sides walked away from the bargaining table as winners."