Last night at the Compton City Council, City Manager Willie Norfleet asked to modify his unbalanced, illegal budget, which unilaterally imposed layoffs and concessions on Compton City employees.
However, the city manager did not provide the Council or the public with documentation on his plan. So Councilwoman Arceneaux made a motion to postpone discussion of the budget for one week in order to give the city manager some time to get his ducks in a row and put his presentation forward.
Compton workers are standing strong and standing united. The Coalition of Compton Unions will be in front of Council again next week.
Join us at Council next Tuesday, September 13, 5pm as we tell how Council members how they can clean up the legal and budgetary mess made by the City Manager.
For more information, please contact Charles Leone at (310)-972-0871.
Posted August 16, 2011
On August 10, the Coalition of Compton Unions, which represents about 400 Compton city employees who maintain local parks, fill potholes and fight fires, filed unfair labor practice charges with the California Public Employment Relations Board against the City of Compton. Last month, the Compton City Council approved a budget that called for worker layoffs and unilaterally imposed concessions on the remaining workforce.
“Compton unilaterally changed the workers’ contracts without entering into negotiations,” said Glenn Rothner, an attorney representing the Coalition of Compton Unions. “Those actions violate state labor laws and even the city’s own rules.”
Nearly 100 Compton workers were laid off on August 4, following a process that was haphazard and filled with confusion.
Prior to the layoffs, Compton City workers had offered a package of concessions that would have preserved essential city services and kept everyone working, but their efforts to fill the budget hole with alternatives fell on deaf ears.
“We did everything we could,” said James Walker,
a Compton maintenance worker and SEIU 721 chapter president. “A lot of
good people are gone now. But if the city had listened to us and taken
our suggestions, there would be a lot of happy people working. Instead,
there are a lot of sad people who’ve been laid off. I hope the legal
action opens everyone’s eyes to what the city did.”We did everything we could to keep Compton working for the people who live here, but the City Council wasn’t interested in working with us to find solutions,” said Rose Downs, a Compton resident and 20-year veteran city analyst who lost her job and was demoted in the cuts. Downs, who is also President of AFSCME Local 3947, is a single mother and the sole wage earner in her household.
Compton’s actions, particularly the Council’s decision to lay off a large swath of its workforce, further exacerbate the social and economic woes of a city that already has the third-highest unemployment rate in Los Angeles County.
You can read the Coalition’s charges here.
For more information, please contact Charles Leone at (310)-972-0871.