Council Votes to Place Cap on Health Benefits : Government: The vote is the latest development in a battle between the city and the largest public employees union, whose contract expired in June.

By BERNICE HIRABAYASHI

Dec. 19, 1991 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITER

The Culver City Council, raising the stakes in its seven-month contract dispute with the city’s largest public employees union, voted this week to impose a cap on its health insurance contributions for union members.

The council passed a resolution Monday that caps medical benefits for the 300-member General Service Employees Unit at current levels. The cap would take effect starting in August, 1992.

The resolution also granted the workers a 4.5% cost-of-living raise, retroactive to June.

The vote was the latest development in a battle between the city and the union that has been going on since May. The union’s contract expired in June, and an impasse was declared in October.

About 100 workers picketed the meeting and delivered emotional testimony demanding that the council not pass the resolution.

“We want an agreement that guarantees we’re not going to be singled out,” said Jessie Oyler, a housing specialist in the Community Development Department.

The General Service Employees union represents City Hall clerical workers, maintenance workers, bus drivers, accountants, building inspectors, trash collectors and others. They make up about 60% of the city work force. The other labor units are police, firefighters and management.

Council members said their goal is to put a cap on health insurance premiums for all four units by 1993. If the price of premiums rises, workers would be responsible for paying the difference.

The city now pays insurance premiums in full. Employees are responsible for deductibles and co-payments that vary, depending on which of 14 health plans they have chosen.

Each unit’s contract is up for negotiations at different times, however, so the cap cannot legally be placed on all units at the same time, city personnel manager Gordon Youngs said.

The contract for the union representing firefighters expires this month, and negotiations for a new one are under way. The police contract expires in October, 1992, and the one for city management employees expires in October, 1993.

During contract negotiations, General Service Employees representatives rejected several offers from the city because they contained language about health insurance caps. One offer promised to defer the cap until 1993, when the other labor units should have caps in place.

“We don’t want to be the first to sign a piece of paper accepting a cap on health benefits,” said Ron Carter, a city carpenter for 15 years. “It’s as simple as that. Management, police and fire have a history of getting whatever they want. When they sign, we’ll fall right in line.”

Youngs said that when negotiations deadlocked in October, the city had two choices: continue without a contract, or impose a resolution that would be valid until a new contract was agreed upon.

Youngs said the council decided to impose the insurance cap to protect the city from rising insurance costs in the coming fiscal year if a contract agreement cannot be reached.

Youngs acknowledged that the decision to impose the cap was, in part, a negotiating tactic. City and union negotiators, having abandoned efforts to reach a contract for the current year, will meet again in the spring to talk about a contract for the 1991-92 fiscal year. He called the insurance cap “an incentive for the employees to reach an agreement on (the health benefits) issue as early as possible.”

After the vote, Mayor Paul Jacobs attempted to explain it to unhappy union members by citing the effects of the recession on city revenues, and the spiraling costs of health benefits. He reeled off a list of cities with caps on insurance premiums, including El Segundo, Manhattan Beach and Pasadena.

“To maintain the level of services and maintain the number of employees without cutting,” he said, “council has got to start somewhere. . . . You are not expected to bear the brunt. Everybody will.”

The union’s chief negotiator, Bob Hunt, said he was disappointed that the city did not act on a suggestion to get the labor units together to figure out a citywide solution.

But during the meeting, city officials said such a discussion would be non-binding.

There is no talk of going on strike, Hunt said. But he added that if police and firefighters don’t get the same treatment regarding health benefits as the General Service Employees, the union will sue the city for unfair labor practices.