Crossing the line

MAYOR ANTONIO VILLARAIGOSA, a former union organizer and a longtime ally of the labor movement, is ready to cross a picket line today for the first time in his life. It is one of those rare occasions in which sound politics is aligned with sound principle.

The Engineers and Architects Assn., the union of mostly well-paid city professionals and technicians, was set today to begin a two-day strike demonstrating the employees’ unhappiness at the contract imposed on them when labor negotiations stalled. Villaraigosa criticized the union, properly, for threatening an action that would close airport runways, tie up traffic and release sewage into Santa Monica Bay. Faced with a choice between standing with his labor allies and standing up for the city he leads, Villaraigosa didn’t hesitate. He chose the city.

City Atty. Rocky Delgadillo also did right in going to court to keep 200 essential workers on the job because their absence would endanger the safety of city residents. And the City Council deserves credit for imposing terms on the union, whose members have been working without a contract for two years. These public employees will now get raises of 6.25% over three years, applied retroactively. Their new average annual salary will be $74,500. They will get by.

But enough praise. The City Council must also take some criticism for having set the bar as high as it did. The union, after all, is demanding to get something closer to the deal the council ratified last year with Department of Water and Power workers calling for a wage hike of 19% -- at a minimum -- over five years. The size of the increase, which is pegged to the cost of living, could nearly double.

City leaders were right to not repeat such folly with the Engineers and Architects. Yet those same leaders have promised for years now to eliminate the pay disparity between DWP employees and their counterparts in other city departments. They boxed themselves into this corner by instead increasing that disparity with the lavish DWP contract. Villaraigosa was still on the council when that deal was inked, so although it didn’t go down on his watch as mayor, he can’t completely disavow responsibility.

Each labor contract the city signs tends to become the minimum starting point for the next negotiation. So the city’s DWP deal not only set the stage for the Engineers and Architects but perhaps for the much larger city unions whose contracts come due next year. That’s when Villaraigosa’s labor ties, his newfound fiscal conservatism and his storied deal-making ability will be put to an even greater test.