The Guild and the Coalition Push to Fix LA

As we have already reported, the City continues to demand a host of paycheck and benefit cuts in the next contract that is currently in negotiation.

However, the Librarians' Guild, allied with the LA Coalition of Unions and many neighborhood organizations and movements, continues to push back against Mayor Garcetti's and CAO Santana's (a.k.a. "Gartana's") draconian vision of Civil Service and City Services in Los Angeles. The entire partnership is called Fix LA.
Last week, representatives from the CAO's office met with principals from the Coalition and the aforementioned neighborhood organizations in FixLA to hear the group's concerns about the city's ongoing budget austerity plan and how it hurts the entire city of Los Angeles, especially the middle class and working poor. The Coalition is charging that the city should renegotiate (or FIX) the $300 million fees that Wall Street Banks are charging the city each year on loans (yes you read that right: fees, not interest).

Someone needs to pick up the $300 million tab for Wall Street fees, and Gartana thinks City Employees, the middle class and working poor are ideal candidates.

After the meeting, the Coalition and FixLA members collected trash in a city alley that hadn't been cleared in several years and dumped the trash at the downtown location of the Bank of New York Mellon, one of the leading Wall Street institutions that is charging the City of LA so many excessive bank fees.
In a media event Wednesday (8/6) members of FixLA and the Coalition paid for kids to swim free between 1:00-2:00pm at the John C. Argue swimming pool in Exposition Park. The action protested the new $1.00 fee that the Mayor charges our city's children to swim in our public pools.

​Meanwhile, our own LAPL Librarian, Eugene Owens, was quoted in an LA Daily News article about the recent Employee Relations Board ruling that the city's unilaterally-implemented Tier 2 pension plan was illegal. Eugene's part is near the end, but to access the article please go to: http://www.dailynews.com/government-and-politics/20140802/public-employee-pension-issue-comes-to-a-head-at-city-hall