ADDA Vice President
FURLOUGHS, SALARY FREEZES AND
TAXATION OF HEALTH AND OTHER BENEFITS
“Membership Has It’s Privileges”
Your ADDA is here to protect our membership, and to improve our lives. That is the sole reason this union exists! During these difficult economic times, union membership may have its privileges.
Recently, on June 26, 2009, Bloomberg published a news article entitled “Unions’ Health Benefits May Avoid Tax Under Proposal.”
UNION MEMBERS MAY BE EXEMPT FROM NEW TAXES
In these tough economic times, the President is looking for ways to increase revenue to pay for new programs. According to Bloomberg, a proposal in the U.S. Senate would impose taxes for the first time on health plans, but may bypass employee benefits negotiated by unions.
The Bloomberg article goes on to say that Sen. Max Baucus, the chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, believes that the new tax should exempt perks secured in existing collective-bargaining agreements. In other words, the only way to avoid this tax is if your health plan is a part of your MOU (memorandum of understanding) or bargaining agreement. The ADDA has sought to include such language in our MOU, but has been thwarted by bad faith bargaining by the County and DA Management in which many of our proposals have gone unanswered for five month. The matter is pending a hearing at ERCOM (Los Angeles County Employee Relations Commission).
The Senate proposal may not seem fair to unrepresented individuals, but that is the type of protection a union provides. Membership has its privileges, in this case potentially substantial tax savings. The final details are still under negotiations, including whether to exempt union members until their contracts expire. However, as of now, union membership is an aspect that the politicians in
AND SUSPENSION OF RETIREMENT PLAN MATCHES
At a bargaining session, the lead negotiator for the County informed your Contract Negotiation Team (CNT) that the County was in the process of making contingency plans including (1) furloughs, (2) freezing salary step increases, and (3) suspending retirement plan matching contributions. Of crucial importance to your union was the statement that these drastic contingency plans are limited to unrepresented employees. Why? The County must bargain with represented employees for any economic take aways.
DDAs grade I-IV’s are represented by the ADDA (obviously, management is not represented, nor are Deputy Public Defenders and Alternate Public Defenders). Therefore, as a represented group, Deputy District Attorneys are offered more protection now that we are a union then when we were unrepresented. The fact that the County and the DA’s Office engaged in bad faith bargaining has ironically afforded us a certain amount of protection. When the DA Management Contract Negotiating Team informed us that they only had the authority to reject proposals, and to agree to set future meeting dates for negotiations, but no authority whatsoever to agree to any substantive changes, they engaged in an unfair labor practice, and lost their immediate right to negotiate any take aways.
The fact that your ADDA CNT has steadfastly refused to capitulate, and to aggressively protect and assert our members legal rights by filing an unfair complaint, which is now pending a hearing at ERCOM, has placed us in an extraordinarily unique position. While the County could violate the law and take away benefits, such obviously illegal activity is highly unlikely. As of now, given our status pending the resolution of the ERCOM complaint, unlike unrepresented employees, membership has its privileges. We are hopeful the County will agree to engage in meaningful bargaining, but if not, we will await the hearing officer’s determination. In the interim, while unrepresented employees have no legal recourse, represented DDAs do. Membership has its privileges.
DDAs are represented now, and the ADDA is your union. Our strength is through unity. Do not give up the hard fought protections we now enjoy. They are as important, if not more important, in bad times as well as good times. Join the ADDA today. If you would like to join, please contact any ADDA officer or director, or e-mail us at LA-ADDA@hotmail.com
