Legislation To Restore ERCOM Vetoed By Governor Brown

At the urging of L.A. Mayor Garcetti, and over the strong objections of Los Angeles City and County Unions, Governor Jerry Brown vetoed the legislation that would have restored balance to the City and County Employee Relations Commissions.

The County’s Employee Relations Commission, ERCOM, has been out of service for more than a year since the Board of Supervisors sided with County employee relations managers and unilaterally changed the appointment structure to be adversarial and more favorable to management.

AB 1881, which was authored by state Assemblyman Reggie Jones-Sawyer, would have restored balance to the County ERCOM by returning the appointment process to fair, neutral selection procedures.

“The County Supervisors have been given bad information by their CEO’s office and the HR staff,” said CAPE President Carlos Clayton. “There was nothing broken with the old system. When decisions were in our favor it was because County managers were wrong. They just didn’t want to admit to often losing in a fair system because it made them look bad. So they complained to the Board of Supervisors who replaced a fair system with a one-sided system. AB 1881 would have fixed that,” Clayton said.

The Governor’s veto message explained that his policy is to let local agencies resolve their issues at the local level. CAPE representatives are considering options to restore ERCOM as soon as possible.