Beginning in 1980 the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power (DWP) and the City of Los Angeles (City) maintained a reciprocal retirement benefits arrangement (Reciprocity or the Reciprocal Arrangement). This arrangement allowed employees transferring between DWP and the City to carry their pension service credits between the two retirement systems. In 2010, DWP decided to withdraw from Reciprocity. In 2013 the City then adopted Ordinance No. 182824 (the 2013 Ordinance), which suspended the Reciprocal Arrangement.
City employees and their unions (collectively the Coalition) filed an unfair labor relations practice claim before the Los Angeles Employees Relations Board (ERB). The Coalition alleged the City failed to bargain or meet and confer with the Coalition over the suspension of the Reciprocal Arrangement. The ERB agreed the City violated its duty to engage in “effects bargaining” regarding possible ways to mitigate the effects of the suspension of the Reciprocal Arrangement. The ERB ordered the City to bargain with the Coalition and to make whole Coalition-represented employees who sustained losses, including reduced pension or other benefits, resulting from the City’s unilateral implementation of the suspension, until the City had satisfied its obligation to bargain. The trial court then denied the City’s petition for writ of mandate challenging the ERB’s order and granted the Coalition’s petition seeking to enforce it.
The City does not dispute that it had a duty to bargain over the effects of ending Reciprocity. Instead, it challenges only the remedy ordered by the ERB. It argues the ERB lacked authority to order make-whole relief and, even if it possessed that authority, fashioned an improper remedy that failed to restore the parties to the status quo existing when the City’s bargaining obligation arose. The City further contends the ERB’s order is vague and overbroad, and violates separation-of-powers principles. Finally, it challenges the trial court’s postjudgment award of attorney fees under Code of Civil Procedure section 1021.5. We affirm.
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