Julian Melendez
August, 2011
Thanks to all of you who came to one of our ratification sessions and cast your vote on our new contract. From the feedback I received, most of you who came out to vote were satisfied that the new contract is fair, given the economy and what is occurring within the city and throughout the state. Roughly 3,600 of our 9,500 members, or 38 percent, dropped a ballot in a ballot box so that their vote on the new contract could be counted.
It’s important to point out that there is a common misunderstanding among some of our members that if you do not come out to vote, your absence is considered a “yes” vote. This is incorrect. Your vote is only counted if you come out to a ratification site, check in, obtain a ballot and drop it in one of the ballot boxes so that it is counted at the end of the evening.
Although 38 percent of our membership is a relatively high number for voting purposes, it also means that 62 percent, or roughly 5,900 of our members, did not vote. This is concerning because of the potential for a lot of misinformation and confusion to circulate among our membership. I intentionally walked around between the ratification sessions so that I could answer questions and try to clarify any misinformation or confusion. One of the things that still needs to be clarified is the difference between a medical subsidy and a medical premium. When some of our members learned that the medical subsidy could potentially increase up to 5 percent in the second and third years of our new contract, they thought that this was a bad thing, but it’s actually not. The medical subsidy for those of us who are currently on the job is $1,064 per month. This is the amount of money that the City of Los Angeles provides, or subsidizes, to pay for the Blue Cross or Kaiser medical insurance plan that we choose through the Los Angeles Police Relief Association (LAPRA). The premium is the actual cost of the medical insurance plan based on the rate negotiated by LAPRA with Blue Cross and Kaiser. The new contract provides that if the medical inflation rate, the cost of providing medical coverage in our area, increases by at least 5 percent, our medical subsidy, the amount provided by the City to pay our medical premium, will also increase 5 percent. If the medical inflation rate is less than 5 percent, the medical subsidy will increase by the lower amount. Some of our members thought that the potential for our medical subsidy to increase by up to 5 percent for the second and third years of our contract meant that they would have to pay 5 percent more for their chosen medical plans, and that is incorrect. The only way that you would have to pay more for your chosen medical plan is if the subsidy were less than the premium.
To the 1,500 members who attended the League’s annual picnic at Knott’s Berry Farm on June 12, the delegates and employees who worked the event and the dozens of members who graciously posed for pictures with their families as I walked around the picnic area and park throughout the day, thanks. A selection of these photos will be published next month in the Thin Blue Line. One disclaimer: I apologize to the couple who posed for a photo and I somehow took the picture from the neck down. Sorry and please come back next year, when I’m not the official picnic photographer.
Now that the negotiation process is over, I should be getting back to a normal routine of answering your questions over the phone; working on meet and confers regarding proposed changes to your wages, benefits and working conditions; representing some of you during the grievance process; and addressing the issues that you bring to the League’s attention that negatively impact you.
As always, feel free to reach me in the office at (213) 251-4588 or on my cell at (562) 397-4585, or email me at julianmelendez@lappl.org if you think I can help you with an issue or problem.
