Experts: Dangers await Las Vegas if city fires, rehires workers

Las Vegas could be walking into a legal and financial minefield if the city decides to fire its employees and then rehire them at reduced hours in order to deal with a projected budget deficit, according to experts and interested observers.

Mayor Oscar Goodman pitched the idea this week, saying the inspiration came from San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom, who actually is implementing the idea.

The move set the stage for a potentially long battle in the Bay Area.

Goodman wants a legal opinion from the city attorney before deciding what course to take in Las Vegas. The city attorney was not available for comment Friday.

Keith Lyons, a Las Vegas employment law attorney, and Robert Correales, a law professor at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, saw one immediate problem with the plan: It might violate the labor contracts the city has with the associations that represent most city employees.

"I doubt that that's legal," Lyons said.

The contract specifies, among other things, how many hours a full-time employee works, and the city can't unilaterally install a new contract, he said.

"This isn't a layoff," Lyons said. "That's the terms and conditions and hours of work that are covered in the contract."

Correales predicted that the city wouldn't be able to act on Goodman's plan "without some really strong challenges by the union."

"The union contract generally prevails (and) is the governing document in the relationship," he said.

The city, facing a $70 million budget shortfall in the next fiscal year, has proposed a couple of ways to fill that gap.

Employees were asked to agree to give up all raises and take 8 percent pay cuts in each of the next two budget years, but those agreements haven't been forthcoming. So city leaders prepared a budget that identifies 146 planned layoffs across almost every department -- which could be avoided, Goodman said, if employees take the pay cuts.

He said forcing employees to work fewer hours would let the city keep more workers and maintain more services.

"I'm serious about this. If it's legal, it's happening," he said.

It already is happening to San Francisco city and county workers, who have received layoff notices. Newsom has said most will be rehired to work 37.5 hours a week.

But unions there are gearing up to fight the plan through legal action, grievances and unfair-labor-practice complaints, said Carlos Rivera, a spokesman for SEIU Local 1021.

"It's a bad sign when the boss says, 'I'm going to bypass the agreement and do whatever I want, because I can fire you all,' " Rivera said. "Many of our members feel that this will spread like wildfire if our mayor gets away with it.

"We're trying to stop this as soon as possible."

Expect that to happen here if Goodman proceeds with the plan, Lyons said. Union leaders already have denounced Goodman as a "bully" for even proposing it.

In a worst-case scenario, every affected employee would file an individual complaint that would have to be arbitrated, a process that gets expensive very quickly.

"That would be a nightmare beyond belief. And the expense would be unbearable," Lyons said. "This could bankrupt all the associations, and the city doesn't have the attorneys to defend something like that."

One alternative would be trying one person's case as representative of all, but even that would be a lengthy process. And, if the city was found to have acted improperly, it could owe a lot of money at the end.

Goodman also acknowledged that his idea wouldn't achieve the goal of a uniform, across-the-board reduction in employee pay.

The mass firing wouldn't apply to public safety employees such as firefighters. The firefighters union is negotiating a new contract with the city, and Goodman urged them to accept an 8 percent pay cut.

Goodman has also called for an assessment of privatizing the city's ambulance service, which would cut the Fire Department since most of its calls are medically related.

The other bargaining units are the Las Vegas City Employees Association, the largest, representing much of the city's general workforce; the Police Protective Association, which represents city marshals; and the Las Vegas Peace Officers Association, representing detention center workers. Their contracts are not up for renewal, and members' approval would be needed for any changes.

If employees won't agree to a pay cut, or if a reduction can't be forced on them, layoffs are coming, Goodman said.

"It's like a parent with a child," Goodman said. "If the child keeps doing something wrong, you have to spank them."

The mayor quickly added, though, that he doesn't think city employees are misbehaving children.

Contact reporter Alan Choate at achoate@reviewjournal.com or 702-229-6435.