employee

A high-ranking employee at the Department of Water and Power made staffers run personal errands for her, including purchasing tickets to a Snoop Dogg concert, according to the Los Angeles City Ethics Commission’s director of enforcement.

Renette Anderson, who has worked as an executive assistant to the DWP’s general manager since 2002, asked subordinates to book a plane ticket for her personal travel, make physical therapy appointments for her, purchase party supplies for a non-work party at her home and make a service appointment at a Mercedes Benz dealership for her personal vehicle, wrote the enforcement director, Kenneth Hardy, in an accusation document dated Nov. 4.

Anderson’s requests to two DWP employees, Brian Johnson and Angenee Reygadas, were made during work hours in 2022 and 2023, and the employees used city resources to fulfill the requests, Hardy wrote.

On June 22, 2023, after the Snoop Dogg & Friends concert at the Hollywood Bowl was canceled, Anderson asked Johnson to request a refund, Hardy wrote.

Hardy accused Anderson of seven counts of misusing her city position to create a personal benefit for herself. If the parties do not come to an agreement, the Ethics Commission will hold a hearing and decide what penalties to impose. Each count comes with a potential $5,000 fine.

John Harris, an attorney for Anderson, did not respond to a request for comment.

Paola Adler, a spokesperson for the DWP, said the department cannot comment on personnel matters but that it takes accusations of unethical conduct seriously.

Anderson serves as director of Equal Employment Opportunity Services and reports directly to Chief People Officer Tracey Pierce. Anderson was appointed to her role by a previous general manager, not by Janisse Quiñones, who has been in the role since May 2024, the DWP said.

“She has been the primary voice on all matters related to Equal Employment Opportunity, workforce diversity, and the fair and equitable treatment of over 10,000 employees,” according to Anderson’s bio on the website of the Stovall Foundation, where she is a board member.

The California Supreme Court rejected a 1st Amendment challenge to a state law that protects the rights of gay and transgender people in nursing homes and forbids employees of those sites from using the wrong pronouns to address a resident or co-worker.

The ruling, handed down Friday, holds that violations of the LGBT Long-Term Care Residents’ Bill of Rights are not protected by the 1st Amendment because they relate to codes of conduct in what is in effect a workplace and a home.

“The pronouns provision constitutes a regulation of discriminatory conduct that incidentally affects speech,” the court ruled.

The opinion reversed an appeals court ruling that held provisions in the 2017 law relating to patient pronouns and names could impede an employee’s freedom of speech. Five justices signed on to the main opinion; two signed on to a concurrence. There were no dissents.

“All individuals deserve to live free from harmful, disrespectful rhetoric that attacks their sense of self, especially when receiving care necessary for their continued well-being,” Atty. Gen. Rob Bonta said in a written statement commending the ruling. “State law prohibits discrimination and harassment in the workplace. I am glad that the California Supreme Court agrees with us on the importance of these protections and has affirmed their constitutionality.”

The group challenging the law, Taking Offense, asserted in its lawsuit that the provision mandating that long-term care facilities use people’s chosen pronouns amounts to “criminalizing and compelling speech content.”

Taking Offense described itself in court documents as a group opposing efforts “to coerce society to accept transgender fiction that a person can be whatever sex/gender s/he thinks s/he is, or chooses to be.”

The court ruled that the LGBT Long-Term Care Residents’ Bill of Rights “will be violated when willful and repeated misgendering has occurred in the presence of a resident, the resident hears or sees the misgendering, and the resident is harmed because the resident perceives that conduct to be abusive.”

The LGBT Long-Term Care Residents’ Bill of Rights is enforced by a section of California’s Health and Safety Code. Penalties can range from civil fines to criminal misdemeanor prosecutions — the potential for criminal penalties was a major element of Taking Offense’s argument. The court’s decision noted that other protections for long-term care facility residents have long carried both civil and criminal penalties.

“It seems apparent that the Legislature does not intend for such criminal penalties to be imposed except as a last resort, in the most egregious circumstances,” wrote the decision’s author, California Chief Justice Patricia Guerrero.

The opinion made comparisons to other free-speech decisions with similar elements, such as the 1995 U.S. Supreme Court decision holding that the the Irish-American Gay, Lesbian and Bisexual Group of Boston could not force St. Patrick’s Day parade organizers to include them.

“By contrast, the present case does not involve any analogous creative product or expressive association,” Guerrero wrote, concluding that the California law is instead regulating people’s conduct.

Duara writes for CalMatters.

Los Angeles County Museum of Art management on Wednesday declined to voluntarily recognize the union its employees announced they were forming last week. This means LACMA United cannot move forward with collective bargaining efforts until it is formalized by a National Labor Relations Board election. Complicating matters further, NLRB activities — including elections — are on hold amid the federal government shutdown.

The disconnect between staff — a clear majority of whom signed union authorization cards — and management comes at a significant moment in the museum’s history as LACMA works tirelessly to open its $720-million David Geffen Galleries. The new home for its encyclopedic permanent collection, designed by Pritzker Prize-winning architect Peter Zumthor, contains 110,000 square feet of gallery space and is scheduled to open to the public in April after more than a decade of planning, fundraising and building.

In a news release, the union noted that organizing efforts — in the works for more than two years — have taken on added urgency as workloads have increased in the face of opening the new building.

“Staff across departments — many performing demanding physical labor — are stretched thin as deadlines accelerate,” LACMA United wrote. “Without adequate protections, this pace is unsustainable and has already contributed to burnout and turnover among dedicated employees who deserve better from an institution they’ve helped build.”

The union’s organizing committee added in a statement, “We are disappointed that LACMA leadership has chosen to delay rather than embrace the democratic will of its workers. While the museum reimagines itself as a more collaborative, less hierarchical institution in its new David Geffen Galleries, it has declined to extend that same vision to its relationship with the very people who bring LACMA’s mission to life every day.”

“LACMA’s leadership has great respect for our team and for everyone’s right to make their own choice on this important issue,” Michael Govan, the museum’s director and chief executive, said in an email. “No matter the outcome, my commitment to our employees — to listen, to support them, and to continue building a strong and respectful workplace — remains unchanged.”

Management’s decision stands counter to those made by other cultural institutions across the city, including the Museum of Contemporary Art, the Academy Museum and the Natural History Museum, all of which voluntarily recognized their unions over the last six years.

LACMA United represents more than 300 workers from across all departments, including curators, educators, art installers, conservators, registrars, visitor services staff, facilities workers, researchers and designers. The union is asking for improved wages, benefits and working conditions in what has proved to be a challenging climate for museum workers across the county.

The union did not demonstrate at last week’s celebrity-packed LACMA Art + Film Gala, which was co-hosted by Leonardo DiCaprio and fashion designer Eva Chow, and raised more than $6.5 million in support of the museum and its programs.