DWP Strike Turns Supervisors Into Linemen : Labor: A group of 300 is on call 24 hours a day, many sleeping at work. They are hailed by their bosses as heroes, but reviled by strikers as scabs.

Behind the picket lines, some 300 supervisors at the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power have become journeymen again, returning to the transformers, power poles and utility boxes of their youth.

They do not scale electrical poles as quickly as they once did, but the old-timers have managed for the most part to keep the lights on and the water running for the DWP’s 1.3 million customers.

Thrust from behind their desks by the longest strike in DWP history, the managers are caught between the obligations of their jobs at the nation’s largest public utility and the wage demands of their disgruntled crews. Praised as heroes by the DWP brass for keeping the city in lights, they are derided as scabs and strike breakers by the men and women they manage.

Said Bob Duncan, executive director of the Engineers and Architects Assn., which represents 2,500 of the 8,669 striking workers: “I think the real heroes are (picketing) out there on the street. It doesn’t take anything heroic to walk in and get a paycheck.”

As the strike enters its eighth day, a camaraderie has developed among the beleaguered management crews who remain on the job, on call 24 hours a day, sleeping at the DWP’s 2nd Street plant on cots or in rented mobile homes when they are not out on repair duty. There have been two wedding anniversaries and a birthday inside the plant. One supervisor was given a brief respite to visit a newborn son.

But there is also a feeling of being under siege. In past weeks, as negotiations soured between the DWP and its unions, the supervisors received special refresher courses and were prepared to fill in should there be a strike. Never, however, did they imagine that they would be away from their families for more than a week.

Union leaders downplay the supervisors’ suffering, saying that without ever holding a picket sign they will reap the same salary increase that the unions do.

But the bosses, whose own contracts contain a no-strike clause, say they know firsthand the plight of the striking workers. In their younger days, many walked the picket line themselves--in 1974, the last time the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 18, which represents the bulk of the workers, called a general strike.

“It is not any fun at all to come up to a picket line and see people who work for you,” said DWP supervisor Billy J. Proctor. “We’re doing what we have to do, and they’re doing what they have to do.”

Machinery--and the supervisors’ bodies--have changed in the two decades since the managers last hit the streets. The average age of the management crews is 50, the DWP said, 15 years older than the average worker normally assigned to repair duty.

“You bet it’s tough,” said one supervisor, who refused to give his name. “We were 20 years old when we were doing this stuff.”

The DWP says it is the dedication of the managers and the nearly 2,000 employees who have crossed the picket lines that have kept the DWP operating. Despite their efforts, however, the duration of power outages is two to three times longer than normal.

“We’re in a situation where as more time passes, more problems will happen out there in the system,” said Michael T. Moore, DWP executive director of public and governmental affairs. “These are the people keeping the system together. We owe them a lot.”

Moore said simple good luck has also had a hand. Routine malfunctions in the water and power systems have been down considerably since the strike began.

The unions do not dole out the same praise for those keeping the DWP running. They say the strikers are suffering the greatest pain.

“We have people out there on the line who are having trouble meeting their mortgages, who are having to borrow money to survive,” said union leader Duncan.

The walkout continued Tuesday with signs that the unions and the city were inching closer to a deal.

The City Council revised its last offer to DWP employees after meeting several hours behind closed doors with Mayor Richard Riordan and city negotiators. Without specifying the offer, council President John Ferraro said afterward: “We made a fair and reasonable offer and we hope it will settle the strike.”

Previously, the city offered the union a 9% raise over four years, which the union has rejected. Striking workers want the same 3.25% annual raise granted this year to private utility workers.

Earlier Tuesday, hundreds of DWP employees staged a noisy protest on the steps of City Hall, with some of them quietly entering the council chambers. Extra police were called in to provide security but there were no incidents.

Meanwhile, Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Robert H. O’Brien set a hearing for Sept. 22 to decide whether the electrical workers union ought to be found in contempt of court for not calling off its strike as he ordered last week.

The union, in turn, filed an appeal of O’Brien’s temporary restraining order, saying it violates the workers’ right to strike. O’Brien will hold a hearing Friday to reconsider whether the strike is endangering public health and safety.

Times staff writer Rich Simon contributed to this story.