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State worker unions flexing
muscle They're
spending millions to thwart governor and his ballot measures. From the Sacramento Bee, September 26, 2005 In
their counterattack against Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger leading up to the Nov.
8 special election, the unions that represent 1.3 million public employees in
California are muscling up as never before. According to the secretary of state's office, public employee
unions this year have created more than 180 political fundraising committees
that are raising and spending money by the tens of millions to defeat four
ballot initiatives supported by Schwarzenegger. Mostly, the money's been spent ripping into the Republican
governor and knocking his approval ratings below 40 percent - illustrating
once again the political power of public employee unions that have scored
major victories over the years on matters ranging from school funding to the
salaries of correctional officers. "Up until the end of 1998, public employee unions were among
the most powerful special interests in California," said GOP political
consultant Mark Bogetich. "Since that time,
they have spent tens of millions of dollars and now own the California
political system lock, stock and barrel. And unfortunately, taxpayers are
going to get stuck paying the bills for decades to come." Public employee unions make no apologies for their wage and
benefit gains. But they say they've also put their time, effort and money
into projects that have improved society. They say they've been the driving force behind campaigns that
built fire stations in Los Angeles and classrooms in Burbank, and reopened
libraries in San Jose. They say they've battled to put more cops on the
streets in Colton and Pinole, and to retrofit police and fire stations in
Fremont. "We do have a voice, but many times that voice is not only
a voice for ourselves, but also a voice for the public," said Lou
Paulson, president of the California Professional Firefighters. "We have
a bigger perspective on many issues." As of June 30, union committees had spent about $20 million on
political campaigns this year. From July 1 through Sept. 20, they directly
contributed an additional $33.2 million to seven campaign committees fighting
the four special election initiatives. The California Teachers Association -
which has pledged to spend $50 million fighting the governor's agenda - alone
has accounted for $27 million in direct contributions since July 1, according
to the secretary of state's records. In the 2003-04 legislative session, 40
public employee unions contributed $52.2 million to candidates and causes
through 120 political committees. Bob Stern, president of the Center for Governmental Studies in
Los Angeles, summed up the public employee unions' influence in a single
word: "Tremendous," he said. At the local level, political contributions have helped elect
county supervisors, city council members and school board members who sign
off on their workers' labor contracts. In Sacramento, Stern said, public employee unions "have
veto power over bills." In an effort to dilute the unions' financial clout,
Schwarzenegger is now backing Proposition 75 on the fall ballot. The measure
would require public employee unions to obtain the annual written consent of
their members before spending any of their dues money on politics. While it's not clear how the measure would play out if it
passes, labor advocates say it is a one-sided effort to take them out of the political
game and clear the field for big business. "The notion that they somehow shouldn't be allowed to
participate in the political process because they're a special interest and
big business is not a special interest is sort of a ridiculously contorted,
basically anti-democratic sentiment," said Capitol labor lobbyist Barry
Broad. Public employee unions, with their money and the squadrons of
volunteers they can deploy to walk precincts and work phone banks up and down
the state, have established themselves as gigantic players in Sacramento over
the past 25 years. They won perhaps their biggest victory in 1988 when the
California Teachers Association - the largest union in the state,
representing 335,000 people - succeeded in passing Proposition 98, a ballot
measure that locked in about 40 percent of state spending on public
education. The teachers also helped fight off a special election initiative
in 1993 that would have established a voucher plan in California. Correctional officers, meanwhile, scored themselves significant
pay raises under three governors, two of them Republicans - George Deukmejian and Pete Wilson - and the third a Democrat,
Gray Davis, whose election in 1998 came after a huge union-funded television
campaign in the Central Valley. It was under Davis that public employee unions enjoyed some of
their most prominent gains. SB 400, which Davis signed in 1999, boosted pension benefits for
many retired workers by 1 percent to 6 percent and allowed new employees
hired under a second-tier plan earlier that decade to buy into the top-tier
package. In 2000, the Davis approved SB 402, which granted binding
arbitration rights to police and firefighters and thereby submitted economic
disputes that had reached impasse to third-party authorities for resolution. The same year, the CTA, which had been
threatening to sponsor an initiative to force the state to increase school
spending to the national average, dropped the plan after the governor agreed
with legislative Democrats to increase public education funding by $1.8
billion, with some of it going to salaries. In 2002, Davis signed a bill granting more lucrative public
safety pensions to more than 3,200 employees represented by the California
Union of Safety Employees, even though his Department of Personnel
Administration had long contended that the workers didn't qualify for the
benefit. The union contributed about $500,000 to Davis that year. This year, the unions have used their force to fight back
against Proposition 75 and the three ballot measures Schwarzenegger proposed
for the special election ballot. Schwarzenegger's Proposition 74 would extend public school
teachers' probationary periods by three years. His Proposition 76 would give
more budget-cutting authority to the governor, and Proposition 77 would take
redistricting power away from the Legislature and place it in the hands of a
panel of retired judges. In recent speeches to supporters, Schwarzenegger has
characterized himself as being "bloodied but unbowed" by the
unions' onslaught. For much of 2005, he has vilified "government
employee union bosses" who he says must be defeated if he is to have any
chance on his overhaul plan. "Union bosses" kept the Legislature from enacting his
complete "reform" agenda, he said in an interview with The Bee last
week. "They are running the state," he said. Their end game,
he said in a recent speech in Fresno, is to "get more benefits for
themselves, and more health care for themselves, and
all the things for themselves." Ray McNally, a strategist for the campaign that is opposing
Schwarzenegger, said the public employee unions are only going after the
governor because he "declared war" on them. "He sucker-punched them," McNally said. "He took
them out for a good public whipping, thinking it would propel him to
re-election." Now, the unions are trying to make him pay, with the TV and
radio ads and 1960s-style protests at Schwarzenegger's fundraisers where they
scream in the faces of his contributors, "Shame on you." Since September 2004, Schwarzenegger's approval ratings have
fallen from 65 percent to 36 percent among registered voters, according to
the independent Field Poll. Even some supporters of the governor's agenda think the union
attacks on Schwarzenegger are now taking their toll on his initiatives. "If you taint the messenger, you corrupt the message,"
said longtime conservative activist and Proposition 75 author Lew Uhler. "And to the
extent that Schwarzenegger has been tainted, then the impact of his message
has been reduced." Greenbelt police’s
bargaining request will appear on ballot From
the Gazette, September 27, 2005 The
Greenbelt City Council voted 4-0 to put the city’s Fraternal Order of
Police’s request for collective bargaining on the Nov. 8 election ballot. City
Councilwoman Leta Mach was absent from the meeting
but did send a letter saying she supported putting the question on the
ballot. The
council and FOP have been discussing this issue over the past 6-8 months,
with no compromise. But at Monday’s council meeting both groups agreed, after
some heated discussion, that they were happy with the ballot question. At
first John Rogers, chair of the FOP’s Collective
Bargaining Committee, voiced opposition to the city’s wording of the ballot
question. The
city originally stated that only ‘non-supervisory’ sworn officers would be
able to bargain collectively. Rogers and Jeffrey Gibbs, the FOP attorney,
stated this excluded sergeants from the bargaining process. The
council agreed to change the wording to ‘non-managerial’ instead. Mayor
Judith Davis said she and her fellow council members will be educating
residents about this issue in the weeks before the election, and said the FOP
will be doing the same. Drop
in NYPD recruits blamed on pay cut New York City's starting pay for police officers
has dropped sharply as has the number of people signing up for the police
exam and the trends may be linked. Police Commissioner Raymond Kelly told the New
York Daily News the paycheck -- $25,100 a year -- is a major recruiting
challenge. The amount was fixed by an arbitration panel. A total of 21,236 people signed up for the
October exam, down 39.3 percent from last year's October exam. This year's
sign-up period for the exam was also shorter than last year's, but even
correcting for that difference the fall-off was 15 percent. But officials say that even with a 35-percent
drop from last year in would-be officers, the department will have an easy
time filling its ranks. There is a backlog of 1,200 people who have passed
earlier exams. Patrick Lynch, president of the Patrolmen's
Benevolent Association, believes the department has a long-term problem and
it's not the starting pay. He says that recruits are willing to sacrifice
when they see a payoff down the road, but the $59,588 salary they get after
five years is not enough of a payoff. Benefit deal in the works for deputies From the Courier &
Press, September 23, 2005 Collective bargaining for Vanderburgh County
sheriff's deputies is off the table - for now, anyway - but a compromise on
benefits is in the offing. The
County Commissioners and Sheriff's Department officials have been meeting and
negotiating a resolution to the deputies' grievances with an eye toward
resolving them within a month, said Suzanne Crouch, president of the County
Commissioners. Crouch
said, and Sheriff Brad Ellsworth agreed, that the deputies' August request
for a collective bargaining agreement to be negotiated on their behalf by the
Fraternal Order of Police is not an option at this time. Instead,
a new personnel ordinance for Sheriff's Department employees or amendments to
an existing ordinance will be adopted. "We're
kind of in the process of floating (draft proposals) around," Crouch
said Wednesday. "We'd like to have a resolution in three or four
weeks." In
August, Vanderburgh County Deputies Organization spokesman Craig Blessinger said the officers wanted a collective
bargaining agreement "mostly to make secure benefits already in place
and to have assurance that they will not be laid off absent emergency
circumstances, particularly in a time when more, not fewer, officers are
needed." Blessinger said the rapid growth of subdivisions
outside city limits has stretched the Sheriff's Department resources thin. The
deputies' proposal mandated 3 percent pay raises in each of the next two
years. It restored some leave time that commissioners recently rescinded, such
as days off on birthdays, and it included a pledge that deputies serving in
the military would not lose pay and benefits because of calls to active duty.
Some
of those issues already have been addressed. In recent weeks, the
commissioners have amended the county's personnel handbook to allow for
supplemental pay during an employee's military service for up to 18 months.
On Sept. 14, the County Council passed a 3 percent employee pay raise for
2006. But
Crouch indicated the deputies aren't going to get everything they've asked
for. "They
were asking for a number of benefits that were not in the taxpayers' best
interests," she said. Crouch
declined to discuss specifics of the negotiations, but she did say the County
Commissioners recognize that law enforcement officers have needs, "and
the benefits need to reflect that." Sheriff's
officers have several benefits - including uniform allowances and overtime
pay for court appearances - that most other county
employees don't have. But Ellsworth said several other longtime benefits have
been rescinded recently because of legal questions about his authority under
state law to bestow benefits to employees. Getting
these benefits reinstated is "my main goal," the sheriff said. The
lost benefits include days off for passing mandatory physical agility tests,
days off for birthdays and a seventh week of vacation for employees of 25
years or longer. "We're
talking about benefits that go back through three sheriffs," Ellsworth
said. "Some of the officers were recruited with the understanding that
these were part of the package." While
Crouch said commissioners have no legal obligation to negotiate a union
contract with the deputies, Ellsworth said that is a separate issue that may
arise again. "If
(collective bargaining) comes up again, if the deputies want to revisit that,
I would endorse it again," the sheriff said. "They have some valid
arguments, and I haven't changed my mind about that.” Prop. 75 puts police at
odds with politics LOS
ANGELES - Bob Baker is a union president and a Los Angeles police officer who
considers himself generally conservative. "Don't
ever call a cop a liberal," said Baker, head of the Los Angeles Police
Protective League. He
even blanches at the word "union," saying it reminds him of corrupt
Teamster bosses. Baker, who often works in concert with liberal labor
leaders, prefers "recognized bargaining unit." So
it goes with police unions, a hybrid of law-and-order conservatism and
bread-and-butter liberalism. They may tilt Republican in party loyalty, but
their labor representatives frequently turn to Democrats on matters such as
pay and pensions. That
paradox is on stark display in the battle over Proposition 75, a November ballot
measure that would require public employee unions to get members' written
permission to spend their dues on political campaigns. California
police unions are mobilizing against the proposition and its largely
conservative backers. They contend Proposition 75 is designed to make it
hopelessly cumbersome for them to raise election funds. "It's
extremely unfair," said Baker, whose league represents 9,200 Los Angeles
Police Department officers. Proposition
75 supporters say the initiative is all about fairness, because the unions
finance candidates and causes that many of their members might not favor --
namely, Democratic ones. "They're
not always in agreement on where the money should go," said Allan Mansoor, an Orange County sheriff's deputy who is mayor
of Costa Mesa. The Republican is among the relatively small number of peace
officers who are vocally promoting Proposition 75. Mansoor and the president of the Association of Orange
County Deputy Sheriffs said that its approximately 1,700 members are
predominantly Republican. Even so, the union endorsed then-Gov. Gray Davis, a
Democrat, for re-election in 2002. The
association now is fighting Proposition 75. The
initiative has deepened the rift between public employee unions and Gov.
Arnold Schwarzenegger, a Republican who backs the measure. Schwarzenegger
riled labor by trying to shift government pensions to private accounts. He
abandoned that idea earlier this year after the unions pummeled him with a
campaign of media ads and street rallies, which saw police officers close
ranks with firefighters, nurses and teachers. The
unions describe Proposition 75 as an attempt to weaken their ability to fend
off future runs at their retirement packages. If it passes and succeeds in
shrinking labor campaign treasuries, they say, the initiative would give
anti-union corporate interests a ballot-season spending advantage. Among
the initiative's proponents are a business coalition aligned with
Schwarzenegger, tax-cut crusaders and the state Republican Party, which
complains unions contribute disproportionately to Democrats. The
GOP's stance enrages badge-wearing Republicans such as Wayne Quint Jr., a sheriff's sergeant and president of the
Orange County deputies association. "I'm
just ashamed of my party for taking an official 'yes' on this," Quint said. A
statewide alliance of unions is spending millions of dollars to defeat
Proposition 75. One alliance television ad features three steely-eyed law officers
criticizing Schwarzenegger, although it doesn't specifically mention the
initiative. Cops
in campaign spots can be a potent weapon against conservatives, said Allan Hoffenblum, a Republican political consultant in Los
Angeles. "How
can we attack the union without attacking the profession?" Hoffenblum said. Most
California police officers are covered by union contracts, reflecting a trend
of public-sector labor organizations growing steadily in membership and
political influence. Under
current law, a government employee can sign a one-time form directing that a
union not spend his or her dues on political activity, something that stays
in effect until the worker rescinds it. Typically, that portion of the dues
ranges from a couple of dollars to $20 a month. Proposition
75 would reverse the process, requiring unions to obtain authorization from
each member each year to use his or her dues on politics. "An absolutely
overwhelming task," Baker said. He
and other leaders of several large police unions said that only a tiny
fraction of their members withhold dues. And, they said, their endorsements
sit well with the majority of employees. "We've
never had huge dissent about any of our endorsements," said Deputy Steve
Remige, vice president of the Association. for Los Angeles Deputy Sheriffs, which opposes Proposition
75. The
association backed Schwarzenegger in the recall election, but its
relationship with him has become strained. Remige said 20 or so of the association's 7,000 members
have asked that their dues not be spent on campaigns. Contract
impasse declared by police union in Wilton Manors From the Sun-Sentinel, September
26, 2005 Wilton Manors · The police union has declared an impasse after months
of negotiations with city officials to renew the Police Department's
contract. |
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