There are those who believe that unions have out-served their usefulness. The unfortunate fact of the matter is when people see conduct like the firefighters union retaliating against a local business for advertising in a publication that they do not agree with, the reaction of many will be the same as one of our readers.
The city’s employees came into city council back in June and issued forth heated rhetoric that compared the actions of the local city council to those of the Wisconsin Governor.
It is difficult to look past the fact that the firefighters union president, who was the subject of a Grand Jury investigation, released in June of 2008, for inappropriate activities and creating a hostile work environment, receives over $150,000 in total compensation for his firefighting work for the city, and not to question why we have unions in the first place.
Having worked for a union myself at various times, having married a union representative, and having grown up in a union household, I am a strong supporter of unions. But I also believe that the arrogance of established power among some union leaders is every bit as bad as that arrogance and excess among corporations and government elites.
In short, unions can be their own worst enemies and can bring much criticism upon themselves.
Still, it would be tragic to allow the actions of the Bobby Weists of the world, and other union bosses who abuse their power, to turn us against public sector unions.
Having had a close seat to watch union activities, I watched as scores of low-level government employees were systematically abused and taken advantage of by their immediate supervisors. With regard to government employees, without a strong union to represent them in grievances and other procedures, many of these individuals would have had their lives, if not destroyed, harmed immensely.
Service workers at UC Davis and across the University of California system, who were often making sub-poverty wages while the administrators were making in the hundreds of thousands in salary, mobilized and were able to get a much better contract for themselves than if they had to go at it alone.
At UC Davis, food service workers, working for the subcontractors Sodexho, were able to become full university employees thanks to the pressure that AFSCME (American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees) was able to exert through a series of public demonstrations and prolonged negotiations.
In 2006, my wife flew to Houston, Texas where she and others across the U.S. joined an action protesting the inhumane treatment and working conditions of janitors.
Thanks to the organized civil disobedience of “the Houston 46,” a.k.a “The CA 8” [a name they were affectionately given by fellow unionists], with their arrests and the bad press resulting from the treatment of union workers, over 5,300 janitors were able to get their first-ever contract that included healthcare for them and their family members, as well as wages that pulled these janitors out of their poverty wages.
These are just a few of many examples of how unions can still play an important role in protecting the rights of workers.
What has happened is that the leaders of a few powerful unions have used their power to reap huge salaries and benefits for many in the public sector. They have amassed tremendous political power and, like so many, they have abused it.
We have gone to great lengths on this site to show the power of the firefighters union, both to elect candidates who will be friendly toward them and to get tremendous salary and benefits packages that the city can no longer afford. And, they have done it to the detriment of fellow employees who earn much less than them.
In other words, what is good for one is not good for all.
During one period of five elections, the firefighters managed to elect 7 of the 9 individuals who served on council for over a decade. For that they got not only the enhanced 3% at 50 pension package, but also a tremendous 36% salary increase over a four-year period.
The firefighters, with their political muscle, were able to get a far larger contract increase than any other bargaining unit. They were also able to get things buried, like the Grand Jury Report, where by a 3-2 vote, the council inexplicably decided not to even to gain access to the entire unredacted report themselves.
The three councilmembers endorsed by the union supported the burial of the report, while two members, who were not endorsed or given over $12,000 each to win re-election, did not support it.
For too long, people like Bobby Weist, union leader of the firefighters, have gone unchecked in this community. Now the Vanguard, among others, have exposed their activities and shown them for what they are.
In retaliation, Mr. Weist has gone after at least one of the Vanguard’s advertisers, but more importantly, they chose an easy target of opportunity, the grocery store across the street from their West Davis station.
This is nothing short of a bully tactic, picking on a weak entity in order to create a chilling impact to stifle free speech.
In the scheme of things, the amount of money and resources that the firefighters would have been adding to the taxpayer’s bill by shopping elsewhere is small.
The impact on the grocery store, the property and sales tax base on Davis is perhaps a bit larger.
But the degree to which these kinds of tactics will backfire and increase the anger the public has toward all of unions is large.
Again, one just needs to read the reactions and the negative comments about unions in general in that article to realize that Mr. Weist is hurting the labor movement.
But it is also the very same labor movement that is completely unwilling to extricate itself from the influences of firefighters and prison guards.
In late 2009, I had what could only be characterized as an intense conversation with members from the California Labor Federation. I repeatedly pointed out that the pensions going to fire and other public safety along with $100,000 pension receivers was putting the entire defined benefits program in jeopardy.
But labor’s view is “divided they stand, united they fall.” What they fail to realize is that the public probably could stomach the typical $27,000 pension far more than the pensions going to those in public safety and going to non-union managers, but the unions have largely been unwilling to compromise on this point.
Like I said, labor is their own worst enemy and apparently they are willing to all fall on their swords in order to protect the Bobby Weists of this world. It is too bad, because the people who will suffer are not the Bobby Weists at all, but rather the poor janitors making barely above minimum wage and the rank and file workers in Davis, who have to scrape each month to make ends meet.
It is unfortunate that when I think of a city worker, I think of Bobby Weist, rather than the lower-wage public works workers who work hard to earn their salaries.
That needs to change, but it can only change if labor recognizes that they only hurt themselves when they follow the Bobby Weists of the world, that they need to figure out a way to organize themselves and go at it in an honest and forthright way.
—David M. Greenwald reporting
Hmmmmm… could it be that the ‘boycott’, if it does indeed exist, is related to the [b]content[/b] of IGA’s ad in your banner, where they offer discounts to seniors, students, UCD faculty/staff & DJUSD employees… notably [u][i][b]not[/b][/i][/u] mentioning City employees, rather than where they advertise?
Where is everyone? Protesting in Sacramento? 99r;s?
Two questions and a couple of observations
1) How do we know that the shopping pattern represents an organized boycott ?
2) If it is an organized boycott, do we have proof of the motive ?
3) ” it is unfortunate that when I think of a city worker, I think of Bobby Weist, rather than the lower wage public workers who work hard to earn their salary.” I have the opposite “first thought”. Ever since the packed city council meeting, my first thought of public employees has been Josie. While we cannot control the deleterious actions of individuals such as Weist, we can control our own thoughts and reactions. We can choose to understand that there are many more “Josies” than Weists who depend upon our fair assessments of their individual and collective contribution to our community. It is up to us to not be overly biased by the bad behavior of a few thus harming the innocent majority.
4) “This is nothing short of a bully tactic, picking on a weak entity….”
If this is indeed what happened, I find it very ironic that a union, having as one of it’s goals, the advancement of those who would be very weak as individuals, would choose to target a weak entity clearly struggling.
“How do we know that the shopping pattern represents an organized boycott ? “
What we know is that the local firefighters were ordered not to shop at Westlake by their union president.
How do we know that David ?
Thoughtful article.
I’m going to come at this from a personal perspective, and leave readers to draw parallels. When I was a Math/Science teacher at a junior high school, the Teacher’s Union called for an illegal strike. Out of about 60 teachers, there were 5 of us who refused to participate in the illegal strike. The Teacher’s Union resorted to all sorts of shameful tactics against the five of us:
1) Came to our houses, stringing across our driveways, to prevent us from entering our own homes;
2) Banged on our cars to put dents in, as we crossed the picket line, yelling vicious insults, such as hoping we would die, etc.
3) Let air out of our car tires;
4) Striking teachers instructed students to disrupt classes of volunteers/non-striking teachers while school was in session during the strike;
5) After the strike was over, strikers stripped non-striking teachers of team leader positions;
6) Strikers refused to sit at the same table or eat lunch with non-strikers and would not speak with us – nonstrikers were “shunned” long after the strike was over.
Not all teachers went along with the Teacher’s Union, but the majority did. It was vicious, childish, and unprofessional behavior. But to add insult to injury the strikers were disobeying the law, whereas the non-strikers were abiding by the law.
Eventually the students got involved in the whole mess, trying to protect those teachers who had chosen not to strike. Even the students recognized such vicious behavior of striking teachers as wrong, and stood up for those teachers who did not strike. It was at that point I threatened to go to the Supt. of Schools if the Principal did not do something about the retaliation that was going on – bc it was effecting the students now. Only then did the Principal act. The shunning more or less continued, but some of the other vicious nonsense did tone down.
After that experience, I wanted no part of unions ever again. IMO they are coercive in nature – they do not allow for any differences of opinion. Suppose a firefighter did not agree with the directive not to shop at a particular store? In the close work environment of a Fire Dept, it is almost impossible for a firefighter to defy union directives without drawing fire (pardon the pun) toward themselves from co-workers who are ardent union supporters. Differences of opinion are not respected in unions – it is a “you are with us or you are against us” mentality.
I understand the point about solidarity against abusive bosses, but frankly I don’t find that excuse convincing against the abuses perpetrated by the unions themselves. The coal mining industry is a prime example, where the unions have not really done a whole lot for workers but take their union members’ money, yet haven’t been able to improve safety in the mines to a much more acceptable level. I think the unions perhaps need to take a good hard look at themselves, do some introspection, and rework their model of union intimidation of their own members and the public to get what they want at all costs. Members have to be more willing to stand up against union abuses…
[quote]Ever since the packed city council meeting, my first thought of public employees has been Josie. While we cannot control the deleterious actions of individuals such as Weist, we can control our own thoughts and reactions. We can choose to understand that there are many more “Josies” than Weists[/quote]
The thing is, has anyone even bothered to do the research regarding Ms.Teller’s position? Even in David’s article covering the first council meeting following the 2.5 million general fund cost savings motion, he sympathized with her and identified her as a rank and file worker. He just assumed that she was a rank and file. Whether it was because of the blue-collar uniform she was wearing or because she is a non-caucasian female I have no idea. But I have done a little research. My sources tell me her job title is “Wastewater Division Water Quality Supervisor”. So I looked it up and here is the salary specs.
Class Title: Wastewater Division Water Quality Supervisor
Class Code: 32700
Salary: $30.98 – $37.65 Hourly
$2,478.02 – $3,012.05 Biweekly
$5,369.03 – $6,526.10 Monthly
$64,428.42 – $78,313.25 Annually
http://agency.governmentjobs.com/davis/default.cfm?action=viewclassspec&classSpecID=60762&agency=1226&viewOnly=yes
I I remember correctly some of David’s criteria for rank and file was salary and being on the front lines dealing with the public. Neither apply here. She works in an office at the treatment plant and I’m pretty sure she rarely (if ever) deals with the public. Absolutely no disrespect to Ms.Tellers here, I’m sure she is a exemplary city employee who provides outstanding service to the city, I just think there might be a little better example of rank and file within the city personnel.
My “f” key is acting up, that was supposed to read “If I remember”
MEDS: [i]”How do we know that David?”[/i]
David explained that in his last article on this topic: [quote] The Vanguard, while making a routine public records request, stumbled upon an email dated June 28, 2011, from Eric Nelson of DANG (Davis Advocates for Neighborhood Grocers) to Mayor Joe Krovoza and Mayor Pro Tem Rochelle Swanson, alerting them that Union President Bobby Weist had instructed the firefighters “union to not shop at Westlake because Westlake had run an ad on the Vanguard website.” Mr. Nelson had pointed out, “For the first few months after the store was open the FD personnel did their grocery shopping and bought lunches at Westlake, but then they stopped cold turkey and we could not figure out what happened.” [/quote] A friend of a friend of mine, who works in the office of a Republican state senator in Sacramento, told me yesterday (after I mentioned to him what the fire union in Davis was doing) that he had heard last year that firefighters up and down the state began pressuring stores and restaurants which sell wine made by V. Sattui ([url]http://www.uncork29.com/blog/2010/04/18/vintners-political-commentary-sparks-facebook-boycott-of-his-napa-valley-wineries/[/url]) to “drop the label” or face a boycott. He said he did not know if the boycott was successful or not. He said the reason for the boycott was that the owner of V. Sattui said that some firefighters were overcompensated. The fire unions went ballistic and launched a boycott, which they spread on Facebook. The local union called on all other fire unions to do the same. (I tried to confirm this with a contact I have who is an active firefighter in California, but he was not home and his wife told me she had never heard of it. So it’s possible that the boycott didn’t reach all fire unions.)
Thanks Rich
Have been out of town a bit and seem to have missed that.
Weist is clearly very good at his job as the union boss. However, if he had been a little more sneaky, he could have couched his boycott against Westlake in union terms: that is, require that his members shop only at unionized supermarkets in Davis. That would preclude every market but Safeway and Save Mart. It would also make it interesting when the firefighters tried to explain how Nugget, which is non-union, exploits its workers.
Sequoia
While I appreciate your diligence in providing the specific information on Ms. Teller’s position, it does not alter my thinking about the importance of not extrapolating negative feelings about union leadership to the rank and file workers, regardless of where you happen to draw the economic line.
It is not a problem that the workers form unions to represent them. The problem is that the owners are not represented at the bargaining table. Contract negotiations need to be held in public, subject to the Brown Act, and done by professional negotiators on behalf of the taxpayers.
Elaine
I totally understand how your very bad experience with an illegal and apparently brutal union action would taint your view of all such activity.
I would like to share a different experience. When I was a resident in Ob/Gyn approximately 25 years ago.,there was a legal, but very divisive
Local 250 strike involving hospital workers in a number of support services. There were early on a few of the kinds of “dirty tricks”such as letting the air out of tires and the like. However, the majority of the strikers despite pressure on them personally from more militant individuals,
Stepped up to do the right thing. They formed teams of uniformed union members who patrolled the parking lots to prevent car damage and most notably from my point of view checked in with the docs about what time we intended to come in to work and leave so that we always had
union escorts across the picket lines to our cars and in my case a block from the hospital since I walked to work. I share this so that those of you who hold completely negative views of union activity can gain some perspective on how unions are not uniformly bullying and evil, but can represent their collective best interest while still respecting, and protecting the rights of others.
[i]”It is not a problem that the workers form unions to represent them. The problem is that the owners are not represented at the bargaining table.”[/i]
With public and so-called private sector employee unions there is yet another very serious problem: campaign finance.
The majority of people in Davis who are Democrats don’t seem to understand that their party kowtows to the unions because the unions pay their bills. The only other major financial backers of the unions are the trial lawyers.
It is not so much the case that “the owners” are not represented at the bargaining table. The problem is that the workers have bought off the representatives of the owners.
We have seen that clearly in Davis, where Weist and Co. poured tens of thousands of dollars into people like Don Saylor et al, so that Mr. Saylor and Co. would give them millions of dollars in higher compensation and unbelievable amounts of paid time off.
The same scenario happens all over the place in California with labor unions that fund Democratic politicians. It is the main reason why our state government–due to the tens of millions of dollars given by the CTA–and almost all local governments are broke or going broke. They not only have taken for themselves extraordinary salaries, benefits, pensions, etc., but they have used the power of government (by way of the Democratic Party which they own) to keep out all labor competition for state and local contracts. This has made the maintenance and construction of schools, prisons, roads, office buildings and on and on impossibly expensive.
I should add that ethically the Republicans are no better. They kowtow to their financiers just the same. The two differences are that the Republicans are not financed by the unions and this state has been run (legislatively) by the Democrats since public employee unions began.
The only answer to this problem, in my opinion, is to ban private campaign financing. It is the main source of corruption in our country in all fifty states and at the federal level. Alas, because it would take amending the Constitution, I don’t think we will ever have it. Our country will thus ever be corrupt by how politicians raise money at all levels.
Since private campaign financing will not be banned anytime, it seems to me that our city council could announce that all negotiations will be held in public, open to the media and the public. That wouldn’t require any change to current law that I am aware of. If the public officials had to stand behind their negotiating points, they might be more likely to represent the public better.
Don
What a refreshing idea.
Negotiations, in public, with a professional negotiator acting on behalf of the City Council and employees being represented by a few of themselves (selected by the membership of the bargaining unit), with a chambers full of citizens (who would be entitled to public comment), broadcast and recorded in streaming video, sounds like a wonderful way to bring back the spectacles provided for the people in ancient Rome.
I have been in negotiating sessions for various groups, etc. over the years. [b]Successful[/b] negotiations (win/win) generally require being able to speak candidly, identifying needs/wants, test solutions that might lead to win/win. I can’t imagine doing this in the Circus Maximus format.
Probably, what would be more fair is to do what Sue Greenwald seemed to suggest a couple of years ago, Council decides what they want, tells the employees that they can accept that, or the Council will declare impasse.
Then the announcement of the “terms” could be done in the context of the public process Don suggests. Then once the Council issues their first, last (only) and best offer, we give the citizens a chance to vote on it, in case the public felt the Council was too generous. Would certainly save a lot of staff time.
Hpierce
If one has no hidden agendas, I see no reason that one could not speak openly and candidly in public. If there are hidden agendas, they deserve a public airing. And.as long as no one brings out spears or unleashes lions, I don’t mind the idea of spectacle and can truly envision win,win as the result. We certainly don’t seem to be achieving that with the system we have. I would favor a much more open process.
[i]Successful negotiations (win/win) generally require being able to speak candidly, identifying needs/wants, test solutions that might lead to win/win. [/i]
There hasn’t been a negotiation that has been successful from the public taxpayer’s standpoint.
Don… let me clarify… I’d have no problem with both sides making their positions known before and after each negotiation session, and available to the public… but with the potential for “audience participation”, with cheers, applause, cat-calls, etc., I don’t think discussions would be fruitful in the “circus” format. I could be mistaken, but I suspect there would be a lot of ‘posturing’, and “speechifying” from the negotiators as well in that format. If folks want to give it a try, contact the Council ASAP. They consider how to proceed with negotiations will all the groups Tuesday evening. Ironically, if they discuss and decide to do what you suggest, Don, they will be doing so in closed session, with no opportunity for the public nor employees to weigh in. Perhaps they should have their discussion in open session to be within the spirit of what you suggest.
[i]”Don, What a refreshing idea.”[/i]
Yes, I have been calling for this since 2005.
I think there is one more change we should make in Davis–given that we will never have untainted money financing our campaigns. I think, as long as a quorum can still be reached, any member of the City Council who has accepted endorsements, money or other material support from any city workers must sit out of the negotiations with that worker’s or workers’ bargaining group.
So if you took Bobbie Weist’s money or other aid in your last campaign, you have to recuse yourself from negotiating the next fire contract. If the DPOA went door-to-door on your behalf two years prior–and you did not explicitly reject that endorsement during your campaign–you should not be able to vote on the police contract.
I would extend this to any companies which do business with the City of Davis. If you accepted donations from a developer, and the City is considering that developer’s project, you should not be able to vote on his project.
We are very strict when it comes to not letting members of the Council participate when they have personal or financial conflicts of interest–for example, Rochelle could not be a part of the E-F garage discussions because (I believe) her husband, Charlie, leases property in the downtown (within 500 feet).
Yet, to my mind, Rochelle is far less likely to vote one way or the other on that garage proposal because of her family’s restaurant than someone whose campaign took thousands of dollars from the firefighters would be influenced to acquiesce to the fire union’s demands.
[i]”I’d have no problem with both sides making their positions known before and after each negotiation session, and available to the public …”[/i]
That is more-less what they did last time when they pre-published a list of “guiding principles.” Then when the contracts were made public and many of those “guiding principles” were not met, the contract was approved by the faction of the council which came up with the “guiding principles.”
I think a much more valuable reform with the contract negotiations is to allow for a lot more time to air out what they mean before the council makes its vote on them, even if they were negotiated in light of the public. For example, I think the Budget & Finance Commission needs to have a meeting to discuss/debate every provision in the contracts, declaring whether the provision is acceptable and sustainable for the long run.
That was something which was promised by Paul Navazio two years ago, but he fudged on it with puroposefully vague language and then business as usual took place with the late contracts being put up for a vote a few days after the groups agreed to them.
Another thing … the 2012 contracts are going to have very big changes. That much is obvious, because the old format is no longer working and leading Davis into bankruptcy. Everyone knows that.
But in a normal year the changes to the contracts don’t have to be extremely large. And for that reason, I favor the Japanese system*, where they make contracts only for one year at a time. The advantage is that if labor wins big one year, management only has to live with that for 12 months. Same if the opposite is true. As such, they almost never have prolonged negotiations which fail to meet deadlines, because they don’t usually have all that much on the line.
By contrast, in the U.S. system, with 4 year, or 6 year or 8 year labor deals, each side has a lot to lose if it gets even a small measure in the contract wrong, because they have to wait so many years to correct that. So our negtotiations tend to be more conflict ridden, save when times are really good.
*Japanese unions are almost all “house shops.” In other words, they don’t have an equivalent of the UAW. They have a Toyota union, a Nissan union, a Mitsubishi union, a Mazda union, a Suzuki union, and so on. Their unions, also, are very weak and almost never threaten strikes. Yet Japanese industrial workers are the highest paid in the world, even more than those in Germany.
[quote]There hasn’t been a negotiation that has been successful from the public taxpayer’s standpoint. [/quote]
So I’m guessing that your definition (and from the sounds of it David’s, Rifkin’s, and many of those who comment here)of a successful “negotiation” is one where the public taxpayer’s demand and get everything they want, get it all right now, and the city employees get nothing.
Thing is, that isn’t a negotiation and certainly not a negotiation in good faith. Whether anyone likes it or not (and from what I’ve been hearing on here most don’t), a negotiation involves compromise and concessions on both sides of the table. The bargaining groups made concessions in the last contract (as did the city) and will probably make more this time around as well provided the city responds in kind. Neither party is going to get everything they want in one fell swoop. Baby steps people, baby steps.
Straw man. That isn’t remotely what I said. I think the public interest would be served by knowing more about the negotiations, including what concessions were made in the last contract, as well as what the starting points were.
Baby steps will lead the city to greatly reduced services.
[i]”a successful ‘negotiation’ is one where the public taxpayer’s demand and get everything they want, get it all right now, and the city [b]employees get nothing[/b].”[/i]
That’s wrong. A successful labor deal, however achieved, is one which has these five elements:
1) Its long-term provisions are sustainable, such that they can be implemented without eviscerating crucial city services;
2) It requires the workers, supervisors and managers to be productive for all the hours that they are paid and it does not unduly reward employees with excessive paid time off or paid time to do work that is not in the public’s interest;
3) The total compensation package is sufficiently generous to the employees such that most of the best employees are satisfied with their pay and benefits such that they don’t want to leave their positions with the City of Davis for equivalent jobs* which pay more;
4) That any inflation of costs built into the contracts (such as rising medical premiums or rising pension funding expenses or salary increases) is capped at the income growth rate of the City, so that those rising costs don’t result in cuts in services;
5) That employees who fail to perform up to par, regardless of their tenure, can be let go without a great expense to the City.
Keep in mind that we did not incorporate in 1917 in order to create high-paying jobs for civil servants with pension and medical plans with millions of dollars for each retiree. This City only incorporated, 49 years after its founding as a township, because it needed services (primarily fire, water and road services) which, as an unincorporated part of Yolo County it was not getting. Today the services we require are far more extensive. But the idea is the same: the people want this corporation and are willing to fund it because the corporation provides services. If labor costs to a handful of people make it so that we are paying the full freight of an incorporated city, but we are not getting the services we require, we might just as well disincorporate.
*If someone leaves for a better job with another agency or a private employer, there is nothing reasonable we can do about that other than say, “Good luck and good bye.” A good example of this is when Bill Emlen, who was making a salary of $158,000 per year plus roughly $90,000 more in add-ons decided to quit Davis for a better job with Solano County which pays him $176,000 per year and has a much better pension plan. There is no point in trying to prevent that kind of an exit by offering him more to stay.
[quote]Straw man.[/quote]
Wow, reducing ourselves to personal insults are we? Bit low brow don’t you think even if minutely clever on your part. Nontheless, sticks and stones my man sticks and stones. And for the record, yes I do have a brain Mr. Shor – thank you very much.
I was referring to a ‘straw man argument’ — the rhetorical device — not calling you a straw man. Sorry if you misunderstood me.
My mistake. Thank you for the clarification.
You know, I’ve never been in a union, and although I was briefly a UC employee I have no other experience with public employment. So I would really be curious how some of our blog participants who are (or were) public employees would suggest the city and DJUSD get out of the fiscal problems they are in, and how the public employee unions could contribute to the solutions. I keep seeing discussion of getting to impasse, imposing terms, etc. As a private sector employer, I can’t imagine that is a reasonable way to go. I see the likelihood that unions might accept layoffs of their members instead of accepting reductions in pay and benefits, and I can’t really understand that.
So if any of you are willing to share how you think municipal governments and school districts can possibly move forward in times of straitened circumstances, I really am interested in your comments. I’m not happy to see public sector unions demonized as they were in Wisconsin and other states. Do the rank and file of these unions favor concessions in order to retain employment among their members? Is there a disconnect between the leadership and the membership?
Don… like you, I have never, and will never belong to a true union… I do believe in collective bargaining, but partly only because, in the public sector where I have worked, I wasn’t able to work out terms of employment different from someone in the same ‘class’ no matter how I exceeded their performance/knowledge/skills/ability. That, unfortunately (IMO) is part of the ‘rules’ that have been set up in the public sector (largely due to unions). Rich touched on some of the considerations, although I do NOT agree with all of his points. When things go sideways economically, do we reduce subsidies for providing recreational opportunities, or, to preserve those subsidies, do we ask all employees to take dramatic cuts? Rich has it right… the reason Davis exists as a City was to stop the fires that were devastating our ‘burg’, to provide water to do so, construct all-weather streets, to provide police protection, to move our waste products from our property, and to protect our property from flooding. Is it a “core mission” to provide parks and greenbelts (it does have great value to quality of life!), affordable housing (it is a moral thing to do), recreational opportunities (which my family enjoyed), child care assistance/referrals (no problems for me if the money is available), senior/disabled transit, be monitors for open space &/or not just protecting but improving the environmental ‘impact’ of our citizens (even tho’ most other agencies do not, except for higher government ‘mandates’ (which may not reflect environmental SCIENCE). We as a community may want to struggle with these… to date many “want it all”, and if we can’t afford it, we start on a race to the bottom for those who implement those decisions. This is not simple. Particularly if we drive off the most talented employees who can get us closest to a balance between the conflicting interests in a rotten economic environment.
Sorry, Don… your last point… should an employee sign off on significantly harming their financial situation to “save” another employee, who won’t be very much better off? Should two default on their mortgage to try (and fail) to save 1?… very moral and altruistic… hope it doesn’t come to that.
Seq: [i]”yes I do have a brain Mr. Shor”[/i]
Proof?
[quote]medwoman: Local 250 strike involving hospital workers in a number of support services.[/quote]
You crossed a picket line as a non-“hospital worker in support services”. Do you honestly think there would have been such consideration for a “hospital worker in support services” who tried to cross the picket line and go to work as such?
[i]”Don… like you, I have never, and will never belong to a true union…”[/i]
Since almost every single post you have ever made on the Vanguard has been in support of or in defense of the very pro-labor terms of the worker contracts for the City of Davis, including an in-depth knowledge of the terms of those deals (such as the fact that you know that City retirees hired post June 30, 1996 must be 60 years or older in order to receive a 100% retiree medical benefit*), I am going to call b.s. on your claim that you have never belonged to a union. I suspect you are (or were) a public employee, likely for the City of Davis, and while your bargaining unit may not officially be a “union,” it operates as such and in effect is a union. In other words, your claim is a technicality.
Now, of course, I don’t “know” that about you. I am surmising it from all of your posts. If it is not true and you want to deny it, then say who you are. No matter what, I will have trouble believing–unless you post your true name and work background–that you don’t now or did not in the fairly recent past have a financial interest (perhaps through a spouse or child) in the outcome of the City’s labor contracts, especially since you have been perhaps the most outspoken defender of those contracts, regardless of their long-term unsustainability.
A fair cricitism of me is that I have no personal stake in those MOUs, yet I am calling you out (an anonymous poster), claiming your knowledge of them (which is roughly equal to mine) makes it clear to me you are or were a City worker or made your income somehow off those contracts. There are two differences in my defense: 1) I only started tearing through those contracts and figuring out what they were doing which I believe is so harmful to our City as part of my (nearly unpaid) position as a columnist for The Enterprise. Otherwise, I surely never would have immersed myself in those contracts. They don’t, surprisingly enough, ever come up when I am doing my actual job; and 2) I always put my name to my posts. (As it happens, I have always posted as “Rich Rifkin.” Some bug in the Vanguard’s software won’t allow me to do that any longer. So David Greenwald set up a new registration under “Rifkin,” which only bothers me to the extent that I think everyone should post under their complete names when making public arguments.)
* a 100% retiree medical benefit — last year or possibly in late 2009, I inquired with the City to know if any of their retirees, who retired under age 60, had started with the City on or after July 1, 1996. The answer I got then was just one, Jim Antonen.
What is supposed to happen in cases like that is the young retiree must pay half of the cost of his retiree medical benefit and the City pays the other half until the retiree turns age 60.
But in the special case of Antonen–who was essentially fired and given a dissolution package at the time he stopped working for the City of Davis–he got a 100% retiree medical plan from the City for himself and his wife. Because of that, the taxpayers of Davis are paying for his medical benefits, while he is again gainfully employed as a city manager in Minnesota. We will pay for that medical plan for the rest of his life, and the taxpayers in Minnesota will get off scot-free.
So the 1996 exception has not yet taken effect for a single Davis retiree. In other words, every one of our retirees, including those under age 60 (like a Rose Conroy) have full medical plans paid for by the people of Davis.
As HP knows, my belief is that we need to require a retiree (other than someone who became disabled while working for the City) to reach age 65 before we buy his lifetime medical plan. That reform would cut out about 75% of our current unfunded retiree medical bill.
ERM
I t know the answer. But I do know that teams protected the parking lots, and there were some union members who did cross, so there were some members who were doing what they considered the right thing to do, even in the face of criticism.
Oops,sleepy keyboarding there. Obviously supposed to read “I don’t know…”
Rifkin… I feel that you (for some reason) need to impugn my integrity… I have made the fatal mistake of challenging your “facts”, when they are indeed either “not” or missing critical elements. I do not understand why you would think that someone ‘outside the system’ would not do the same “research” you have done (unless it is because I disagree with some of your opinions). Feel free to convince David that only those who give their full name (and last four digits of their SSN?) should post. I stand behind my facts and opinions. You have never successfully refuted any factual information I have posted.
[quote]1) I only started tearing through those contracts and figuring out what they were doing which I believe is so harmful to our City as part of my (nearly unpaid) position as a columnist for The Enterprise./quote]Ahhhh… re-read your post… as a columnist you need to stir controversy… perhaps you would benefit from being a ‘reporter’….
[quote]Sequoia: Baby steps people, baby steps. [/quote]Too late for baby steps.
Rifkin: “If it is not true and you want to deny it, then say who you are.” This kind of rhetoric is why fewer people want to even read this blog. Echo of Joe McCarthy. Are you now or have you ever been a member of the public union (communist party)?
I’m not apologizing for the tactical mistakes made by unions over the years, but unions are the one, single organizational structure for working people. The worst things that any unions have ever done pales in comparison to the viciousness of the worst employers. If you’re not in a union and you work for a wage or salary, your compensation is related to what unions have bargained as a reference point. Social Security, the work week (and the weekend), Medicare, anything decent or progressive have been the work of unions and allies of unions. Unions are the only thing standing between us and political oblivion at the hands of plutocrats. You may not like it, but that’s just a fact.