Uncovered Portions Show Union President Bobby Weist Received SIGNIFICANT Preferential Treatment in Promotion to Captain
In newly-released segments of a 2008 report, the Vanguard has learned that Bobby Weist, the long-time union president and arguably one of the most powerful public figures in city government, received preferential treatment in his 2007 promotion to fire captain.
In April of 2007, then Chief Rose Conroy of the Davis Fire Department promoted Mr. Weist, over “at least one of the candidates [who] was demonstrably and significantly more qualified for and deserving of the promotion than [Bobby Weist] promoted by Chief Conroy.”
Investigator and City of Davis Ombudsman Robert Aaronson wrote that, while no one questions Mr. Weist’s skills or abilities, “a significant number of firefighters, including some who were not otherwise disgruntled, believed that one particular candidate was far more deserving than Bobby Weist – the individual who finished fourth and first and in the second tier (in the assessment center the division chiefs’ interviews and the chiefs final ranking, respectively).”
For nearly three and a half years, the City of Davis has been unlawfully withholding records that should have long ago been made public, exposing the depths of their collusion with the firefighters union to suppress damaging portions of the Davis Fire Department Investigation written by the city’s Ombudsman Robert Aaronson in response to findings in the 2008 Yolo County Grand Jury Report.
Late last week, the Vanguard reached settlement with the city after filing a suit for the city to turn over public records – records that rightly should have been made public long ago.
In June of 2008, the Yolo County Grand Jury issued findings against the Davis Fire Department. While the media and public focused on the sensational headlines of drunken firefighters sleeping overnight at the fire station, it was charges of union cronyism, favoritism and preferential treatment, hostile work environment and retaliation that expose deep problems throughout city governance.
It was former City Manager Bill Emlen, along with three members of the 2008-2010 City Council – Ruth Asmundson, Don Saylor and Stephen Souza – who, beginning in late 2008 conspired to keep from the public the full work of the investigation appointed by the council after initial public outcry in mid-2008.
City Manager Bill Emlen’s response to the Vanguard‘s initial public records request on February 20, 2009, wrote, “Mr. Aaronson’s report makes it clear, and I concur, that the Davis Fire Department is managed professionally and provides the highest level of service to the community.”
What Mr. Emlen failed to note, and what Mr. Aaronson’s testimony before the city council on January 13, 2009 made painfully clear, was that there was a considerable disagreement between Mr. Emlen’s interpretation of Mr. Aaronson’s report and Mr. Aaronson’s assessment of the situation.
The California Public Records Act requires local agencies, including cities, to provide the public with exact copies of public records upon request, and to respond to requests within 10 days. Mr. Emlen provided the public with only a synopsis of the report. When the Vanguard protested, Mr. Emlen released a heavily-redacted copy of the report, blacking out large amounts of text a month after the January 13th meeting.
While Mr. Aaronson was trying to put it politely on that evening, his interpretation was largely that Mr. Emlen saw the glass as half full while he himself saw it as half empty. To put it in less polite terms, Mr. Aaronson was suggesting that the findings were considerably more serious than the portrayal that Mr. Emlen gave to city council.
In the fall of 2008, by a 3-2 vote, Stephen Souza, Ruth Asmundson and Don Saylor voted not to read the entire report. Sue Greenwald and Lamar Heystek opposed this.
It was only in the summer of 2011, after the Vanguard renewed its quest to publicize this report, that Mayor Joe Krovoza became the first councilmember to read the entire, unredacted report.
In response to repeated requests, the Vanguard received additional copies of the report, with slightly fewer redactions in March of 2009, August of 2011, and finally the most revealing version this past week.
What we see now is the efforts of the council majority of Asmundson, Saylor and Souza who were heavily backed by fire union money in the elections of 2004, 2006 and 2008, voting to support management’s collusion with the firefighters union to suppress public discovery of unfavorable material – material that is damaging to the former fire chief Rose Conroy and the longtime union President Bobby Weist.
New Era for the Davis City Council
The new city council has worked hard to make reforms. Systems have been put into place that take the critical process steps outside of the department. While it was a problem city-wide, the biggest causes for concern were in the fire department.
A newly-elected council, comprised now of four members who have eschewed union money and endorsements, worked hard last year to implement new reforms. With bold new visions of transferring $2.5 million, that currently goes to personnel costs, to shore up unfunded liabilities and unmet needs like road maintenance, the council ushered in a new era.
Leading 150 city employees against this new vision was Bobby Weist, the firefighters’ union president, who had largely run city hall for nearly a decade.
Unlike past councils however, this one would not cave.
“The City is pleased that this matter has been resolved. The City released the portions of the Fire Report when the report was first issued,” Mayor Joe Krovoza told the Vanguard in a statement following the settlement.
“When the Vanguard filed its lawsuit, the Council asked the City staff and legal counsel to review the report to determine if additional information could be released at this time,” he added. “This review resulted in the release of additional sections of the report, while continuing to redact portions that should remain confidential, such as interviews provided in confidence and confidential personnel information.”
The Mayor concluded, “The City believes resolution of this matter is in the public interest, and balances the public’s right to transparent government, and the interests of the City and all parties involved.”
The Vanguard‘s attorney, Paul Nicholas Boylan, is pleased with this result.
“In my opinion, the public had and still has a legitimate interest in all of the information in the Aaronson Report because it shed light on how the public’s business is conducted. Releasing a copy of the report with huge parts blacked and then releasing bits and pieces over the years that should have been revealed in the first place is a de facto violation of the California Public Records Act,” Mr. Boylan said.
“However, a lot has changed: the City Council, the City Manager and the Fire Chief are all different. The City’s decision to release more information is a sign that the City is now much more interested in transparency than it once was,” Mr. Boylan concluded.
For former Councilmember Lamar Heystek, who was on the short end of the 3-2 vote, this process has been marked with frustration.
“The fact that City staff is now releasing a fuller version of the report brings into question whether the City had been complying with the Public Records Act in the first place,” he told the Vanguard. “No matter what opinions one might have about about the subjects of the original investigation, this action reinforces the fact that the information withheld had belonged in the public domain all along.”
April 2007 Promotion of Bobby Weist to Captain
What we find at least more uncovered than it had been is the detailing of a story that shows the suppression of dissent and the use of favoritism to reward those loyal to former Fire Chief Rose Conroy and Davis firefighters union President Bobby Weist.
“There are still a group of employees who could reasonably be described as disgruntled,” Mr. Aaronson wrote. “For some, the promotional process is their big concern; others worry about how the union operates. A frequent theme was the perception that Chief Conroy has people she favors and others she deprecates.”
The latter sentence is an example of originally-redacted material.
Mr. Aaronson estimated the number of dissatisfied employees at roughly 30% back in 2008.
He wrote, “On the other hand, there is a shared sense that favoritism plays a role in some assignments and promotions. Virtually all the discontented and some of the more moderate loyalists expressed concerns about the role that being ‘in favor’ has played in certain situations.
“Of course, this claim is strongly denied by the Chief and by the union.”
There is a clear caveat in Mr. Aaronson’s report. Mr. Aaronson examined favoritism in one specific instance – “in connection with the April 2007 promotional process whereby the union president and vice president were both promoted to the two captain slots,” but he “refrained from formally investigating other alleged instances of favoritisms” due to time and budget constraints.
We will focus much of this report on that aforementioned April 2007 promotional process which was a key part of the report that was virtually completely redacted previously.
An entire section beginning on Page 9 entitled, “Retaliation and hostile work environment allegations against Chief Conroy,” had been previous redacted along with the statement by Mr. Aaronson, “The disgruntled employees all professed to fear of retaliation for speaking out about organizational issues, particularly the role that favoritism seemed to play in punishing them.”
After SEVERAL PAGES OF CONTINUED REDACTION, Mr. Aaronson wrote, “There may or may not be provable instances of retaliation… There is a single instance of claimed favoritism about which I have gathered some telling information.”
He added, “It is concerning to me that there is a minority of employees… who fear retaliation from Chief Conroy.” He concluded from this information “that the number of people with this fear is significantly higher than the ones who were willing to admit it to me.”
While there was fear about speaking against Chief Conroy, there was also fear of speaking out against the union.
“Speaking out against the union means “you definitely lose a lot of friends,” we are allowed to read. A firefighter told Mr. Aaronson, “Retaliation would be limited to ostracism despite the fact that a couple of union members are perceived to be ‘enforcers’ for the board.”
With specific regard to the promotional process, Mr. Aaronson wrote, “In fact, the single most common starting place where employees become disgruntled is in connection with the promotional process. To the extent that certain circles believe that favoritism is a cornerstone in Chief Conroy’s department, their key proof is based upon their perception of how the promotional process has worked.”
“Apparently, Chief Conroy has been aware of this perception for some period of time. This is part of the reason why she is at such pains, during each process, to meet with the candidates and go over, in great detail, how the process works,” he wrote adding: “Having spent time discussing the details of the last promotional process with Chief Conroy, I do believe that she does not see that her actions have biased the result. But they have, as an examination of the question reveals.”
The first battery of tests were conducted at an off-site all-day assessment center. Wriote Mr. Aaronson, “Each candidate appears before four separate panels: the first runs a fire scenario for the candidate to interact with and demonstrate his/her skills in directing firefighting resources; the second is a training demonstration that the candidate must prepare and then present; the third is an interpersonal scenario where a candidate is expected to appropriately handle a personnel matter; the fourth is a writing exercise where the candidate is directed to write about one of the three prior scenarios. The final aspect of the assessment center is a multiple choice test.
The top of the candidates scored over 90 percent in the assessment, the bottom scored 71%. “Bobby Weist finished nine with 75%,” Mr. Aaronson reported in information newly released.
“The sheets from the division chiefs show that they agreed on the ranking of all but two candidates; their sixth and seventh rankings are reversed. In all other respects, they are identical,” Mr. Aaronson reported. “The union vice president was ranked second by both of them and the union president was ranked fourth.”
At this point, under those procedures which have been completely revised and revamped to avoid a repeat of what happened, the Fire Chief completes the remaining steps and all Mr. Aaronson was able to view was a “forced ranking by chief Conroy.”
Ms. Conroy’s forced ranking put the union vice president tied for first with Bobby Weist.
Mr. Aaronson wrote, “The union vice president, regardless of his position with the union, was everyone’s clear choice throughout the department. Every single person I spoke to, even dyed in the wool discontents, unreservedly endorsed his promotion. He is very bright, well-spoken and has real leadership skills.”
To reiterate, Robert Aaronson wrote that no one questions Mr. Weist’s skills or abilities, however, “a significant number of firefighters, including some who were not otherwise disgruntled, believed that one particular candidate was far more deserving than Bobby Weist – the individual who finished fourth and first and in the second tier (in the assessment center of the division chiefs’ interviews and the chief’s final ranking, respectively).”
Much of what follows is redacted.
What emerges is: “The discontented employees’ comments varied to the extent that they were prepared to accuse Chief Conroy of favoritism.”
In one of the most deceptive redactions in the documents, originally they unredacted only: “It does bear repeating, however, that no one faulted Rose’s selection” – that implies perhaps Bobby Weist was undisputed, but in reality, they redacted “selection of the union vice president.”
It is one thing to remove material that violates privacy rights of employees, it is another to selectively redact so that the implied meaning of the words is altered and that is the clear case here.
Mr. Aaronson continued, “One focus of everyone’s attention was whether, in what way and to what extent, Bobby Weist’s long tenure as union president played a role in Conroy’s selection of him.”
Mr. Aaronson argued, “Clearly, regardless of one’s opinion on the foregoing, it would be improper to factor in union work as management’s ‘payback’, positive or negative, for the candidate’s cooperation with or confrontation against management. The former would be favoritism/quid pro quo and the latter retaliation.”
One thing that is very clear is that an objectively far less qualified individual was promoted, likely on the basis of his position as union president along with his relationship with the chief.
Mr. Aaronson went on to argue the need for the rule of three or the rule of five, which would have been able to prevent the misuse of the process.
He wrote, “In essence, after a formal assessment process, a final list of the candidates is compiled by someone other than the final decision-maker/department head, wherein the candidates who meet the minimum qualifications are ranked in the order that they finished.”
He added, “In this instance, Chief Conroy’s final list ranked a candidate as tied for first when that candidate, by any reasonable, objective standard did not finish first, second or third in any step of the process. And she placed him above another candidate who, by every reasonable, objective standard, finished far ahead of her favored one.”
He added, “Of course, Chief Conroy need not have gone to those lengths. As she repeatedly reminded me, “We have a pick of the list … I get the pick of the list.””
Mr. Aaronson therefore concluded the following. First, “The process was not adequately transparent to the stakeholders.” Second, “If the purpose of the assessment center was, as Chief Conroy asserted, no more than to determine yes-no qualification, it was a waste of City money, department resources and employee time.”
Third, “The portion of the process, controlled by Chief Conroy, that attempted to rate candidates’ education, training, experience and job performance was arbitrary.” Here he added, “Based upon an objective review of the city’s records, these aspects of the candidates qualifications appear to have been either discounted or erroneously assessed.”
Fourth, “At least one of the candidates was demonstrably and significantly more qualified for and deserving of the promotion than one of the individuals promoted by Chief Conroy.”
Fifth, “Chief Conroy appears to have discriminated against at least one well qualified candidate based substantially on his choices of association.” He added, “The only reason Chief Conroy could articulate for passing over [redacted] was [redact] ‘naivete’; when asked to explain what this meant, she pointed to his friendships with employees she disparaged.”
Mr. Aaronson added, “While she apparently did not perceive it this way, it confirms the department’s perception that certain employees are disfavored by the Chief and one’s association with them will damage your chances of advancement.”
Finally Mr. Aaronson wrote: “Chief Conroy’s own prejudices played a role in the ultimate decisions.”
He adds, “As her own comments demonstrate, Chief Conroy brought her own biases to the table when she weighed the ultimate promotional decision. Chief Conroy correctly expressed concern that no individual test, whether written or oral, is without potential implicit biases.”
He concludes, “Yet, Chief Conroy overrode the multi-part determinations, and its protections against evaluator/tester bias, when she ignored the results and simply picked who[m] she wanted.”
The process was so flawed that the Grand Jury itself ordered the city to re-examine its promotion testing and selection process. The city’s entire process was revamped, though it was acknowledged the biggest problems with it were within the fire department.
Key portions of the process have been removed from the auspices of the hiring department and put into the hands of Human Resources, who screens applicants for minimum qualifications.
The policy now reads, “The Police and Fire Departments in conjunction with Human Resources will perform additional testing in the form of assessment panels.”
The policy adds, “Those failing the assessment panels will no longer be considered and will not move forward to the department. All applicants passed forward by Human Resources will be given in alphabetical order and all must be interviewed by the Department Head of the hiring department.”
Key Links and additional resources
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Council Hears City Manager Report on Grand Jury’s Findings into the DFD – January 14, 2009
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City Continues to Withhold Full Fire Report from Council and Public – March 1, 2009
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Davis Vanguard Firefighter Brochure – February 27, 2010
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Davis Fire Department Investigation – May 22, 2012
—David M. Greenwald reporting
David, This story sheds light on problems that you have written about in the past wbich is that the union president has too much power and misuses it for his own gain. I hope that the new city council continues toward transparency and avoids pandering to the union president as previous council members have and a current council member continues to.
Good job Vanguard. Document releases like this one is what this blog does best. The purely political posts, not so much.
[i]”In the fall of 2008, by a 3-2 vote, Stephen Souza, Ruth Asmundson and Don Saylor voted not to read the entire report. Sue Greenwald and Lamar Heystek opposed this.”[/i]
This, to my mind, was the lowest point of the City Council in the last 10 years. It demonstrated to me that Saylor, Souza and Asmundson, who were all backed by the firefighters and who were close with our inept fire chief, would take the side of the firefighters over the interests of the public even when the grand jury and the ombudsman had found that there were serious problems with the management of that department and that the firefighters were misbehaving.
In 2008, I was told by a high-level staffer at the time that Weist and Conroy were pressuring Emlen and the Council majority to quash the report. When a few months later that same majority moved to eliminate most of the ombudsman’s budget, I suspected that Weist was behind this, too. (I never got any reliable confirmation of that suspicion.)
Some people have told me that it really does not mean anything that the majority of the Council were directly and indirectly backed by the fire union for their seats on the Council. They say, “Rich, it is just a $100 contribution. … That is not enough to corrupt anyone.” I say the evidence in this case and with the excessive amounts we are paying the firefighters (far more than we pay cops, and cops are not paid to sleep on the job) and the exceedingly expensive “reorganization” that the majority pushed through and the unwillingness of the majority to reform fire staffing (which would save us more per year than Meausre D will raise each year) proves that our Council was corrupted by that bundling of money from the firefighters.
I also have one more take from recent experiences I have had dealing with the current management of that department: We need a new fire chief who was never a firefighter, who does not see it as his job to “represent” to firefighters, but rather who works for the people of Davis. The fire chief needs to have more experience as a tough personnel manager and a lot less carrying around a hose.
First David I want to congratulate you and your attorney for obtaining what you have.
The information you have provided is a sad chapter of staff intreague at the top. We as citizens do not get the best outcome from these hidden goings on.
Your work should bring more transparency and that will serve all Davis citizens better.
It does raise the question about what role are the fire fighters playing in this race?
David Thompson, Twin Pines Cooperative Foundation
“We need a new fire chief who was never a firefighter, who does not see it as his job to “represent” to firefighters, but rather who works for the people of Davis. The fire chief needs to have more experience as a tough personnel manager and a lot less carrying around a hose.”
Rich, one of the most important qualifications for a Fire Chief is the ability to lead his people . As former Lynbrook, NY Fire Chief Mike Chiaramonte said in an article in Fire Chief( http://firechief.com/leadership/management-administration/firefighting_todays_fire_chiefs ), while acknowledging all of the increased budgetary and administrative duties, “…it’s the creation of willing followers, for leaders can do nothing without the cooperation of the people around them. ” I can’t envision any fire department, in any of the many cities, of varying sizes, in which I’ve lived, following a civilian . Are you aware of any “non-fire fighter” chiefs in a metropolitan fire department ? It isn’t in the nature of a person who willingly runs toward danger to follow one who hasn’t .
It must be uncomfortable for Bobby Weist to have everyone know that he was hired over a more qualified individual. However, the responsibility for this lies with the Chief, who felt that she could “pick from the list” without viewing the process as one that would determine the person most qualified. She picked her friend. It is that simple.
My problem with Bobby Weist’s position as Union President is that he is gone from work doing union business a substantial amount of time. There was a staffing report available a few years ago. When he is gone, someone has to cover his job, which leads to substantial overtime costs. Again, the Chief had to approve his absence from work. This is allowed in the Fire Fighter’s contract, but, to me, it seemed like he was gone from his job here too much for someone in a vital leadership position.
The present Chief is virtually invisible in the community and likely will not make the same visible mistakes. He is clearly here to do a job and no more. Maybe this is what Davis needs, but it feels like the department is less transparent, not more. It is unclear if anything has changed.
That Bill Emlen had his hands all over suppressing this report is no surprise to me…
[quote]However, [b]the responsibility for this lies with the Chief[/b], who felt that she could “pick from the list” without viewing the process as one that would determine the person most qualified. [/quote]Interesting… it was my understanding that the Department Head recommends, but that the HR director & CM need to actually approve.
[i]”Rich, one of the most important qualifications for a Fire Chief is the ability [b]to lead[/b] his people.”[/i]
The question here is whether the tail is wagging the dog or vice versa. My interactions and observations suggest that too many fire chiefs (not just ours in Davis) act as if they are not managers who answer to the civilian authorities (the city manager and the city council), but rather act as if they are the leaders of a fraternity of fellow firefighters, and their chief responsibility is to make life better for the members of the fraternity, no matter what. I have even found lately that this fraternal mentality extends to outside departments.* So if the civilians want to reform fire operations, and that would upset the fire union or some of its members, the chiefs inherently take the side of the fraternity. If the firefighters are coming back to the station drunk and sleeping off a night of carousing at the firehouse, the chief will not report them. The chief will suppress this information and stand up for the behavior of the firefighters no matter what.
If you think that the firefighters will not properly do their job under the leadership of an administrative chief whose background is in management, not in firefighting, then you have a far lower opinion of the professionalism of the firefighters than I have.
*Just one example: The chief of the Vacaville Fire Department, Frank Drayton, will not speak to me. I requested an interview and he said no chance, he does not want to answer any of my questions. You want to know why Mr. Drayton won’t even give me 5 minutes or reply to an email or answer my phone calls? Because he spoke with someone in the Davis Fire Department–fraternity mentality, you know–and that person (either Weist or Weisgerber, I am not sure) told him to “never talk to Rifkin. Rifkin is an a$$hole.” Now are cowards like Frank Drayton, who are afraid to speak with a columnist out of loyalty to an outside fire department which has circled the wagons, the kind of men who should be a fire chief? I don’t think so.
“If the firefighters are coming back to the station drunk and sleeping off a night of carousing at the firehouse, the chief will not report them. The chief will suppress this information and stand up for the behavior of the firefighters no matter what. “
Frequently, but not universally the case . Of course more likely if the whole department feels threatened .
“If you think that the firefighters will not properly do their job under the leadership of an administrative chief whose background is in management, not in firefighting, then you have a far lower opinion of the professionalism of the firefighters than I have.”(virtually all your commentary to the contrary .)
I should perhaps, have pointed out that Chief Chiaramonte has a bachelor’s degree from the University of Houston and a master’s degree from Hofstra University, both in communications education. (I believe he started his fire career as a volunteer .)
“never talk to Rifkin. Rifkin is an a$$hole.”
Opinions, everybody’s got one ;>)/
David, Thank you for such good investigative work!
Rifkin, Thank you too for writing and staying on top of the firefighter’s outrageous pay and benefits that cost the city so much money. I support firefighters but at what cost to taxpayers?
What we need are more police officers. There have been a lot of home robberies in Davis and no increase in staffing for police officers.
“Interesting… it was my understanding that the Department Head recommends, but that the HR director & CM need to actually approve”
I believe that is how it now works, not in April 2007.
[i]”There have been a lot of home robberies in Davis and no increase in staffing for police officers.”[/i]
I agree. Not only do we have too few cops out on patrol now, but the non-sworn staff of the Davis Police Department has been cut back substantially over the last four years. It has been explained to me that due to those cutbacks, our sworn police officers have been forced to spend more and more of their time doing paperwork which formerly was done by non-sworn staff. Never mind that the cops make much less in pay than fire, always get less overtime, don’t get paid to sleep, have fewer people in upper management jobs and that all of them pay 12% of their salaries toward their pensions (compared with 9% for fire). Never mind all that. Mind the fact that, as Anne points out, we need more cops on the beat to respond to crimes, to fight crimes and to investigate crimes. We will not be able to have a sufficient police force when we are overstaffing and overcompensating other departments.
[quote]I believe that is how it now works, not in April 2007. [/quote]Really. Unless something special was done in 2007, that has been City policy at least since 1976. Your sources may by ill-informed, or worse.
Great work, David. Glad you have kept after this. Does your “agreement” with the city suggest you won’t be pursuing the complete, non-redacted document? If so, that’s a shame, but what you’ve obtained is most enlightening and damning of our past city council and city manager as well as our past and current city attorney.
Please post the pages from your past versions that include any redactions. What you note that was redacted in earlier versions is very telling.
On first glance, it appears the biggest sin was the outrageous collusion (by Ruth, Don, Stephen, Harriet and Bill) to keep this report secret (from our own city council!) in the first place. This seemed most odd when it happened, and now appears clear negligence and deviousness on the part of our leaders.
With respect Chief Rose Conway’s selection of Bobby Weist for promotion, it appears she gave him SIGNIFICANT points for his cooperative and effective performance as union leader.
Since the city’s personnel procedures allowed for this consideration, it’s difficult to be very critical of her decision to pick the highly regarded union boss for this promotion. The obvious process problem that allowed her to select a lower-ranked, but eligible, candidate could have been corrected forever in a minute if the council did not refuse to read its own report.
The city leaders who decided to close their eyes to the ombudsman’s report knew what charges were being investigated. They probably knew what the likely findings would be, but wanted plausible deniability for their plan to take no action on behalf of the citizens.
The ombudsman’s courteous language notwithstanding, his report uncovered serious problems in fire department management–much of which could have been resolved with recommendations from our city manager and attorney and adopted by our city council.
The ombudsman’s first hint that his findings would be ignored should have been obvious when he found that Harriet and others had no record or copies of the documents they’d provided for the grand jury investigation. It’s all just too disgusting….
Stephen and Don have some ‘splaining to do since they still represent us. It would be nice to hear also from Ruth as we review this sorry episode in our council history. (Come to think about it, I guess she still represents us too as our appointed overseas ambassador.)
As I skimmed through the report, I see several more stories ready to jump out. Do you plan some more reports based on the document and interviews?
P.S.: I concur with civil discourse–this kind of investigative reporting reflects the best of [i]Vanguard[/i]’s performance. Digging up real proof about government mistakes is much more productive than offering up unsupported political opinions. (After all, everyone already has a Rifk*n.)
It is time to start working to get rid of all public employee unions.
[quote]For the large majority of our history, public employee unions have been illegal. It is only since the 1960s and 1970s that they have been allowed. Currently, they are legal in roughly half the states. The United States has carried on a four-decade experiment in legalization, and the results are in: public employee unions are a cancer on our country.
Public employee unions flourish because government is, by its nature, a monopoly. Thus, there is no need for unionized government units to compete against non-unionized units. Moreover, public officials who negotiate with public employee unions generally lack the same incentives that private employers have to keep costs down. The result has been a fiscal disaster, with numerous states and municipalities now going over the waterfall of bankruptcy.
Meanwhile, public employee unions have become perhaps the dominant force in our political life. They extract dues from their members which go to fund the candidacies of politicians who will pay public employees even more money. The unions’ ill-gotten clout has created a vicious cycle; at the same time that government units are going broke, public employees are now far better paid than their private sector counterparts, while enjoying better benefits and ridiculous job security.
Enough is enough. Legalization of public employee unions has been a disaster. It is time to end the experiment and make them illegal once again, at both the federal and state levels. I expect that this will become one of the great political issues of the next decade.[/quote]
Jeff-I’m sure that John H. Hinderaker, a well known conservative litagator and W. Bush apologist, would appreciate credit for his words. I believe he originally wrote this op-ed, regurgitated, usually unattributed, in literally hundreds of neo-con blogs, in response to NY sanitation workers actions , but I think it’s a couple of years old now .( My favorite Hinderaker quote re GW Bush: “A man of extraordinary vision and brilliance approaching to genius, he can’t get anyone to notice. He is like a great painter or musician who is ahead of his time, and who unveils one masterpiece after another to a reception that, when not bored, is hostile. Hyperbolic? Well, maybe. “)
[i]It is time to start working to get rid of all public employee unions.
[/i]
It’s probably simpler to vote against the candidates they support and endorse, if you’re so opposed to their behavior.
[i]”It’s probably simpler to vote against the candidates they support and endorse, if you’re so opposed to their behavior.”[/i]
I agree with that.
But it is also time to raise the profile of the dialog about the cost-benefit of public employee unions. There is not much good about them, IMO. I think they are completely unessesary. There is also a fundemental political problem where one citizen has more political capital than his non-union neighbor for no reason other than he belongs to the union. It has had a corrosive influence on fiscal behavior that leads to demands for greater taxation… and average citizens lack similar power of influence to combat it. In this, it is a force for causing taxation without representation.
[i]”Jeff-I’m sure that John H. Hinderaker, a well known conservative litagator and W. Bush apologist, would appreciate credit for his words”[/i]
Thanks Biddlin, I didn’t have the source for the quote, I just had the quote. I appreciate the editorial help.
I am very supportive of public employees unions for rank and file employees – however, if the unions are unchecked, there runs a risk that people like Jeff Boone will win out and that is what unions should guard against.
Toward this effect I offer this from Aaronson’s report:
[quote]In my view, and as I would argue is borne out by the labor history in this country, unions have acted as a critical brake on the powers of management to unilaterally impose working conditions on employees. Before the rise of unions (and the intervention of State and Federal Governments), many workers faced workplace conditions unimaginable today. However, it is also the case, as we have seen demonstrated from time to time, that when the power of a union is unchecked, it can work terrible damage on the ability of the workplace to function successfully. A balance between unions and management is critical for the success of both.[/quote]
[i]”In my view, and as I would argue is borne out by the labor history in this country, unions have acted as a critical brake on the powers of management to unilaterally impose working conditions on employees. Before the rise of unions (and the intervention of State and Federal Governments), many workers faced workplace conditions unimaginable today.”[/i]
We are so far past this being a justification. There are copious mechanisms to protect employees from being treated unfairly. I have worked mostly in private industry, and had to work my ass off to get rid of employee even with clear and gross performance deficiencies.
We have copious regulations to protect workers from unsafe working conditions.
We have labor laws that restrict hours worked, and require payment of over-time.
There is nothing useful about unions at this point in time except to give labor the power to extort every increasing wages and benefits from the employer.
If the management is lousy, then the good employees will gravitate toward other jobs where management is better. With enough bad employees, the management will be fired because the business service is lousy. This is how it works in the real world.
I had an employee recently complained to me, her boss, that I was scary because I had all the power over her. I told her that she had more power over me because she could quit. She said that I could just replace her so she didn’t see the power. I told her that everyone is replaceable, so it is something else she is missing. With a little prodding, she got it… that her power over me was her value to me and the company. That is all we have… power to demonstrate our value to our employer and prospective employer. Job security as a concept sucks, because it corrupts this simple principle of partnership between an employee and employer. It says that a job can be locked in even when the value-consideration formula is way out of whack. It screws up management and it screws up the employee. It inflates the cost-per unit of service why beyond what it needs to be.
In terms of overall social benefits at this point in time in our evolution of employment regulations and laws, there is nothing to be gained by unions and unionized labor.
Every unionized business today – regardless of private or public – is in financial trouble (assuming they did not get bailed out). Cities and states are heading toward financial insolvency. Healthcare, education, airline travel, automakers… they are all dragging us down financially by the political and wage extortion power that unions provide. (Note that non-unionize banks were not in trouble before the housing market collapsed, and they should not have been bailed out.)
In terms of our fiscal health and well-being, unions are public enemy number one. The quicker we all understand that, the sooner we will be able to start solving our crippling financial difficulties.
Jeff:
“We are so far past this being a justification. There are copious mechanisms to protect employees from being treated unfairly.”
I have to call BS on that. I watched my wife work for seven years, if she weren’t there to represent employees, you would not believe how they’d be treated. You have no idea.
“I have to call BS on that. I watched my wife work for seven years, if she weren’t there to represent employees, you would not believe how they’d be treated. You have no idea. “Thank you (and your wife), David . Abuses of employees by managers who don’t know what the negotiated contract or State labor laws say and don’t care, are an almost daily occurrence in some public departments .
[quote]”A balance between unions and management is critical for the success.”[/quote]Who do Davis taxpayers look to as “management” in this scheme? The fire chief? The city manager? The city council?
Aaronson’s report suggests that the fire chief and union leader worked together to create a little terror amongst rank-and-file firefighters. This included a concentrated effort to keep legitimate concerns from proceeding through a process that would get to city management for consideration.
Again, the city council could have corrected this very quickly if they hadn’t refused to look at the ombudsman’s report to them. It’s such an unusual decision for any city council to have made. It’s more surprising for the city manager and city attorney to have encouraged such neglect and provided cover for the council.
I may be mistaken but I heard that Paul Boylan was the one who secured for Rancho Yolo residents the faulty/bogus feasibility study of residents purchase of their park. Steiner was withholding the study from the city council and social service commission and park residents, apparently with the support of Emlen and Steve Souza, Ruth A., and Saylor, until an attorney (Boylan?)stepped in and forced the release of the city’s public document.
David: BS? Then why didn’t those people quit? Were they all prone to staying in abusive relationships?
Seriously, I really do not get this pseudo-logic that workers can be mistreated by management as so they need collective bargaining rights. It is only a job. Sometimes you work for good managers and sometimes you work for bad managers. If you stay working for a bad manager, than that is your choice just like you would decide to stay with a bad marriage.
I hear from more unionized teachers about how crappy their principle is at leadership and management. Unionization hasn’t done a thing to get them better management… in fact it has done just the opposite. If education was privatized, and you were a skilled teacher, you would have options. You could quit if the principle sucked. Eventually the trustees of the school would recognize they suckiness of the principle and fire her. The overall result would be higher and higher performance expectations for principles.
The broken mindset related to unionized employment is similar to a broken mindset that still dreams of socialism. Both do much more long-term harm than good only to satiate this child-like desire of some to be cared for.
We should all think of ourselves as private contractors when it comes to employment. We have a partnership agreement (some written and some verbal) for what it expected and how we will be treated. We have to continually negotiate and compromise along the way, but if and when the value-consideration balance gets skewed to the point where correction is impossible, something needs to give. Those that hang on too long have nobody to blame except themselves.
I absolutely support changes to the laws that make retirement plans and healthcare insurance portable. We should not be held hostage in any way shape or form to our jobs.
” Then why didn’t those people quit?”
I see. So people should not attempt to improve their working conditions, they should either put up or shut up. Moreover, women who are harassed and then fired, should bend over and take it. And people who are wrongfully fired should just stop whining. And jobs are expendable and easy to find, even if adverse actions have been placed in personnel files that have no basis in fact. Sorry I can’t support any of that. And unfortunately I don’t have time to debate either. So I’ve said my piece.
[i]”So people should not attempt to improve their working conditions.”[/i]
Who said that? But if management is non-responsive to employee suggestions for improved working conditions, then a person either needs to accept it or quit. If enough good people quit, then someone of higher power will notice it and make changes. Otherwise, it would be a crappy organization… why would someone want to work for a crappy organization unless they were a crappy emplyee that could not get a job working somewhere else?
The Fortune 100 best companies to work for (i.e., best working conditions) never seem to include companies with union labor. So, I really think this point is baseless in support of your argument for unions.
[i]”women who are harassed and then fired”[/i]
You want to justify unions for this? I’m pretty sure that there is no less sexual harassment working in a unionized job than in a non-unionized job. Correct me if I am wrong, but a collective bargaining agreement would tend to mandate a conflict resolution process that would come before legal proceedings. There are plenty of laws on the books dealing with sexual harassment and gender discrimination and age discrimination and race discrimination… and ??? you name it. But this misses the point… QUIT THE DAMN JOB IF YOU ARE BEING HARASSED AND IT IS NOT BEING DEALT WITH. Then sue the bastards if you are still losing sleep over it. But don’t form a union, because that won’t help a bit.
[i]”people that are wrongfully fired”[/i]… again, you are missing the fundamental concept of a partnership between employee and employer. What is “wrongfully fired”? Do you have a right to a job for life? If you provide skills and labor, that has a value. In consideration for the use of your skills and labor, the employer will give you a job and pay you a wage. If you are fired, then the employer did not value your skills and/or labor enough to justify the continuation of the partnership. What is wrongful about that as long as it wasn’t for reasons of illegal discrimination? Go get another job where your skills and labor is valued. Maybe you were overpaid, and now you need to increase your skills or change careers.
Read the ombudsman’s report for an example of how union representation can encourage and perpetuate poor management and employee mistreatment. Although working for a chief they thought was a tyrant who played favorites, why would they “stay in an abusive relationship”? No doubt because they realized they couldn’t find another job which would come with the hours, pay and other benefits. I guess it’s a little like the trade-offs that others in abusive relationship have to consider–and they end up staying in spite of the abuse.
[i]”… if the unions are unchecked, there runs a risk that people like Jeff Boone will win out …”[/i]
It’s quite obvious that we have a serious corruption problem in California: That the unions (including the building trade unions which effectively work for the government, even though so-called private contractors sign their checks) finance virtually every Democratic campaign; and that virtually every elected Democrat responds by giving away the store to his union donors.
But even when politicians are not corrupt (or do not appear to be corrupt), there is a terrible incentive problem in government labor practices: The “professional” managers (or in some cases legislators) who are paid to negotiate against the unions normally have little or no incentive to strike a hard bargain. The unions, by contrast, have every reason in the world to fight for every extra scrap they can get.
Just think about this one example of where the unions have won in spades: The typical low to mid-level private-sector employee in California (who is non-union) gets, on average, 5 paid holidays per year. Some, of course, get no paid holidays. Some get a couple more. Every employee who works for the City of Davis (including those just hired) gets 14.5 paid holidays per year*. No manager who gives away this kind of money–it is very expensive in terms of overtime for cops and fire and expensive in terms of lost productivity for everyone else–feels any pinch from doing so. No one holds a public-sector manager accountable for giving his people 3 times as many paid holidays as most private workers get.
It’s the same story with paid vacations (and in Davis what is called “management leave time”). The first day of the first year a person is hired to work for the City of Davis, he qualifies for 3 weeks of paid vacation (on top of his 3 weeks of paid holidays). A mid-career worker who has been with the City 16 years gets 5.6 weeks of paid vacation every year. (In many cases this is converted to cash-outs.) How many mid-level private sector employees get paid for not showing up at work for 8.5 weeks each year? Do you think anyone who works for Don Shor at Redwood Barn or who works at AgraQuest or works for Tandem Properties or works for Souza’s pool cleaning business is paid to not work 8.5 weeks a year?
On top of those 8.5 weeks, all “managers” — I put that in quotes because many of these employees have no subordinates to manage — get another 2 weeks of paid “management leave” time. For them, that is 10.5 weeks of paid time off. That is almost 20% of the year!
We have far deeper and far more serious problems than the excessive amount of time government pays people to do nothing. We cannot solve our long-term budget crisis in Davis by simply giving the City’s workers similar amounts of paid time off as private sector workers get. But if we did align the City’s policies in this regard with the private sector–that is, if those negotiating the contracts really were acting on behalf of the taxpayers–we could deliver all the services we are now delivering for much less money, and that money saved could help trim some of the long-term red ink.
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*The only exception I know of to the 14.5 paid holidays is fire. They work just 10 days out of 30 and they get 12 paid holidays. In other words, they are on-duty just 120 days per year, and they are credited with one paid holiday for every 10 days in the firehouse. Never mind the fact that we are paying them when they shop for groceries and when they sleep, etc., etc.
To JustSaying’s point: Being overpaid is like a form of slavery. Since it causes workers that develop spending habits based on the level of compensation to have to stay even if they are abused by their managers and unhappy… since their are no other employment opportunities that would pay as much.
Also, forced union job security also contributes to management mistreatment… especially of bad employees, since the only way to get rid of them is to get them to leave on their own.
[i]since their (correction [b]there[/b]) are no other employment opportunities that would pay as much.[/i]
This is now off topic, Don can move future posts to the bulletin board.
Meantime we have a new chief believe it or not.
Full story tomorrow.
[quote]City Manager Steve Pinkerton has named Scott Kenley as Interim Fire Chief, effective May 21, 2012. Interim Chief Kenley has been active in fire services for over forty years and brings with him a diversity of experience ranging from firefighter operations to fire chief.[/quote]
This comment has been moved to our Bulletin Board: Should public employee unions be abolished? ([url]/index.php?option=com_kunena&func=view&catid=2&id=605&Itemid=192#605[/url])
[i]”Rich Rifkin, you had me in complete agreement up to this point, unless you are separating retirement benefits as all or a major part of the “more serious problems”.[/i]
Jeff, the even more serious labor-cost problems I was thinking of are:
1. Our $90 million unfunded pensionliability;
2. Our $60 million unfunded retiree healthcare liability; and
3. Our increasing current costs of cafeteria benefits and pension funding.
Rich, Those are the “retirement benefits” I was talking about… (except for the cafeteria benefit out-outs). We are in complete agreement about this.
What is astounding to me is the lag time in acceptance – possibly due to the lack of media coverage – of this as the most critical civic problem facing us today. It transcends the economic downturn, and can easily be separated from the arguments over tax rates. It is clearly unreasonable. It is clearly unsustainable. It is not fair considering what workers in the private sector are paid. But people not even benefiting from it are still fighting to maintain it.
A related point about labor versus business: everyone working for business is labor. Labor is a ubiquitous group that we all belong to except for the young, the unemployed and the retired. Yet, for some reason labor as a political movement has aligned to the left of politics. So, although I am in the labor group because I have a job and work for a living, I am also out of the labor group because I am advocating for things that labor as a political group does not support. My thinking on this is that the left is not the labor group… it is the union group. More specifically it is the public employee union group. This is a much smaller group… and, more importantly, it seeks greater benefits at the expense of the larger labor group. We are all paying for a small army of PEU employee to retire at age 55 with 90 of their pay and benefits and full healthcare coverage for the rest of their life. We are delaying our retirements until well into our 70s… we are having to supplement our kids K-12 education and pay more for their college… we are forgoing projects to improve our water systems… we are doing all of this and more because politicians have committed way more than is needed, and way more than we can afford, to this small army of public-sector union employees that feed their campaigns to keep them in power.
This is why I can comfortably say that unions are public enemy number one. They are a small special interest group with a legalized fund-raising mechanism that can be used for political influence. They have brainwashed the left thinking that they share common interest, when in fact they are eroding the budget for programs and the social safety net that the left cares most about. The left rails about the CEO (labor) and business (providers of labor)… with their arm around the real thief (PEU) stealing them blind.
My fear is that by the time the left wakes up and gets their collective heads out of their collective asses, it will be too late. In fact, based on what has happened to our public schools, it is already too late.
Replies on the topic of public employee unions have been moved to the thread on the bulletin board; link above.