Free Republic

Peter Scheer, who heads the California First Amendment Coalition, has a novel idea: End the secrecy surrounding local government labor contract negotiations. You can understand the logic and the urgency behind his idea when you consider the situation in Vallejo. That city is filing for bankruptcy. Why? Local officials approved salary and benefits costs for current employees and retirees that are more than the city can afford. Scheer's point is that California law allows local government officials "to avoid public discussion of the true cost and fiscal impact of the pay deals that they have approved." By the time the...

The Senate has given critical approval to legislation to give all police, firefighters and other first responders the right to collective bargaining. The 69-29 procedural vote proves the bill would survive any possible filibuster attempt. The Senate will vote to send the bill to President Bush later this week. . . . Cabinet secretaries say they will suggest he veto the bill. . . .The bill would guarantee public safety officers the right to join unions and bargain over wages, hours and conditions of employment. It also would ban them from going on strike.

Hoping to prevent a city bankruptcy that would suspend their union contracts, Vallejo's police, firefighters and rank-and-file employees went public Monday with an offer to cut their salaries and give up raises. Capping months of fiscal agonizing, the City Council voted last week to file for Chapter 9 bankruptcy following dire predictions by city staff of imminent insolvency. The petition for bankruptcy is expected to be filed sometime this week, said city spokeswoman Joann West. Only one other city in California - Desert Hot Springs (Riverside County) in 2001 - has gone into bankruptcy. Orange County took the same step...

Anyone who enjoys cagey politicking should doff his or her cap to California's Republican legislators. That's because the Reeps have been very impressive lately in maneuvering their Democratic counterparts into a corner in this year's dance over the state budget. As we all know, Republicans make up just 39.1 percent of the Legislature, and have no illusions of increasing that percentage anytime soon. Moreover, they've been a minority for more than a decade. Traditionally, the Reeps have been content to just say no when it comes to the budget. As one of the very few substantive legislative processes in which...

By declaring bankruptcy, Vallejo has thrust itself into the national spotlight as a test case for thousands of floundering cities desperate to unload their extravagant public employee contracts. "There's a wave of this coming across the U.S.," said Sajan George, an adviser to struggling public entities who worked on restructuring Orange County after it declared bankruptcy in 1994. "What happens in Vallejo could definitely set a precedent." Battered by the plummeting housing market and skyrocketing public employee contracts, Vallejo made dubious history Tuesday night by becoming the largest California city to declare bankruptcy. The North Bay city of 117,000 was...

The question you have to ask about the officially bankrupt city of Vallejo, and other California cities with similar financial profiles, is this: Didn't you know something was wrong when you realized you were spending 75 cents of every dollar in the general fund on public safety costs? In a broader sense, how can any city anywhere make a legitimate claim of vibrancy when so many essential social services are shortchanged? It seems we're about to find out in Vallejo, a city with a population of 117,000 whose City Council voted unanimously Tuesday night to file Chapter 9 bankruptcy protection...

Unions should be required to make public more details of their internal finances, the Labor Department said Thursday as it proposed new changes to union disclosure forms. Unions are required every year to file financial disclosure forms with the Labor Department. But federal officials are proposing a more detailed form, and penalizing small unions who get into trouble with the law by banning them from filing a simple form. The proposed changes will be printed on Monday in the federal register. "This proposed rule provides union members with more complete information about union finances and will better protect their legal...

Vallejo has become the first city in California to file for bankruptcy because it didn't have enough money to provide basic services. This is dreadful news for Vallejo - and its citizens - but it's also an ominous report for the rest of us. The city council's unanimous decision Tuesday night, which came after hours of impassioned public comment, represents a failure of Vallejo's police and firefighter unions to understand basic economic realities. The unions - whose members are among the highest-paid in the state - refused to allow the city to cut their pay. Perhaps they didn't believe that...

VALLEJO — With hundreds of concerned residents looking on, the Vallejo City Council voted unanimously late Tuesday to file for bankruptcy, making the city the first of its size to seek protection due to unaffordable labor contracts. The dramatic vote came despite a last-minute appeal by state Sen. Pat Wiggins, D-Santa Rosa, and an aide for Assemblywoman Noreen Evans for the city to avoid bankruptcy. Four council members — Michael Wilson, Tom Bartee, Hermie Sunga and Erin Hannigan — joined Mayor Osby Davis in switching in favor of filing for bankruptcy. In the past they had been part of a...

Vallejo's city manager advised the City Council on Friday to declare bankruptcy next week after weeks of negotiations with police and fire unions failed to turn around the city's economic tailspin. If the council votes Tuesday to file for Chapter 9 protection, the city of 117,000 people would be the largest in California to declare bankruptcy - and the first to do so because of long-term economic woes. City Manager Joseph Tanner made the recommendation after city officials scrambled for two months to fix the budget before the fiscal year ends on June 30, when the city faces a projected...

PORTAGE, IN - Hillary Clinton's campaign has worked hard of late to portray her as the fighter in the race, someone with the determination to see her plans through no matter what the obstacles. In North Carolina yesterday, Gov. Mike Easley raised some eyebrows when he said Clinton was so determined she made "Rocky Balboa look like a pansy." Well, this afternoon, a local labor leader introducing Clinton pushed the envelope further, saying the nation needed a leader "that has testicular fortitude." While defending Bill Clinton's role in the passage of NAFTA, Paul Gipson, president of a steelworkers local, said...

Bay Area longshore workers are planning to gather Thursday to protest the U.S. war in Iraq and Afghanistan, potentially thwarting activity at the region's ports, according to members of the International Longshore and Warehouse Union. Brandon Taylor, an operations manager for GSC Logistics, a warehousing, distribution and transportation company at the Port of Oakland, said today that the company had known about the protests for a few weeks and is planning to get all containers out of the port today and Wednesday in order to prevent halting production. He said the good news is that it is a slow time...

The ILWU: Back to its Marxist Roots March 12, 2008 At a time when even Russia and China are rejecting their Marxist past, the International Longshore and Warehouse Union still plans on celebrating the birth of communism by taking “May Day” off. These are people, by the way, who earn six-figure incomes, generous benefits, and pensions for putting in fewer hours on the job than their dock-working comrades anywhere in the world. That measure of failed solidarity notwithstanding, the ILWU is also asking the AFL-CIO to join them in the work stoppage. Is it any wonder why many shippers are...

http://hotlineblog.nationaljournal.com ***** By Jennifer Skalka The AFL-CIO is dropping a tough mailer in PA today noting that while John McCain's war service is admirable, his political views -- on the Bush tax cuts, NAFTA and overtime pay, in particular -- are out of sync with the needs and values of working Americans. "

You're a member of the MSM, and you're a Barack Obama supporter. But I repeat myself. More specifically, you're Chris Matthews. What better way to promote your guy's candidacy than to claim that Republicans would really rather run against Hillary? That's just what the Hardball host did on this afternoon's show. Here's his exchange with the–in my opinion–very impressive Republican strategist Todd Harris, who worked for McCain in 2000, and with Dem strategist Michael Feldman. View video here.

Vallejo will inch closer to financial ruin Tuesday when the City Council lets pass its do-or-die date to avert bankruptcy. City staff members have been unable to come up with a detailed, long-term financial plan because negotiations with the police and fire unions are still ongoing. The city is asking for steep concessions from the unions, whose members are among the highest paid in the Bay Area and whose salaries comprise about 74 percent of the city's budget. "We had hoped to have an agreement by April 22 to give to the council," said Mayor Osby Davis, who has sat...

A deepening divide between two of the nation's largest labor groups – prompted by a maverick California nurses union – has labor leaders worried the rift could "devastate" the movement's election-year priorities. Service Employees International Union, with 1.7 million members, has instructed local chapters across America to withhold funding from state and local labor federations to protest what they call union-poaching activity by the California Nurses Association. The move could cost labor central committees – the backbone of labor's sophisticated political and get-out-the-vote operation – millions of dollars on the eve of June 3 legislative primaries in California and the...

Should government workers be forced to pay for political activities with which they disagree to keep their jobs? That was the fundamental question underlying the case federal court Judge Morrison England decided last week. In a ruling that relied on simple fairness and federal law, Judge England said no. In the case before the court, the Services Employees International Union Local 1000 had imposed a special assessment on state workers it represented to bankroll its "Political Fight-Back Fund." The fund was established in 2005 to finance the union's campaign against Propositions 75 and 76, two measures on the November ballot...

A federal judge has ordered the state's largest public employee union to repay as many as 28,000 non-union state workers who were not given a chance to challenge a 2005 dues increase to fight initiatives backed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. Judge Morrison England, in a decision Thursday, ordered Service Employees International Union Local 1000 to send notices to the workers who opted out of union membership. The union must issue refunds, with interest, to those non-union members who object to the special assessment. The rebate would amount to $135 plus interest for a worker who made $4,500 a month in...

Unions Blast Government Effort to Stop Hiring of Illegal Aliens By Susan Jones CNSNews.com Senior Editor March 27, 2008 (CNSNews.com) - The Department of Homeland Security has re-issued a rule that labor unions and some business groups oppose. The "no-match" rule is intended to stop employers from hiring illegal aliens, but critics say it will have unintended consequences. The rule re-issued last week is the same one blocked by a federal district court in San Francisco last October. The Homeland Security Department (DHS) said the newly issued "supplemental" rule addresses all three concerns raised by the court on Oct. 10,...

The president of one of the nation's largest labor unions moved this week toward ousting the leaders of its West Coast affiliate, in a power struggle that could affect hundreds of thousands of California workers and the state's strained health care industry.Andy Stern, president of the Washington-headquartered Service Employees International Union, sent a letter on Monday - obtained by The Chronicle - that alleges misconduct by Sal Rosselli, president of the Oakland-based United Healthcare Workers West, who has been Stern's most vocal critic.Rosselli and other leaders of the union - which has 150,000 members, many of them in the Bay...

Is that building at Colfax Avenue and Bannock Street still Denver City Hall, or have council members formally renamed it Denver Union Hall? If not, the rechristening may not be far off. After all, kowtowing to union interests has gotten so pronounced that one council member objected last week to a proposed contract with a company to manage airport parking for fear that its modest management fee signified a covert plan to cut union staffing. "That raised my eyebrows, and right away I thought that I hope that doesn't come on the backs of the employees," said councilman Paul Lopez.

Legislation to grant collective bargaining rights to grandmas, aunts and other subsidized child-care providers was vetoed Thursday by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. Senate Bill 867 targeted a pivotal service for low-income parents, with about 90,000 providers assisting 700,000 families at a public cost of more than $3 billion. Schwarzenegger's veto message cited the state's massive budget deficit, which despite recent trims is pegged at $8 billion. "Given California's significant budget challenge, I cannot consider bills that would add significant fiscal pressures to the state's structural budget deficit," he wrote. SB 867, similar to legislation vetoed last year, was sponsored by the...

Hundreds of registered nurses walked off the job at 7 a.m. today to begin a 10-day strike against Bay Area hospitals affiliated with Sutter Health. This is the third such walk-out in less than six months and it will be by far the longest. Similar strikes in October and December lasted two days each. The 10 affected hospitals have hired replacement nurses and will remain open. "We should have this down pat by now," said Jonnie Banks, a spokeswoman for Eden Medical Center in Castro Valley. "It's business as usual," she said. "That includes our trauma center. Our mission here...

Members of the California Public Employees Retirement System Board have a legal responsibility to protect the assets of the $230 billion retirement fund for the benefit of tens of thousands of government employees. Today, the commitment of the board's investment committee to protect the fund will be tested. The committee is being asked to support Assembly Bill 1967. Introduced by Assemblyman Alberto Torrico, D-Newark, the bill would bar CalPERS from investing in private equity funds that are owned or managed in any degree by certain sovereign wealth funds. SWFs are funds that are affiliated with specific countries or federations of...

It's no secret that organized labor has seen a steep erosion of its involvement in the private economy and that it has shifted its emphasis to public employees in California and other states to maintain union membership. There is, however, another wrinkle to labor's struggle to survive as the economy continues to undergo vast structural change – exerting political influence to coalesce independent service workers into public or private employment, thus making unionization more likely. The first large-scale example of this phenomenon in California occurred nearly a decade ago when newly elected Democratic Gov. Gray Davis signed union-sponsored legislation that,...

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has twice vetoed legislation to unionize grandmas, but the Democrats in the Legislature seem to think he might now change his mind and sign their latest bill to do just that. He shouldn't. Senate Bill 867, now on the governor's desk, is part of a nationwide plan by organized labor to unite family child care providers into a single entity in each state that would bargain collectively to set rates rather than allowing community standards to prevail. The bill is aimed at the grandmothers, aunts and others who stepped into the breach when the state forced more...

About 100 angry members of California's largest state workers union launched a sidewalk protest against The Bee on Wednesday for posting a searchable database of state employees' salaries on the newspaper's Web site. Shouting slogans and carrying placards in front of the newspaper's building, the members of the 80,000-strong Service Employees International Union Local 1000 criticized The Bee for what they said was a violation of their right to personal privacy. Union leaders met privately with Bee executives and presented petitions with an estimated 3,000 signatures demanding that the paper take down the database, at www.sacbee.com/statepay. Union President Jim Hard...

NASHVILLE — A former Nashville police officer/union organizer has been indicted on federal charges in connection with the break-in and illegal surveillance of a Fraternal Order of Police youth camp. Calvin Edward Hullett was indicted on bribery, misappropriation of union funds and other charges. Hullett, who was arrested last July, also has an aggravated burglary charge pending in state court. The International Brotherhood of Teamsters and the Fraternal Order of Police have been engaged in a bitter battle for the representation of Nashville police and Shelby County deputies. In Nashville, the Teamsters took over representation of the police in 2005...

WASHINGTON, (AP) -- The AFL-CIO said Wednesday it will have union protesters follow GOP presidential nominee-in-waiting John McCain around the country to demand explanations on his positions on economic and labor issues. The effort is part of a wide-ranging campaign aimed at linking McCain with what union officials call the Bush administration's failed economic policies. In addition to the protests, the nation's largest labor federation also plans to devote part of its record-setting $53.4 million grass-roots mobilization campaign funds to criticizing McCain through workplace leafletting, volunteer door-knocking, telephone calls, e-mail, direct mailings and an anti-McCain Web site, www.mccainrevealed.org. "Everywhere John...

While Vallejo's finances were plunging faster than a roller coaster at the Six Flags amusement park, the city's firefighters were going abalone diving, grilling tri-tip and drinking cocktails on the public's dime, records show.Under their contract, the firefighters union has been allowed since 2003 to charge the city 600 hours a year - at a cost of more than $24,000 annually - for union activities that were approved by the union's chief. The junkets included an annual Seafood Extravaganza at the fairgrounds, a 10-kilometer run ending with a party at the amusement park and a dunk tank at the Waterfront...

Three-day strike set at Contra Costa-owned facilities; union seeks increased benefits from Sutter hospitals - Eleven Bay Area hospitals will be rushing to hire replacement nurses over Easter weekend and beyond as thousands of registered nurses walk off the job. The nurses announced Monday that they will wage a 10-day strike against hospitals affiliated with Sutter Health beginning March 21. That same day, nurses will start a three-day walkout at Contra Costa Regional Medical Center, the county-owned hospital in Martinez that is a safety net for the region's poorest residents. That strike will also take nurses off the job at...

Los Angeles (AP) -- The National Labor Relations Board wants a federal judge to order immediate reinstatement of eight newsroom employees fired by the Santa Barbara News-Press. In December, Administrative Law Judge William Kocol ordered the reinstatement with back pay after finding they were fired for union activities. The judge condemned the News-Press for flagrant misconduct . . . The News-Press is owned by Wendy McCaw's Ampersand Publishing LLC.

What Happens When City Hall Goes Bankrupt? by Eric Weiner New York City didn't actually declare bankruptcy in the 1970s, but it came close. When the city appealed to Washington in 1975 for a bailout, President Ford balked, prompting this famous New York Daily News headline. New York Daily News Moments in Municipal Bankruptcy 1975, New York City: The Big Apple teeters on the verge of bankruptcy but is rescued at the last minute, thanks to a loan from the federal government and other measures. 1991, Bridgeport, Conn.: The city, population 140,000, declares bankruptcy after a dispute with the state....

Don't look now, but the Democrats in the California Legislature want to unionize Grandma. Really. A bill pending in the Senate would create a union to organize family members who provide child care for their kin and are paid by the state so that mothers can work outside the home. The measure already has passed in the Assembly. The child care providers – grandparents, aunts, uncles and siblings – would pay dues and be represented collectively in negotiations with the state over pay, benefits and working conditions. Child care providers who did not want to join the union would still...

VALLEJO -- Eleventh hour talks between city officials and public safety labor unions resulted in a tentative agreement today designed to keep Vallejo's coffers from running dry in a month, city and union officials said Thursday. Both sides held last-minute talks to salvage a deal Wednesday night and Thursday, hours before the council was set to vote on possibly filing for bankruptcy. Mayor Osby Davis revealed the existence of the tentative agreement shortly before entering a closed-door session with the council on labor negotiations. Vallejo firefighters union president Kurt Henke said "we have a framework of an agreement. The council...

Vallejo may decide to file for bankruptcy today, which is a dire and difficult situation for all who live, work and do business there. What tilts this story over into tragedy, however, is that Vallejo is only the first large city in California to find itself in such a mess. Expect many other cities in California - including perhaps your own - to be faced with the same disaster soon. What happened in Vallejo is a preview of what is slowly developing all over the state, and it can't be blamed on the crumbling housing market. Property values have eroded,...

Vallejo, Calif. (AP) -- Officials were expected to meet Tuesday night to discuss Vallejo's financial crisis that has it edging closer to declaring bankruptcy. Labor talks aimed at keeping Vallejo solvent broke down Monday, and top administrators recommended the City Council file for bankruptcy protection. Vallejo, a former Navy town northeast of San Francisco, faces a $6 million shortfall and officials say it will run out of money by the end of March. Chapter 9 bankruptcy would allow Vallejo temporary protection from creditors while a plan, subject to court approval, is devised to regain fiscal stability. The city would join...

Westwood Elementary School teacher Bryan McShane still can't understand. His teachers union, typically a champion of higher salaries, voted down a raise in summer school pay. As part of an offer from the Mt. Diablo school district, teachers would have made $30, $33 or $36 an hour depending on their years of experience. McShane would have earned $33 but will now make $25 an hour as written in an old teacher contract. By his calculation, he will lose $800 this year because the union took a stand against the district. "I tried to understand their convoluted reasoning and logic," said...

Rarely does a government report come along that I recommend people read for themselves. Normally, it's my job to read these things so you don't have to. But a report delivered last week from the state's Legislative Analyst's Office on the labor situation in the prisons is so good, and so important, that I suggest anyone with even a passing interest in state government get on the Internet and take a look.You can find it at the analyst's Web site www.lao.ca.gov. ... The report looks at the current pay and benefits and the job market, and concludes that a 5...

With so many people wanting the job, there's no reason to raise guards' pay now - Sooner or later, the California Legislature will have to retake control of state prisons and stop the massive drain on the state budget that the correctional system has become. There will never be a better time than now.In a report that should infuriate taxpayers – and shame legislators and governors past and present – the Legislative Analyst's Office has outlined the disastrous effects of the current prison guards contract, which lawmakers approved. The contract not only provides lavish pay and benefits to guards, but...

In a message likely to reverberate far beyond Pinole, voters appear to have recalled City Councilwoman Maria Alegria and Councilman Stephen Tilton on Tuesday despite an intense lobbying effort on behalf of the two by some of Contra Costa County's biggest political power brokers. With 10 of 16 precincts reporting, a large majority of voters answered "yes" to the recall question for both targets. "I'm thrilled that the people have the moxie and the intelligence to stand up against usurpers of power," said Anne Prescott, a Pinole resident and voter who was among about 60 recall supporters who gathered Tuesday...

When the Orange County Board of Supervisors voted unanimously this week to file a lawsuit seeking to repeal part of their pension agreement with county sheriff's deputies, it must have sent alarm bells ringing in public employee union offices around the state. Depending on how this lawsuit plays out, it could have profound repercussions for virtually every state, county, city and special district employee in California. Here's why: Orange County supervisors are arguing that the retroactive increases in pension benefits that a previous board granted to deputies are unconstitutional. That deal changed the way the county calculated benefits. It allowed...

Even for voters in a state as accustomed to direct democracy as California, the four propositions involving Indian gambling on the Feb. 5 ballot have to be a bit bewildering. What are these measures doing on the ballot, what would they do if they pass and how should you vote? In this column I'll provide a primer answering the first two questions. But to answer the third – how you should vote – you will have to apply your own values to those facts. In the end it depends on what you think of gambling and Indian casinos. Propositions 94...

The campaign for a $243-million telephone users tax on the Feb. 5 ballot has amassed nearly $2.6 million, almost three-fourths of it from labor unions... Unions provided nearly $1.9 million to the Proposition S campaign, which is seeking to preserve a tax on cellular and land line calls that has been challenged repeatedly in court. The size of the donations appalled foes of the tax, who said that city employee unions were rewarding politicians for giving them raises -- and ensuring that more will be granted in the future. "This is the economics of special interests," said Walter Moore, who...

As our democratic process grinds toward selecting the next leader of the free world, it is also shedding light on the values a democracy should hold dear. Last weekend in Nevada, former President Bill Clinton said he witnessed voter intimidation firsthand. According to Clinton, a union representative was telling workers to agree to caucus for Sen. Barack Obama or expect to get a work schedule making it impossible for them to attend at all. We all know that things like this happen and that our electoral process isn't perfect, though it is the best available. One benefit of the secret...

Nurses Launch National 'CheneyCare' CampaignFriday January 4, 2:33 pm ET New Print, Online Ads Jumpstart Petition Drive for Guaranteed Health Care WASHINGTON, Jan. 4 /PRNewswire/ -- The California Nurses Association (CNA)/National Nurses Organizing Committee (NNOC) launched a national campaign today in favor of what the group has dubbed "CheneyCare" -- guaranteed, publicly-funded health care for all Americans. The campaign was inspired by the success of the group's Iowa ads declaring that Vice President Dick Cheney "would be dead" if he did not have publicly-funded health care. A new version of the Iowa ad asking Americans to sign a petition for...

As dissidents fail to overturn 'fair share' fees, state workers union plans for new contract bargaining. Now that it has defeated a potentially costly insurgency, the leadership of California's largest state workers union faces a new challenge: unifying its membership ahead of upcoming contract and pension battles.Service Employees International Union Local 1000 stood to lose $12.5 million in revenue in the campaign to eliminate "fair share" fees in its largest bargaining unit. But the rescission campaign failed when less than half of the eligible voters mailed in ballots, the Public Employment Relations Board reported.By state law, the rescission campaign needed...

SACRAMENTO, (AP) -- Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger is imposing a new labor contract on the state's prison guard union for just one year, instead of the three years he intended, because of a ruling by the California Public Employment Relations Board. The board says imposing a multiyear contract would hurt future collective bargaining with the union representing more than 30,000 state prison guards.

PARIS, France (AP) -- Transport workers causing havoc on French rails voted to extend their strike into a seventh day Tuesday, when they will be joined by a mass walkout of civil servants, increasing pressure on President Nicolas Sarkozy to backtrack on his reforms. But the government stood its ground, with Prime Minister Francois Fillon saying the reforms must go through — even though the strikes are costing the government at least $439.6 million a day. Strikes led by train drivers angry over Sarkozy's plans to extend their retirement age have hampered rail traffic and public transport and snarled roads...