[Educationforall] Schwarzenegger's budget plan puts unions in the cross-hairs

[Justin Akers Chacón]

Schwarzenegger's budget plan puts unions in the
cross-hairs
By Shane Goldmacher
January 25, 2010
latimes.comlatimes.com/news/local/la-me-arnold-union25-2010jan25,0,3601107.story

Reporting from Sacramento

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has put organized labor
squarely in his cross-hairs in 2010, opening a fight
that will largely determine the shape of his final year
in office.

Schwarzenegger's proposals would cut the size of the
union workforce, reduce pay, shrink future pensions and
roll back job protections won through collective
bargaining.

Labor and the unions' Democratic allies are already
girding for battle.

"It's a continuing jihad against organized labor," said
Steve Maviglio, a Sacramento-based Democratic
strategist. "The governor thinks public employee unions
are Enemy No. 1."

Among the plans in the governor's budget: privatize
prisons, which would strip members from the influential
guards union; curtail seniority protections for
teachers, a key union-won protection; and reduce the
number of sick, disabled and elderly Californians cared
for through the state's In-Home Supportive Services
program -- almost all union jobs -- while cutting what
their caregivers are paid.

Schwarzenegger also wants to permanently lower state
workforce salaries by 5% without returning to the
bargaining table with public-sector unions. And he
would require state workers to chip 5% more into their
retirement plans.

"The public sector also has to take a haircut,"
Schwarzenegger said, arguing his policies would save
California billions of dollars, now and in the future.

Matt David, Schwarzenegger's communications director,
says the governor's proposed budget makes hard but
necessary choices, given a $20-billion deficit.

"This budget wasn't about attacking any specific
group," he said. "It was about trying to fix what's
broken in this state and prioritize the funding we have
so we can protect education."

Yet even in nonbudget proposals, union leaders see an
antilabor agenda. For example, Schwarzenegger has
pushed to limit seniority protections for teachers and
expand charter schools, which are largely staffed by
nonunion teachers. He argues both moves would improve
the quality of schools.

Union leaders see their members as the targets. "That
seems to be his goal, to basically change a unionized
sector of the economy to a nonunion sector," said Marty
Hittelman, president of the California Federation of
Teachers.

The unions have spent millions to thwart some of the
governor's past initiatives and hope to do so again.

"To go after unions means tearing down the middle
class," said Laphonza Butler, head of United Long Term
Care Workers, a branch of the giant Service Employees
International Union that represents 180,000 in-home
services workers.

Democratic lawmakers, who hold the majority in the
Legislature and are the largest recipients of union
campaign money, thus far have given the governor's
plans a chilly reception.

"I did take note that in his State of the State address
[the governor] said that we had only Sophie's choices,"
said Sen. Mark Leno (D-San Francisco). "Do we harm
seniors, do we harm the disabled, do we harm the poor?
But you didn't hear him suggest there were tax
loopholes we could close to pinch corporations."

State Treasurer Bill Lockyer, a Democrat, explained the
legislative balance of power during impassioned
legislative testimony last fall: "It's impossible for
this Legislature to reform the pension system," he
said. "I don't think anybody can do it here -- because
of who elected you," he added, making a barely veiled
reference to labor's power.

Top Democratic lawmakers have suggested Schwarzenegger
is driven by a corporate special interest agenda.

Assembly Speaker Karen Bass (D-Los Angeles) dismissed
the governor's prison privatization plan as a sop to
"another special interest, and that's the private
prisons industry." One company that operates private
prisons, the Corrections Corp. of America, donated
$100,000 to the budget ballot measure campaign
championed by the governor last year.

>From his earliest days as a candidate, Schwarzenegger
has railed against the grip of "special interests" on
Sacramento. More often than not, he has defined them as
organized labor.

Joel Fox, a business advocate who worked closely with
the governor during his last big union battle in 2005,
said that agenda "goes back to his election in the
recall."

"He had a mind to fix the problem and restructure the
way government operates," Fox said. "The structure
right now is heavily controlled by the unions."

In 2005, Schwarzenegger went to the ballot with four
measures that would have rolled back pensions, unions'
abilities to collect dues and job protections.

The unions fought back with a $100-million campaign and
defeated all four of the governor's proposals.
Schwarzenegger vowed a more contrite approach en route
to his reelection in 2006.

But 2010 has seen a return to confrontation. In part,
that's driven by the state's huge deficit. In some
state programs, particularly healthcare, most of the
money pays directly for services. But in most other
parts of the state budget -- schools, prisons, parks --
cutting spending mostly means tackling payroll.

One notable shift from the 2005 battle is that
Schwarzenegger has moderated his tone. This year he
justified privatizing prisons because it would "save us
billions of dollars." In 2005 he vowed to put "the
corrupt people in our prisons on the same side of the
bars."

The strategy of softening rhetoric while still pressing
severe proposals dovetails closely with the negotiating
philosophy of his influential chief of staff, Susan
Kennedy: Always leave interest groups with something to
lose.

The California Correctional Peace Officers Assn. has
responded to the governor's plans with a TV ad
declaring itself part of the solution for "real reform"
in the state's beleaguered prison system. The union
stopped short of attacking Schwarzenegger directly.

"It's politically smart not to scream bloody murder for
your own pet cause when everyone is being slashed,"
said Maviglio, the Democratic strategist. But he
predicted that Schwarzenegger's "divide and conquer"
strategy -- forcing each union to defend its turf
simultaneously -- could result in a reprise of labor's
united, multimillion-dollar political fight of five
years ago.

"It wouldn't surprise me," he said, "to see the same
2005 coalition resurrected."

shane.goldmacher @latimes.com

Copyright (c) 2010, The Los Angeles Times


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