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<H1><FONT size=3 face=Calibri>No (tragic) irony here...</FONT></H1>
<DIV><STRONG><FONT face=Calibri>Even as the union strategy of propping
up Democrats who slash jobs, budgets and pensions, fails miserably and paves the
road for the Scott Walkers across the country,</FONT></STRONG></DIV>
<DIV><STRONG><FONT face=Calibri>union leaders continue shilling for them.
</FONT></STRONG></DIV>
<DIV><STRONG><FONT face=Calibri></FONT></STRONG> </DIV>
<DIV><STRONG><FONT face=Calibri>Time for a new strategy before its too late.
</FONT></STRONG></DIV>
<DIV><STRONG><FONT face=Calibri></FONT></STRONG> </DIV>
<DIV><FONT
face=Calibri>---------------------------------------------</FONT></DIV>
<H1>Dems rally public workers to push Brown's agenda</H1>
<P class=byline><A class="email fn"
href="mailto:jgarofoli@sfchronicle.com"><FONT
title="mailto:jgarofoli@sfchronicle.com
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color=#015660>Joe Garofoli, Chronicle Political Writer</FONT></A></P>
<P class=byline><FONT face=Calibri><A
title="http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/05/02/MNKB1JA5RR.DTL&type=printable
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href="http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/05/02/MNKB1JA5RR.DTL&type=printable">http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/05/02/MNKB1JA5RR.DTL&type=printable</A></FONT></P>
<P class=date>Monday, May 2, 2011</P>
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<P><STRONG>(05-02) 04:00 PDT Sacramento</STRONG> -- </P>
<P>The sign fourth-grade teacher Julie Timmerman held declared in large bold
letters "I am a public service worker."</P>
<P>It was a tribute to the civil rights slogan "I am a man," and it was an
iconic image at the California Democratic Party convention in Sacramento over
the weekend. <STRONG>While Democrats dominate California's political landscape
and hold all its major offices, both political leaders and the labor unions that
put them in power are sounding the alarm about anti-union initiatives that are
creeping into the state and efforts to "demonize" union workers as the source of
the California's knee-buckling economic problems. </STRONG></P>
<P>Unions and their Democratic allies are now pushing back against the
attacks.</P>
<P><STRONG>In the next few weeks, teachers and firefighters living in
politically conservative districts will call legislators and their neighbors to
ask them to support Gov. </STRONG><A
href="http://www.sfgate.com/jerry-brown/"><FONT color=#015660><STRONG>Jerry
Brown's</STRONG></FONT></A><STRONG> plan to extend taxes to cover the remaining
$15 billion of the state's budget deficit. </STRONG></P>
<P>Without that revenue, "We would see dozens of school districts in California
going into bankruptcy," state Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Torlakson
(introduced as "the labor movement's superintendent of public instruction") said
at a union gathering Friday at the convention. "This blame, this
finger-pointing, it has to stop." </P>
<P>Public-sector workers like the 40-year-old Timmerman say they're tired of the
public scapegoating them for California's economic problems. Several recent
national and statewide public polls say Californians believe health and
retirement benefits for public-sector workers need to be scaled back.</P>
<P></P>
<H3 class=subhead>Personal sacrifices</H3>
<P>"People think we're bankrupting the state," Timmerman said. But she has
already made major personal sacrifices. When she started teaching 10 years ago,
she paid $25 a month for health benefits for her and her daughter. Now, she pays
close to $600 a month. If she were to retire after 30 years of teaching, she's
on track to have $36,000 a year in retirement income. "It's not like I'm going
to be living high on the hog."</P>
<P>When Johnny Adargarz started as a maintenance worker 29 years ago in the
Montebello School District in Los Angeles County, "It was a steady job with
benefits you could count on," he said. "You think you're there for life."</P>
<P>But in the past two years, his health insurance premiums have shot up 30
percent. He's 54 and would collect roughly $2,000 a month were he to retire
today. But he can't.</P>
<P>"I'm not going to retire. I've got to keep working. People hear about these
police chiefs retiring with $100,000-a-year pensions. But that's not us."</P>
<P></P>
<H3 class=subhead>Thousands laid off</H3>
<P>It's not true, either, for "99 percent" of California's 175,000 members of
American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, said the union's
political and legislative director Willie Pelote Sr. "After 30 years of working,
they will hopefully - <EM>hopefully -</EM> make $22,000" in retirement
benefits," Pelote said. And, since October 2008, 14,000 of the union's members
have been laid off in California.</P>
<P>"We are letting the anti-working people faction define us," Pelote said. "We
are failing to put a face on what we do every day."</P>
<P>Over the next few months, 5,000 members of that union and others will fan out
across the state in a grassroots effort to humanize public-sector employees,
Pelote said.</P>
<P>Throughout the week of May 9, members of the California Teachers Association
will hold a variety of activities - from after-school rallies to Sacramento
lobbying - to explain why they're being unfairly blamed for the state's
problems.</P>
<P>The real villains, they say, are the Wall Street financiers who caused the
financial crisis.</P>
<P>"Teachers did not write one subprime mortgage. Teachers did not create one
hedge fund," said Bonnie Shatun, a CTA board member and third-grade teacher for
39 years in Burbank. "We're mad as hell, and we're not going to take it
anymore." </P>
<P>California Assembly Speaker John Pérez, D-Los Angeles, exhorted union members
to encourage their Republican co-workers to lobby conservative legislators to
support Brown's plan of tax extensions.</P>
<P>"Each of you in your own locals has more Republicans than you'd care to
admit," Pérez said.</P>
<H3 class=subhead>Costa Mesa worries</H3>
<P>Others worried about what's happening in the Orange County city of Costa
Mesa, where council members recently voted to lay off nearly half of all
municipal workers, because of what city leaders say are rising pension costs.
They plan to contract with outside providers for city services.</P>
<P>A popular sticker at the convention read "Costa Mesa is Wisconsin."</P>
<P><STRONG>"Wisconsin has come to California," Art Pulaski, secretary-treasurer
of the 2.1 million California Labor Federation, told a labor caucus at the
convention.</STRONG></P>
<P><STRONG>"If we don't get these final four Republican votes, we will see a
loss of 360,000 jobs, and it won't just be public-sector jobs," he said,
referring to the two Republican votes in each house of the Legislature Brown
needs to get the tax extensions and increases on the ballot.</STRONG></P>
<P><STRONG>"We can't let this happen in California," Pulaski said, his voice
building into a roar before several hundred people in the large conference room
Friday. "Are you ready to fight? Are you ready to fight? Are you ready to
fight?"</STRONG></P>
<P class=dtlcomment>E-mail Joe Garofoli at <A
href="mailto:jgarofoli@sfchronicle.com"><FONT
color=#015660>jgarofoli@sfchronicle.com</FONT></A>.</P></SPAN>
<P
id=url>http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/05/02/MNKB1JA5RR.DTL</P>
<P id=pageno>This article appeared on page <STRONG>A - 1</STRONG> of the
San Francisco Chronicle</P></DIV></BODY></HTML>