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Saturday, May 18, 2013
Members of Local 39 call for action
by Chris Shannon, published on July 27, 2010 at 11:57 PM
Storyline: State and Local Politics
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“Chop at the top!”
That was the chant echoed by approximately 150 employees of the City of Sacramento, all members of Local 39, as they picketed outside City Hall Plaza.
“Our members are very, very upset,” said Joan Bryant, Director of Public Employees for Local 39. “This is the fifth round of layoffs we’ve had in our bargaining units. We had about 121 of our members who recently received layoff notices, and our members are upset about it."
“I’m here to show my support,” said David Worlds, an employee with the Department of Transportation, recently transferred from the Department of Parks and Recreation. “I think it’s important that we show up and if nothing else let people know that it is important to us.”
In terms of concessions, the City is proposing:
- A three year contract covering June 19, 2010 to June 2013
- A 4% reduction in salaries effective June 19, 2010
- A 5% increase in salaries effective June 30, 2012
- One furlough day per month for the term of the contract
- Salary step increases suspended until June 29, 2013, upon which salary steps will be advanced to the step that they would have been had the salary step increases not been suspended.
A statement passed out by Local 39 at today’s event addressed the concessions saying the City of Sacramento is top heavy with management. According to the statement, there is one management position for every six workers who provide front line services to the public.
The statement also alleged the City Manager is proposing to lay off workers in special funded departments, such water treatment plant operators and sanitation works in the Department of Utilities, even though they have an approved balanced budget.
Local 39 also took concern with the percentage of general funds spent on public safety, saying the City of Sacramento has for the first time surpassed the 80% figure for public safety expenditures.
Bryant indicated talks have been moving along between the City and Local 39. “I kind of characterize it as the very early stages of bargaining,” said Bryant. “We’ve had nine sessions with our large bargaining unit, and we were at the table today with our plant operations, and tomorrow we will have another session.”
Yet not everyone feels Local 39’s Leadership has put their best foot forward regarding concessions.
“I haven’t heard anything from anybody,” said Worlds. “There’s more questions right now than answers, and I think that’s probably a big part of it.”
“I think if there was more communication, it would help.”
An online petition has been started urging Local 39 Leadership to agree to the City’s proposal.
“I know we have some members who believe we should just come and vote on whatever they want to vote on, and we have a process to follow,” said Bryant. “I know there are some disgruntled members because they thought last year they should have had a vote on something. Last year we met with the City hoping we could arrive at some kind of amicable solution to help with the budget deficit, but the City walked away from the $7 million dollars we offered in concessions.”
“I don’t think they (the members) understand the bargaining process that you should just come and vote. That is not the feeling of the majority of them”.
When asked what he would like to see as a result of the demonstration, Worlds hoped for one thing:
“An agreement”
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That is a sweet deal for the employees!
Most of us are just hoping to have a job in 2013!
A three year contract covering June 19, 2010 to June 2013
A 4% reduction in salaries effective June 19, 2010
A 5% increase in salaries effective June 30, 2012
One furlough day per month for the term of the contract
Salary step increases suspended until June 29, 2013, upon which salary steps will be advanced to the step that they would have been had the salary step increases not been suspended.
"This is the fifth round of layoffs we’ve had in our bargaining units. We had about 121 of our members who recently received layoff notices, and our members are upset about it."
The union is trying to make it sound like they have suffered 5 layoffs already from the City of Sacramento... not true. The 121 layoffs are 13% of local 39 membership, about equal to local unemployment rates. And these have come from a variety of employers in the area.
It is not the role of the taxpayers of Sacramento to keep Local 39 members employed because their union has already suffered cuts from other employers.
Local 39 members will need to be laid off to balance next years budget under this measure. Why delay the inevitable and work on concessions in such an unsettled situation?
Here are the facts the author of the story missed:
- Last year, Local 39 was the only city union that refused to accept very modest labor concessions, which led directly to the city firing 41% of all park workers and myriad other layoffs throughout city government.
- Local 39 threw its junior members under the bus last year and are doing it again this year, as less senior employess get fired first under the seniority rules in 39's contract. Workers with young families and who are just starting out in life are getting systematically screwed.
- Local 39 failed to act in solidarity with other city unions last year, leaving it to the other unions to shoulder the burden of the city budget deficit (39 is the city's largest union).
- Local 39 greedily pocketed step and COLA raises and a 10% benefit hike last year while city government was in meltdown and state workers took 15% pay cuts.
- Dissident 39 members are so sick and fed up with 39's out-of-town leadership that they are circulating a union decertification petition to kick out 39 and connect up with another union or form one of their own.
- 39's leadership adamantly refuses to put its bargaining position up to a democratic vote of its members, knowing that its members would stop its insane union militancy which is costing its members jobs, decimating city services and increasing the liklihood of future layoss via outsourcing.
- City layoffs caused by 39's intransigence are destroying city services in department after department. Check out our local parks, where 65% of all park workers (virtually all whom are 39 members) have been fired in the past 24 months.
- All layoffs of 39 workers over the past two years could have been avoided if 39 had simply accepted the same concessions that all other city unions have been accepting.
- The taxpayer gets screwed with every layoff, because the ones who are getting fired are the most cost-effective city workers of all - low wage, productive younger workers - while older, more costly, less efficient 39 members have been steadily collecting pay raises and getting benefit hikes.
- Smart members of 39 knows where this will all lead: overpriced 39 labor will almost certainly end up being terminated as the city turns to outsourcing to deliver desperately needed public services at an affordable cost, as the city's consultant has been urging it to do.
-The public will start demanding outsourcing as the only way for the city to preserve public services in the face of 39's irresponsible instrasigence.
To be clear, the November Utility Rollback measure does not "reduce city revenues" at all, it just limits the increases to inflation without voter approval. I suppose the city and Local 39 can call this a "reduction" if they were counting on sticking taxpayers with 9.2% utility increases year after year, but that is kind of twisted thinking.
I will never argue for police cutbacks, but everything else that the city spends money has to be on the table. And when Union 39 is getting raises in the middle of this economic crisis while blowing through political money obviously makes them a target.
Most smart union leaders know that they don't get a lot of voter sympathy when unemployment is high and budgets are tight... seems like Local 39 never got that memo.