The public employee unions have captured the institutions that are supposed to regulate them in a sense. At all levels in California politics, the City, County and State office holders (especially in the Democrat districts) en large have consistantly taken the lionshare of their contributions from public employee unions over the past few decades. This has been accompanied by wages, health care and benefits that often double the medians where they exist in the private sector. The city level politicos tend to be even more amaturish than the state level ones and therefore got into more direct trouble being overly generous with their union contributors and are resorting to the threat of Ch 9 to get any movement on concessions.. The union paid for toadies at the state level have been proded by their union masters to push back and really come out of the woodwork into the light of day to push through this unconstituional power grab as it usurps powers reserved for the cities in the California constitution. It is time for a depoliticized state civil service to replace public employees unions. Let the pliticians get their money in a cleaner way so they can govern in a cleaner way.