Editorial: Time to end automatic links in prison guard pay

An arbitrator has turned back a brazen attempt by the prison guards union to get a pay increase without negotiating a new contract.

The state's 2001-2006 contract with the California Correctional Peace Officers Association expired on July 2, 2006. But the union wanted the state to continue giving pay increases until a new contract is negotiated. That, of course, would remove all incentive for the union to negotiate a new contract in good faith. And, as the state already has seen, the union has been stalling, announcing in late August that it was pulling out of the mediation process that had been set up to move contract talks along.

At issue is a novel provision that was inserted in the 2001-2006 contract. Instead of negotiating a set pay increase -- such as 3 percent a year -- that five-year contract called for salary increases based on a "law enforcement compensation methodology." In plain English, it pegged salary increases for prison guards to raises for the California Highway Patrol, which in turn has had its pay raises linked to the average compensation of sheriff's deputies in Los Angeles County and police in Los Angeles, San Diego, Oakland and San Francisco.

That provision, which specified four dates for salary increases during the 2001-2006 contract, has an obvious flaw. It means that pay raises for prison guards were actually negotiated by city and county governments over which the governor and Legislature have no control.

This is a terrible way for the state to set salaries because it creates unpredictable costs. But the state agreed to it, and the state paid on the required four dates.

Since that contract expired July 2, 2006, the state and the union have been unable to agree on a new contract. In the meantime, the Highway Patrol union negotiated a new contract that took effect July 3, 2006. So the guards union believes it should be able to take advantage of Highway Patrol yearly salary increases after July 2, 2006.

The state, in a timely display of good sense, refused to go along. As the state argued, and the arbitrator agreed, to give increases beyond the four dates specified in the 2001-2006 contract "would result in automatic increases, without any collective bargaining, into the indefinite future."

The California Highway Patrol itself has protested the link between its pay and prison guard pay, saying it makes it impossible for the 6,400-member Highway Patrol union to bargain with the state independently if the state also has to include the cost of paying the 31,000 members of the prison guards union. The Highway Patrol formula, enshrined in law by the Legislature since 1981, also should be eliminated in the future -- which requires legislators to change the law. But first things first. Get the formula out of the prison guards' contract. The state's latest proposal would give the 31,000 members of the union annual 5 percent raises through the 2009-10 fiscal year -- a generous offer.

In 2001, legislators were told that the estimated cost of the 2001-2006 contract would be $567 million. But now we know that the five-year cost of the contract was closer to $2.3 billion. California needs a contract with predictable costs. The arbitrator's decision helps. Now the state just needs to hold firm on stable year-by-year salary increases.