Bee's focus is on wrong pay data

The Bee's new searchable database on state employee salaries may be fun for gossipers and helpful to stalkers, but it does very little to advance the policy discussion about public employee salaries.

The database has undeniable attraction. If you know the last name of a state employee, within seconds you can find out how much that person is paid along with job title and agency. That's all it takes to find the salary of your neighbor, your daughter's boyfriend or the cute guy you met at the party last weekend.

But beyond its gossip value, the database provides little meaningful information about state services – and it could lead to some serious harm for workers.

So far more than 500 of our members have complained to us about the database compared to about 25 who support releasing the information.

Most of our members are upset that anyone – neighbors, ex-boyfriends, old classmates, hair stylist or sales associates – can find out their base salary and job title with just a few keystrokes. These aren't newsmakers or department heads. They are just working people who feel their privacy has been violated.

Legally, The Bee appears to have a right to release this information. After all, taxpayers are entitled to see how their money is being spent. But was it right to release this information about people who otherwise aren't considered newsworthy?

What about people who have fled abusive relationships and are trying to avoid an ex-husband or boyfriend?

Union representatives have received at least a dozen calls or e-mails from domestic violence victims who fear a perpetrator could track them down by using the database. Their fears are well-founded.

"This woman who had been successfully hiding from her ex-husband called after he found her," said Beth Hassett, executive director of Women Escaping a Violent Environment. "She had switched jobs within the state to fly under the radar and hide from him. He logged into (The Bee's) database, found her agency and then was able to get her phone number and threaten her."

She may have been tracked down without The Bee's help, but the database makes it so much easier. And experts point out that domestic violence is often a crime of impulse and convenience.

We appreciate some of The Bee's serious research on state salary structures, including Tuesday's front-page story that showed that rank-and-file state employees saw salary increases of about 10 percent on average in the past four years while managers and other high-paid staffers received 20 percent increases. We also agree with Editor Melanie Sill when she wrote that The Bee wants to provide insights about how government compensates employees, how pay for various positions compares with others and "how public sector pay compares to private industry."

The Bee's database would be a lot more useful if it provided those kinds of comparisons.

Faced with a huge budget deficit, Californians should know how state salaries compare with similar positions in the private sector or in other expensive states. But as it is currently configured, the database allows users to do only one thing really well – check up on one person at a time by name.

What good does it do to have the salaries of front-line employees searchable by name?

We understand the rationale for department heads, senior positions and high-profile jobs. But what is the news value of including the names of thousands of office workers who make less than $50,000 a year?

We'd like to see The Bee fix the problem by deleting the names of most frontline state workers from the searchable database. We would also like to see The Bee expand the database by allowing users to compare salaries and classifications more easily.

This would satisfy the public's legitimate right to know how public money is spent and encourage serious discussion about compensation and pay equity, but still protect the privacy of employees from malicious gossip and potential threats.

About the writer:

• Jim Hard is the president of the California's largest public employee union, Service Employees International Union, Local 1000, which represents 92,000 workers including members in virtually every state agency.