Just look at what has happened to state workers and their unions in 2009: Furloughs. Looming layoffs. Columbus Day and Lincoln's Birthday erased from the paid holiday calendar. New rules that make it harder to earn overtime.
It's never a good sign when the court bench becomes labor's focus instead of the bargaining table. Unions are party to most of the 21 furlough lawsuits statewide arguing that Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's policy is illegal or ill-conceived.
If you think unions have ruined government, you're rooting for the governor to win. If you're one of the state's 200,000 or so union-covered employees, you're ticked that the state is balancing the books on your paycheck – and the union's only recourse is to sue your boss.
Even your biggest ally in the Legislature, Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg, hasn't helped you.
The Sacramento Democrat used to be an attorney for Service Employees International Union Local 1000, California's biggest public employee labor group. His district is loaded with state workers. His office's power is second only to Schwarzenegger's, a governor whose public popularity is neck-and-neck with journalists, the balloon boy's dad and the H1N1 virus.
Still, Steinberg backed changing the state's overtime pay rules and trimming the number of paid holidays. It was part of the give-and-take of governing during the February budget crisis. Besides, how can government cut, say, health care for kids and leave state workers untouched?
"The choices were stark," Steinberg said during a recent interview in his Capitol office.
Furloughs were different.
"I was at the table fighting as hard as I could," Steinberg said, to keep the governor from ordering three furlough days per month that whack state worker pay and hours 14 percent.
Yes, Steinberg eventually signed off on a budget that assumed savings equal to three furlough days, but he says Schwarzenegger should have left cutting details to the departments.
"The governor didn't have to furlough," Steinberg said.
So last month he put up a bill to give state departments freedom to make their own cuts. In theory, that would give Schwarzenegger room to pare the furloughs back from three days to two. Republicans stalled it and the administration pooh-poohed the idea as "shielding" state workers.
That's how bad things are from the unions' perspective: Two furlough days per month would have been a win. And their guy hasn't made it happen.
Call The Bee's Jon Ortiz, (916)321-1043. Read his blog, The State Worker, at sacbee.com/blogs.
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