CCPOA isn't shy about highlighting the job's occupational hazards. Outside its headquarters, a granite memorial reads, "They walk the state's most dangerous beat," with the names of fallen officers engraved below the phrase.

"It's a dangerous job that doesn't give you a sense of satisfaction when you go home," said Raul Ruano, an officer at Soledad State Prison. "If is wasn't for the pay, a lot of people wouldn't be here."

The next generation

When Novey retired in 2002, his lieutenant, Mike Jimenez, took over. The next year, voters recalled then-Gov. Gray Davis and elected Schwarzenegger.

CCPOA had poured more than $3 million into backing Davis' 1998 and 2002 gubernatorial campaigns, reversing its history of successfully backing law-and-order Republicans for governor.

In 2002, Davis signed off on a contract that gave CCPOA's members a 37 percent raise over five years, boosted retirement benefits and loosened restrictions on sick leave.

"Best labor contract in the history of California," Corcoran said.

As the tide turned against Davis in 2003, CCPOA stayed out of the recall fight and quickly befriended Schwarzenegger, the first governor since George Deukmejian without CCPOA's financial backing.

The new administration struck a deal with the union in 2004 that delayed $108 million in raises in exchange for a package of job and pay protections. After the arrangement came under harsh criticism in the Legislature, department managers pulled back on some parts of the deal.

The union angrily accused Schwarzenegger of a double cross. The administration denied it. The union lost in court. The damage was done.

Two years later, state negotiators ended an early contract bargaining meeting after just 28 minutes because CCPOA wanted to videotape the talks. During another session, a fed-up Jimenez "launched into a profane tirade," according to state transcripts:

"OK, I'm not playing anymore. Go tell your boss, … him. You can tell the governor, … him. You can tell (the secretary) the same goddamn thing."

The talks became so contentious that a mediator kept the two sides in separate suites at the Hyatt Regency in downtown Sacramento and shuttled between the rooms.

CCPOA quit mediation after 13 sessions, according to state notes.

With the labor talks deadlocked, the union turned to the Legislature for satisfaction. CCPOA leaders and lobbyists walked the Capitol halls in the final days and hours of the legislative session to try to get what eluded them at the bargaining table. An after-midnight push to get lawmakers to pass a contract bill failed.

On Sept. 18, 2007, with negotiations declared at impasse, the administration imposed its last, best and final offer. State correctional officers are still working under those terms today and for the same pay.

No talks are scheduled.

"Our door is always been open for the union to bring us their proposal for a new contract," said Lynelle Jolley, spokeswoman for the Department of Personnel Administration, which negotiates labor contracts on behalf of the governor.

Corcoran said that the union has made proposals "with significant concessions, only to have it rejected out of hand."

The reason, he said, is that the administration was embarrassed the last time it reached a deal with CCPOA.

Leadership in flux?

CCPOA under Jimenez has engaged in a running battle with the administration. Its tactics included a billboard with an unbecoming picture of the governor in a thong that the union drove around the Capitol, public denouncements of Schwarzenegger as "the worst governor in the history of the state," and a brief recall drive that ended last fall shortly after Jimenez won re-election.

Other unions, including Barcelona's group, have avoided similar tactics.

"Those sorts of things tend to shut the door (with the administration), turn the lock knob, and then you can't get in," Barcelona said. "We don't do that stuff."

CCPOA may have come to the same conclusion.

Meanwhile, the union's leadership has been in flux. Jimenez took a 90-day medical leave of absence on May 1. The union won't say what's ailing him, although acting President Chuck Alexander recently said that it may require surgery.

But even before Jimenez took leave, the union was pulling back on bombast. It said little publicly when Schwarzenegger ordered the twice-monthly furloughs that started in February. It didn't make a peep in March when lawmakers erased two paid holidays from the state's calendar and changed overtime accrual rules.

The third 'L'

With labor talks stalled and legislators focused on the state's rolling budget crises for more than a year, CCPOA has reached for the third "L" by filing dozens of legal actions against the state.

"Unions typically do that when their other options are closed," Hodson said. "For years CCPOA got whatever they wanted from governors and the Legislature."

One lawsuit filed in Alameda Superior Court in March contends Schwarzenegger's furlough policy amounts to an illegal pay cut for correctional officers. Another seeks to keep the administration from transferring prisoners out of state to relieve overcrowding.

And CCPOA is fighting for "donning and doffing" pay, which compensates officers for the time required to put on and take off a uniform, vest and other equipment at the beginning and end of a shift.

Some law enforcement agencies, including the California Highway Patrol, have donning and doffing pay in their contracts. Others have successfully sued for it, the union told its members on its "5150 Hotline" in February: "The potential monetary damages and additional compensation for those affected (CCPOA) members, should we prevail, will be substantial."

Corcoran summed up the union's see-what-sticks legal strategy: "They have to win every time. We only need to win once."

Call The Bee's Jon Ortiz, (916) 321-1043. Bee researcher Pete Basofin contributed to this report.