In a letter to members this afternoon, SEIU Local 1000 officials said that they are preparing to negotiate with Gov. Jerry Brown's administration early next month, spurred by his proposal to put state workers on a 4/9.5 workweek that would cut their hours and pay by 5 percent.

The chairs of Local 1000's nine bargaining units said that whatever concessions they negotiate will be put in a "side letter" agreement. That would avoid reopening the local's contracts.

Ahead of that, union officials are soliciting savings ideas to offer as alternatives to Brown's furloughs. Next week the local will conduct an online survey of members.

The union's bargaining team will review all of that information ahead of negotiations scheduled to start June 9. Whatever agreement is reached at the table will go to the rank and file for a ratification vote.

Here's the union's rationale for bargaining cuts:

"As the elected leaders of all nine bargaining units within Local 1000, we agreed that it's better to be aggressive participants in the effort to find solutions to achieve savings. We intend to be part of the action, not acted upon.

"We could have said 'no,' and demanded that the governor honor our contract. By staying engaged, we minimize the potential for a huge number of layoffs and even deeper cuts in vital services, like education and the programs that serve California's most needy."

Here's the entire letter:

Why not just extend the personal leave program?

It's a question that we've heard often in the last week as we sifted through emails from several hundred state workers reacting to Gov. Jerry Brown's 4/9.5 furlough plan to cut their pay by 5 percent through a 2-hours-per-week furlough.

Most of the calls, comments and emails about the policy fall into one of four groups: workers who would love the three-day weekends, workers who think the policy is a betrayal of their contracts, those who hate losing the pay and workers who think the switch would harm state functions.

(As we reported earlier, the nonpartisan Legislative Analyst's Office has some issues with Brown's workweek proposal.)

Then there's a fifth camp asking, why not simply return to giving state workers a floating unpaid day off each month? Departments already know how to manage it because of furloughs and the so-called "personal leave program" that was a provision in most of the latest union contracts.

So what do you think?

Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg, D-Sacramento, met with reporters today and talked about Gov. Jerry Brown's proposal to furlough state workers two hours per week.

Brown's plan also lengthens the state workday to 9.5 hours and shortens the workweek to four days. The changes would reduce employees' hours and pay by 5 percent and save the general fund some $401 million ($839 million all funds).

On cooperation between the unions and the governor to come up with a plan:

Just look at the experience in the Schwarzenegger years. ... When they tried to do it unilaterally, what was the end result? Lawsuits, a lot of uncertainty. The better and best way to accomplish the needed savings is to work with the people affected, and that's already going on."

On SEIU Local 1000's position:

"It would be one thing if SEIU Local 1000 was saying hell no and fighting the governor, but they're not doing that. They're actually appreciating the fact that the administration has reached out to them and that they are being brought in."

On the impact to his district and his assessment of the governor's moves:

"It's certainly hard on a lot of my constituents, The process by which the administration is trying to get to that goal, the money goal, I think has been very constructive so far."

On how the issue will play for the November election:

"You want to go into November with as much solidarity as possible."

PHOTO: Darrell Steinberg / 2011 Sacramento Bee file, Hector Amezcua

We never get all of what we learn into a news story, but this blog can give users the data, the notes and the quotes from the notebook that informed what was published.

Our story in today's Bee looks at Gov. Jerry Brown's prosposal to cut $401 million in general fund employee costs ($839 million all funds) by putting state employees on a 4/9.5 weekly furlough schedule.

We inerviewed several folks who didn't get into the final version of our story, including Bruce Blanning, executive director of the state's engineers' union and Tim Yeung, a Sacramento-based labor attorney.

Here are some highlights of our discussions with both men:

In a memo to members today, SEIU Local 1000 President Yvonne Walker said that she was consulted about Gov. Jerry Brown's plan to cut state employees' pay and that she drew a line at imposing unpaid time off on workers.

"First let me say that I have made it clear that furloughs are not on the table," Walker wrote.

She said that she has had several meetings with the administration and is continuing talks.

"Under the previous governor, our input was not sought, in fact, it was dismissed. Under Gov. Brown, we have a seat at the table," Walker's memo said. "We have offered our own proposals to deal with this crisis."

Among the suggestions: cutting private vendor contracts, eliminating the use of retired annuitants and, "if necessary, implementing a four-day, 40-hour work week."

PHOTO: Yvonne Walker / Sacramento Bee 2008, Brian Baer

State workers' compensation is back on the budget chopping block.

Brown administration officials met with the state employee union leaders last week, according to sources familiar with the meetings, to warn them that the next version of the governor's budget will include an unspecified cut in employee costs up to 10 percent.

The administration in January estimated that California is confronting a $9.2 billion deficit through 2012-13, but a recent state analysis concluded the actual gap is considerably more.

The sources, who declined to talk on the record because the administration asked all involved to keep the discussions secret, said Brown told the unions he was seeking $750 million in state employee cost savings for fiscal 2012-13.

The sources said the Brown administration asked union leaders to come up with ways to make the reduction -- pay cuts or higher benefit contributions, for instance.

Department of Finance spokesman H.D. Palmer said, "The governor has already indicated that more difficult reductions will be required," because the state's budget deficit has grown since Brown issued his first budget proposal in January.

"The details of those reductions will be detailed in the May Revision," Palmer said.

The governor could order wholesale layoffs, but the civil service process usually takes at least six months and the savings often fall short of expectations.

Furloughs are an option only if the Senate and Assembly authorize Brown to execute them, because the courts have ruled the policy falls under the Legislature's authority to set wages and working conditions. That seems unlikely, given the Democratic majority in the statehouse.

Other cost savings such as outright pay cuts, higher employee contributions to pension or health benefits, would need to be bargained.

Last month Brown recently extended the contracts of four unions with deals set to expire in July. Two of the extensions covering about a total 16,000 psychiatric technicians and operating engineers increased the state's health benefits costs 9.5 percent for those workers.

With the four extensions in place, the contracts covering roughly all 180,000 unionized state workers expire in July 2013.

Brown is set to deliver the budget revision on Monday.

Risky retirement plans aren't doing right by U.S. workers, SEIU Local 1000 President Yvonne Walker says in a CNN.com piece published today, and she thinks a California retirement-for-all bill is a "step in the right direction."

Walker's op-ed item refers to Senate Bill 1234, by Sen. Kevin de León, D-Los Angeles, which would establish a state-administered retirement fund for private-sector workers. The article, which you can read here, also mentions that New York is talking about a similar plan.

"Part of what we aspire to as Americans is being able to stop working with our dreams and reasonable expectations of retirement still intact," Walker writes.

SB 1234 is scheduled for a Senate Appropriations Committee hearing on May 14.

PHOTO: Yvonne Walker / Sacramento Bee 2008, Brian Baer

California Professional Firefighters and SEIU Local 1000 recently donated a combined half-million dollars to the group combating a Nov. 6 ballot measure aimed at curbing unions' political power and banning direct contributions to candidates from corporations and unions.

The California Professional Firefighters Independent Expenditures PAC donated $250,000 on April 11 and Local 1000 kicked in $252,762 a couple days later, according to a report filed this week with the state.

Local 1000 and the state council with which it's affiliated have given nearly $1.1 million since last summer. Professional Firefighters, between its independent expenditure committee and its ballot issues committee, has donated $800,000 over the past nine months. Contributions to defeat the measure now total $5.7 million.

Supporters raised about $2.9 million so far.

The proposal would stop unions and businesses from donating money directly to political candidates, although both groups could continue spending freely on independent expenditure campaigns.

Labor groups would have a harder time raising money for those independent campaigns, however, because the measure also eliminates payroll-deducted contributions, unions' primary means of raising money. Corporations couldn't use payroll deductions either, but they raise the bulk of their campaign money from checks written by top executives and shareholders.

TV host Dr. Mehmet Oz is among the speakers scheduled for a Monday press conference to unveil a new report on state workers' health and to promote a pilot state workplace wellness program.

Oz, whose self-titled show is among the most popular in day-time talk, will join SEIU Local 1000 President Yvonne Walker, Treasurer Bill Lockyer, Controller John Chiang and others. They'll talk about the health study commissioned by Chiang's office, which looks at state active members in CalPERS, and explain the launch of the wellness initiative.

The news conference is one of several Sacramento appearances for Oz next week. It starts at 1:30 p.m. in the courtyard of the California Museum at 1020 O St. in Sacramento. The state is hosting the news conference in partnership with The California Endowment and HealthCorps, the nonprofit organization founded by Oz and his wife, Lisa Oz, to fight childhood obesity.

PHOTO: Dr. Mehmet Oz / Sacramento Bee 2010 file, Brian Baer

The Legislative Analyst's Office figures that four union contracts that Gov. Jerry Brown has agreed to extend for one year will "maintain or modestly increase the state's costs for employee compensation."

The nonpartisan LAO looked at so-called "rollover agreements" with the Union of American Physicians and Dentists (Bargaining Unit 16) and the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (Unit 19) and concluded that they don't cost the state more than the deals that expire in July.

The state's cost for employees covered by the International Union of Operating Engineers (Unit 12) and the California Association of Psychiatric Technicians (Unit 18), however, will grow by an estimated 9.5 percent due to increased health benefit costs. Those contracts have clauses requiring the state to cover increases in health coverage.

The contracts together cover roughly 24,000 state workers, including equipment operators, social service professionals, psychiatric technicians and doctors.

MOU Fiscal Analysis: Bargaining Units 12, 16, 18, and 19

As we reported earlier today, four unions representing roughly 24,000 state workers have reached agreements with Gov. Jerry Brown to extend the terms of their current contracts, which are due to expire in a few months.

The agreements cover state employees in bargaining units 12 (skilled crafts workers), 16 (doctors and dentists), 18 (psychiatric technicians) and 19 (health and social services professionals).

Open a larger view of the contract extension letters embedded below by clicking the "full screen" button at the bottom of the document display.

Contract extentions for bargaining units 12, 16, 18 and 19

As our story in today's Bee notes, state hiring fell 25 percent during the first year of Democratic Gov. Jerry Brown's administration when compared with Republican Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's last year in office.

But how much is Brown responsible? After all, the state still added more than 10,000 new full- and part-time employees in the first 14 months of his comeback third term. How much of the difference in numbers is a difference in leadership style, administrative savvy, political experience or bureaucratic cooperation?

Is is possible, for example, that Schwarzenegger's tough-on-state-workers policies (furloughs, attempts to withhold wages during budget stalemates, the campaign to roll back public pensions) prodded so many civil servants into retirement that his administration wound up hiring more than Brown?

Or has Brown, drawing on his many years in the public sector including two terms as governor from 1975 to 1983, simply done a better job of managing the state deficit -- and gained the bureaucracy's support to slow hiring in the process?

On The State Worker's Facebook page, retired state worker Mike Carbahal gave this opinion: "Schwarzenegger did not know what he was doing, nobody paid him or his programs much if any attention - Brown on the other hand does know what he is doing and is taken very seriously."

What do you think?

Are state workers dragging down state budgets around the nation? Or have public employees and their compensation packages become convenient political scapegoats?

A year ago the PBS news show "Need to Know" took on what it calls "one of the most contentious arguments in the news today." We ran across the report this morning while surveying state worker news. Although the item ran on March 11, 2011, the topic remains relevant today.

Watch Union Salaries and State Budgets on PBS. See more from Need to Know.

This is the latest installment in a series of posts detailing political spending by California state workers' unions. The records are downloaded from the California Secretary of State's office and reflect activity filed as of today, March 30, 2012.

The 12,000 or so skilled craftsmen, maintenance staff and equipment operators in Bargaining Unit 12 are represented by the International Union of Operating Engineers, Craft Maintenance Division, California locals 3, 12, 39 and 501. Another 900 or so building maintenance and operations employees in Bargaining Unit 13 are represented by IUOE locals 39 and 501.

IUOE Local 501 reported about $30,000 cash in its PAC's bank as of this month. Since January 2011, it has spent $11,219 with roughly half that going to political contributions. The PAC reported no contributions in the 15-month period.

State employees in Units 12 and 13 make up a small part of the IUOE membership. Collectively, the four locals represent some 250 city, county, special districts, and schools bargaining units, according to the Unit 12 website, many of them outside of California. State workers are assigned to a local based on job class and geography.

As you look through the tables that follow, remember that expenditures show everything a union PAC spent on political activities, including operating costs. Contributions pages break out donations received (usually from members) and donations made to political campaigns and causes. In some cases, tabs at the bottom of the spreadsheets open tables with more detailed information on the union's political spending.

To get a sense of similar spending in California by other interest groups, check out Maplight.org. The California data on that site run through December 2010.

Here's one side of the argument you'll be hearing for the next seven months over the so-called "Stop Special Interest Money Now Act" the political-committee funding measure on the Nov. 7 ballot in California.

"DUES AND DEEP POCKETS: Public-Sector Unions' Money Machine," published by the conservative Manhattan Institute for Policy Research, argues that dues withheld by payroll deduction and paid directly to unions, along with rules that force employees to pay for representation even if they aren't members, gives labor "an abundant and reliable source of money, sparing unions the need to spend resources on recruitment, retention, and fund-raising."

Author Daniel DiSalvo says that means civil service unions have a serious advantage over other groups throwing elbows for government resources.

The Stop Special Interest Money Now Act would, among other things, prohibit use of payroll-deducted funds for political purposes by unions, corporations or government contractors. Employees could still contribute to employer or union committees, but they'd have to do it annually and in writing. (Click here to read the measure.)

California unions' will take a big revenue hit if voters approve the as-yet-to-be-numbered proposition, since labor relies on members' payroll deductions to raise money for political spending. Business interests don't.
DUES AND DEEP POCKETS: Public-Sector Unions' Money Machine

This is the latest installment in a series of posts detailing the 2011 political spending by California state workers' unions. The records are downloaded from the California Secretary of State's office and reflect activity filed as of Jan. 31, 2012.

Editor's note, 12:25 p.m.: An earlier version of this post incorrectly stated the total of IUOE Local 3's 2011 spending.

The 12,000 or so skilled craftsmen, maintenance staff and equipment operators in Bargaining Unit 12 are represented by the International Union of Operating Engineers, Craft Maintenance Division, California locals 3, 12, 39 and 501.

This post focuses on IUOE Local 3, which spent $473,000 on political activities last year through 10 accounts reported to the Secretary of State. The largest account paid the local and the Operating Engineers General Fund a combined $176,000 for "reimbursement of salaries." Another $100,000 went to the California Democratic Party.

As you look through the tables that follow, remember that expenditures show everything a union PAC spent on political activities, including operating costs. Contributions pages break out donations received (usually from members) and donations made to political campaigns and causes. In some cases, tabs at the bottom of the spreadsheets open tables with more detailed information of the union's political spending.

Most of Local 3's accounts showed expenditures and political donations that matched exactly. For the few accounts that reported significant overhead, we totaled the expenditures and posted those figures on the first page of of the appropriate spreadsheets. We also totaled up contributions to recipients when the number of line items merited it.

The first sheet tallies each of the Local 3 accounts' expenses. Detailed spreadsheets for each account follow, starting with the largest, filer number 981697. (We've included a staff/spouse travel tab that shows the union paid $7,300 for airfare, lodging and meals.)

We'll soon post the data for the other three locals representing Unit 12.

To get a sense of similar spending in California by other interest groups, check out Maplight.org. The California data on that site run through December 2010.

We never get all of what we learn into a news story, but this blog can give users the data, the notes and the quotes from the notebook that informed what was published.

Here are some sources that informed our story on Assemblyman Roger Dickinson's "Public Employees Bill of Rights," specifically its provision to give state rank-and-file employees first crack at state work.

California Government Code Section 19130-19135, which lays out the rules for state outsourcing.

Assembly Bill 1655, the "Public Employees Bill of Rights."

The Bureau of State Audits 2009 report on illegitimate contracting at the Department of Health Care Services and the Department of Public Health.

The Feb. 21 prepared statement on private contracting by Dr. Stuart Bussey, president of the Union of American Physicians and Dentists to the Assembly Budget Subcommittee on Administration.

"The Hidden Branch of Government," SEIU Local 1000's latest installment on state outsourcing costs.

And below we've embedded data pulled from the Department of General Services' State Contract & Procurement Registration System for the first two months of this year.

(For more specific descriptions of specific contracts, click the second tab on the bottom of the spreadsheet and scroll right to the "Item Description" column. What even more? The eight-digit numbers in the far right column conform to the United Nations Standard Products and Services Code. Click here to open a search engine that lets you plug in the numbers to get a description of of the goods or services that the state purchased.)

This is the latest installment in a series of posts detailing the 2011 political spending by California state workers' unions. The records are downloaded from the California Secretary of State's office and reflect activity filed as of Jan. 31, 2012.

California Department of Forestry Firefighters' PAC took in contributions of about $313,500 last year and spent a little more than $290,000 on political activities. Like many state employee unions, CDFF wrote its biggest checks to the California Democratic Party ($100,000 total) and consultants ($38,000 to Marketplace Communications, a media relations arm of Sacramento-based Aaron Read & Associates).

As you look through the table below, remember that expenditures show everything a union PAC spent on political activities, including operating costs. Contributions pages break out donations received (usually from members) and donations given to political campaigns and causes. Tabs at the bottom of the spreadsheet open tables with more detailed information of the union's political spending.

To get a sense of similar spending in California by other interest groups, check out Maplight.org. The California data on that site run through December 2010.

This is the latest installment in a series of posts detailing he 2011 political spending by California state workers' unions. The records are downloaded from the California Secretary of State's office and reflect activity filed as of Jan. 31, 2012.

The California Statewide Law Enforcement Association's two active political action committees received about $1.26 million from the union and spent about $530,000 in 2011. A little less than half the money went to political organizations and candidates for office.

CSLEA gave the most money to the California Democratic Party, $110,000. Lobbyists, consultants and lawyers as a group received $283,000. They included attorney Wayne Ordos, $98,000; Yorba Linda-based P.M. Restaurants/Consulting, Inc., $94,000; lobbyist Craig Brown, $55,000; and former CCPOA President Don Novey, $36,000.

As you look through the tables that follow, remember thatexpenditures show everything a union PAC spent on political activities, including operating costs. Contributions pages break out donations received (usually from members) and donations given to campaigns and political causes. Tabs at the bottom of each spreadsheet open tables with more detailed information of the union's political spending.

To get a sense of similar spending in California by other interest groups, check out Maplight.org. The California data on that site run through December 2010.

The state's quasi-private earthquake insurer is planning to pay furlough back wages to current and former agency employees who lost salary to the policy.

California Earthquake Authority spokeswoman D'Anne Ousley left a voice mail message with The State Worker Wednesday evening, confirming our earlier speculation that the agency would expand furlough lawsuit settlement terms reached with SEIU Local 1000 and California Attorneys, Administrative Law Judges and Hearing Officers in State Employment to non-represented staff.

The state's four other "off-budget" agencies that settled furloughs with the unions -- the Prison Industry Authority, the First 5 California Commission, the California Housing Finance Agency and the California State Lottery -- announced similar decisions earlier this week.

The repayment plans exclude members of Professional Engineers in California Government and California Association of Professional Scientists because those two associations are pressing on with furlough litigation. Local 1000 and CASE agreed to drop their remaining furlough lawsuits if their members in off-buget departments received furlough back pay.

The Earthquake Authority, a publicly-managed, privately-funded organization that provides
residential earthquake insurance, employs about 25 state civil service workers. Repaying them won't come from the state budget, since the agency operates on money taken in from investments and policyholder premiums.

Solidarity isn't just a union concept.

Nearly all current and former employees of the California Housing Finance Agency and the California State Lottery will receive back pay for wages lost to furloughs, officials now say.

Two other so-called "off-budget" agencies said the same thing earlier today. None of the payments will come from the state's general fund and -- this is key -- the Legislature doesn't appropriate money for their budgets.

Russ Lopez, the Lottery's deputy director of communications. The agency is still figuring out how many of its 644 current employees are in line for furlough back pay. Lottery retirees and other former staff furloughed during their time with the agency will have money coming to them.

The payments "aren't going to happen overnight," Lopez said.

Cal HFA has the same accounting challenge. The agency employs about 260 staff who support its mission to provide home financing and housing programs for low- and moderate-income Californians. Spokeswoman Melissa Flores said that her agency last year set aside "just under $4 million" to cover back payment costs, but hasn't yet determined how many current and former employees were affected by furloughs.

Nine Cal HFA employees represented by Professional Engineers in California Government won't received the back pay, Flores said, because their union is continuing to fight furloughs in court.

The decision by the Lottery and Cal HFA to pay furlough back wages means that four of five off-budget agencies that settled furlough litigation with SEIU Local 100 and the state attorney's union have now said publicly that they are extending the back-pay provisions of the settlements to all their affected employees and retirees.

Click here to read about similar decisions made by leaders at the state's Prison Industry Authority and the First 5 California Commission. The post includes more background on the union settlements that set the precedent for the payments now extended to all employees.

The fifth off-budget agency, the California Earthquake Authority, hasn't yet responded to our inquiry whether it will follow the other four off-budget agencies, but we expect it will.

The agency's attitude about furloughs is well known: During one heated courtroom debate, CEA's lawyer said of Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's administration and furloughs that "These guys are making it up as they go along,"

The California Prison Industry Authority and the First 5 California Commission will pay furlough back wages to all their employees.

The decision extends the terms of recent court settlements with two unions to excluded workers and other employees -- except the PIA's top executive and state engineers and scientists whose labor groups are pressing furlough litigation.

It's not yet clear when the State Controller's Office will issue the checks or exactly how many current and former employees will receive money. The payments won't affect the state's general fund budget since both agencies are fiscally independent of it.

The PIA employs about 570 workers who run inmate training programs. Officials figure the back pay will cost about $7.9 million of the $8.6 million the PIA set aside last year in anticipation of a settlement. (The payments won't include the interest that authority officials anticipated when they allocated the money.)

The agency doesn't yet have a specific count for how many people will receive back pay, spokesman Eric Reslock said, since some furloughed staff have since retired or left for other jobs and some current employees started work at the agency after furloughs ended last spring.

First 5 employs 35 staff. Spokeswoman Susan Hyman said that 50 current and former employees will receive payments. The agency, which administers services for children up to age 5, hasn't yet estimated what the furlough back pay will cost.

A few PIA workers are excluded from the deal. The authority's board will need to approve back pay for General Manager Charles Pattillo, Reslock said. A handful of staff represented by California Professional Engineers in California Government or California Association of Professional Scientists won't get the back pay, either, because their unions are pressing furlough litigation.

First 5 and the PIA are two of five so-called "off-budget" state agencies that recently settled furlough litigation with SEIU Local 1000 and California Attorneys, Administrative Law Judges and Hearing Officers in State Employment.

The settlements obligate the PIA, First 5, the California Earthquake Authority, the California Housing Finance Agency and the California State Lottery to pay back wages only to staff covered by the two unions. In exchange, Local 1000 and CASE have dropped their furlough lawsuits against the state.

Gov. Jerry Brown's administration has left it up to the five off-budget agencies whether to extend back wage payments to non-union workers. The State Worker has left messages with officials at the other three to find out whether they intend to pay back wages to all their employees.

PHOTO CREDIT: Image courtesy of California Prison Industry Authority.

We've heard from several state workers who aren't happy that SEIU Local 1000 settled its furlough litigation in exchange for back wages for 700 or so of its members working in "off-budget" agencies.

Local 1000 President Yvonne Walker has said that the union's legal team advised that broader litigation wasn't likely to win, so the union cut its losses and took what it could get from a settlement.

Paul Warrick, an associate governmental program analyst, sent an email to The State Worker that hits the tone of the complaints we've heard. We're publishing his email here, unedited and with his permission. He's speaking for himself, not his employer, colleagues or Local 1000:

Big whoop! Someone (or SEIU) should have pursued the larger Federal issue of equal pay for equal work. Everyone who receives a state payroll check should have been furloughed or no one should have been furloughed. Furloughs were happenstance. If you just happened to be an Office Technician, Staff Services Analyst, etc. in the wrong agency (based on funding source or other criteria), you got furloughed while your neighbor who was also an OT or SSA, but worked for another agency didn't get furloughed. It's just ridiculous.

Paul Warrick DSS

With just 400 to 450 words for our weekly State Worker column, some of what we learn each week never sees print. Column Extras give you the notes, the quotes and the observations that inform what's published.

Today's State Worker column breaks down which unions are in and which are out of the court fight over furloughs. The California Correctional Peace Officers Association and the California Statewide Law Enforcement Association are the latest to lay down arms.

CCPOA spokesman JeVaughn Baker said that the weight of several court decisions favoring the state pushed the union to stop its litigation: "We decided it's in the best interest of the association to focus on other issues."

SEIU Local 1000 and California Attorneys, Administrative Law Judges and Hearing Officers in State Employment also recently dropped their furlough litigation.

Meanwhile, the state's engineers and scientists are Alameda Superior Court No. RG10630312
Original petition: CCPOA v. Schwarzenegger (requires Java)

CSLEA's request for dismissal, Alameda Superior Court No. RG10507081
Original petition: CSLEA v. Schwarzenegger

CCPOA's request for dismissal: 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals
Original Complaint: Newton v. Schwarzenegger

The union representing the state's legal professionals and Gov. Jerry Brown's administration have agreed to settle their furlough fight.

The deal returns wages lost to furlough to about 24 members of California Attorneys, Administrative Law Judges and Hearing Officers in State Employment. In exchange, the union is dropping its last two furlough lawsuits.

The agreement affects only CASE members in five departments that don't receive legislative budget appropriation: First 5 California, the Prison Industry Authority, the California Earthquake Authority, the California Housing Finance Agency and the California State Lottery.

SEIU Local 1000 recently agreed to a similar settlement.

The CASE rationale, which you can read below or by clicking here, can be summed up in five words: "Take what you can get."
CASE memo to members

Our report in today's Bee quotes SEIU Local 1000 President Yvonne Walker talking about the union's decision to settle its furlough litigation against the state. Here are highlights from her interview with The State Worker:

On working with Democratic Gov. Jerry Brown compared with his predecessor, Republican Arnold Schwarzenegger:

"What a difference a governor makes. ... He actually respects workers and the services we provide Californians."

On the state's furlough policy and Brown's position on it:

"We've said all along the furlough plan was a bad plan. It not only jeopardized working people, but came at a great cost to the state. This governor did the right thing. He looked at it and understood that we had the opportunity to say, 'How do we close out this ugly chapter in the state's history?' "

On how the deal came together:

"The governor's attorneys called and said, 'Can we settle this?' and we said, 'Yes.' "

On arguments that the agreement benefits a relatively small group of SEIU members at the expense of pursuing lawsuits that could benefit the vast majority of union-covered state workers:

"Realistically, those four lawsuits didn't have the potential to do something for everyone. We lost the majority of our cases. Even when your cause is righteous, going to court is a crap shoot."

PHOTO CREDIT: Yvonne Walker speaks at a news conference responding to Gov. Schwarznegger's furlough plan for state workers, Friday Dec. 19, 2008. Sacramento Bee / Brian Baer

The Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation has spent more than a quarter-million dollars on outside attorneys to fight the long-running union paid leave battle with the California Correctional Peace Officers Association, spokeswoman Lynelle Jolley said in an email to The State Worker.

As we mentioned last week in our Thursday column the tab for contract lawyers -- $277,393 to be precise -- was spent with no clear end in sight. That was one of several reasons that DPA decided to cut a $3.5 million deal with the union rather than allow the matter to drag on in court, probably for years.

We've contacted CCPOA spokesman JeVaughn Baker and asked how much the union paid for representation in the UPL tussle. We'll update this post with CCPOA's response.

The settlement is for about $1 million less than the state claimed the union owed, and about $500,000 more than CCPOA said it owed.

Below you'll find the agreement signed last Wednesday by the California Correctional Peace Officers Association. (If your browser doesn't support Scribd, click here to see the document.)

Watch for a blog poll later today to gauge your opinion about the UPL agreement.
CCPOA UPL Settlement Agreement

Correction, 1:04 p.m.: An earlier version of this post incorrectly stated that the Department of Personnel Administration had paid for UPL attorney fees. DPA led the litigation for the state, but did not pay outside attorneys with its money.

The percentage of employed Californians with a union affiliation fell slightly last year, according to new 2011 figures released by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Our Capitol Bureau colleague Dan Walters sums up the state and national data on our sister blog, Capitol Alert.

Click here for the Union affiliation of employed wage and salary workers by occupation and industry table, then scroll to the bottom to see the national public and private sector details.

This link will open the state-by-state look at the organized workforce vs. unorganized workforce.

The federal survey doesn't break down state union membership by private and public sectors.

With just 400 to 450 words for our weekly State Worker column, some of what we learn each week never sees print. Column Extras give you the notes, the quotes and the observations that inform what's published.

Before we filed today's column, we asked JeVaughn Baker, spokesman for the California Correctional Peace Officers Association, to comment on the union's paid leave agreement with the state. We asked if the agreement was fair to members and whether the deal was prompted by CCPOA's pending Dawe litigation.

We received Baker's emailed reply shortly after we filed the column on Wednesday, but we still want to give voice to the union's perspective.

Here's Baker's email:

Hi Jon,

We reached what we believe is an equitable settlement that avoids the cost of further litigation and is fiscally responsible to the taxpayers of the state. ... As for your second question, the settlement is a stand alone case and there is no correlation between it and the Dawe matter. Chuck Alexander and our legal staff have been working on UPL for some time now and we are pleased that the agreement has been made and both parties can move forward. Thanks Jon.

JB

We can never get everything we learn into a news story. "From the notebook" posts give you some of the extra details behind the news.

Our story in today's Bee examines various factors that have contributed to a management shortage at Cal Fire, particularly the dwindling number of assistant chiefs and the revival of department pay differentials this month intended to correct the problem.

To understand the last 10 years of wage history at Cal Fire, we looked at ...

The Legislative Analyst's June 2, 2006, evaluation of the contract with Bargaining Unit 8, California Department of Forestry Firefighters.

The Sept. 18, 2001, Assembly Floor analysis of AB 649, the bill that included the 2001 Unit 8 contract. (The LAO didn't run labor contract analyses until a 2005 law required them.)

We also looked at revised Pay Differential 369, below, which lays out the details of the recruiting and retention differential revived for Cal Fire assistant chiefs and others in the same Chief Officer series. Of note: The differentials count toward pension calculations, but the "PERSability" is phased in over two years.
Cal Fire Recruitment and Retention Differentials

State Compensation Insurance Fund has paid $30 million to 971 state employees who agreed to leave the agency by Dec. 31 and give up their preferential rights to other state government jobs.

The exit payments averaged nearly $31,000 per departing employee in addition to any leave time they cashed out. The money went to staff members in danger of layoff who accepted the so-called "transition package" under terms negotiated by the quasi-public agency and Service Employees International Union Local 1000. It was the first time that state workers whose jobs were in danger received extra money to leave.

The quasi-public State Fund, which competes with private-sector workers compensation insurance carriers and receives no tax dollars, has been downsizing for a couple of years in response to its shrinking market share. About 1,800 employees in 26 job classifications slated for elimination could have taken the deal at an estimated cost of up to $50 million to State Fund.

On a related note, State Fund spokeswoman Jennifer Vargen forwarded a revised layoff list (embedded below) that shows that 705 jobs are still on the chopping block after the voluntary departures have been figured in.

(The "auth." column shows how many jobs the fund has authorized to keep. The "final potential layoff" column shows how many jobs will be cut. Adding the two columns together indicates how many positions currently exist.)

The biggest cuts are planned for Los Angeles County (181 jobs), Alameda County (143) and Orange County (86). Sacramento County stands to lose 36 jobs and San Joaquin County is facing a loss of 28 positions.
120123 SCIF Layoffs by Class and County

The Association of Special Agents has filed for a temporary restraining order against Gov. Jerry Brown to stop the layoffs of its members at the Department of Justice.

The court filing, submitted Thursday in Sacramento Superior Court, is a new phase of the association's litigation against Brown. The group says that Brown targeted about 300 of its members for layoff in retaliation for their union's 2010 endorsement of Republican gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman.

The agents are a subset of the California Statewide Law Enforcement Association.

The Brown administration has denied the ASA charge, saying that legislative Republicans' refusal to extend higher taxes triggered the cuts to Department of Justice jobs.

Here's the 329-page filing by ASA President Mike Loyd:
120123 ASA TRO

State workers in six unions will see a pay increase on their February checks in keeping with contract terms bargained in 2010 with former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. Some managers and supervisors will also see similar pay bumps.

A state analysis of the negotiated pay hikes concluded that they will cost the general fund about $32.3 million and another $28.8 million from other funds for the last six months of the current fiscal year. For fiscal 2012-13 the total cost is an estimated $122.2 million. (Click here for the LAO's report and scroll down to page 16 for a breakdown.)

The state's higher payroll cost has been preceded by years of furloughs and contractual unpaid days off by state workers at all levels, as well as higher employee contributions toward their own retirement accounts.

The top-step increases started taking effect this month, so they will show up on Feb. 1 paychecks issued to employees in the following bargaining units who have been at the top step of their job classes for at least 12 months as of Jan. 1.

Putting "Stanford," "study" and "pensions" in a headline guarantees an online traffic surge. An April 2010 post, "Stanford study: Public pensions a half-trillion dollars short," ranked as the 15th most-viewed State Worker blog item among the 1,000 we posted that year.

This year's follow-up to that report by Stanford University professor Joe Nation ranked even higher -- and if the subsequent fallout from the report is an indication, rankled public-pension supporters even more.

Here's the Dec. 13 post on the latest Stanford study, "Stanford study pegs California pensions' shortfall at $500 billion."

This is the second installment in a series of posts counting down the most-read State Worker blog items and columns of 2011.

We started fielding a few calls, emails and Facebook messages in late September from state workers wondering if furloughs might return. The reason: A provision in SEIU Local 1000's contract requiring employees take 12 unpaid leave days over 12 months would expire at the end of October. So would a corresponding no-furlough guarantee.

The state workers who contacted us wanted to know: Would Gov. Jerry Brown and the Legislature bring back furloughs once the leave program ended?

This Oct. 25 post explained why that wouldn't happen: "More state workers to return to full hours and pay"

The Coalition of University Employees - Teamsters Local 2010 and the University of California have agreed to a new labor contract that trades raises for a new pension plan tier and higher employee contribution costs for current employees and future hires.

The deal covers more than 12,500 university clerical staff, marking the end of tough bargaining talks that started in 2008.

An Alameda Superior Court judge has pushed back a hearing to debate whether employees in five or six "special fund" departments were illegally furloughed.

Judge Frank Roesch originally scheduled Yvonne Walker and SEIU Local 1000 v. Schwarzenegger for hearing at the end of this month, with the first deadline for filing documents with the court set for Friday.

Click here for background on the case, which concerns employees at First 5 California, the Prison Industry Authority, the California Earthquake Authority, the California Housing Finance Agency and the Office of Administrative Hearings. Local 1000 is hoping to add the California State Lottery Commission to the list.

Local 1000 and the Department of Personnel Administration requested more time. Judge Patrick Zika granted it on Monday. The hearing is now scheduled for Feb. 16 The administration's brief in defense of the furlough policy is due Jan. 23. The union has until Feb. 2 to file its response.
Alameda furlough litigation continuance

We never get all of what we learn into a news story, but this blog can give users the data, the notes and the quotes from the notebook that informed what was published.

Want to dig more deeply into State Compensation Insurance Fund's agreement to pay up to $50 million in severance packages to exiting employees? Here you go:

• The agreement between State Fund and SEIU Local 1000

• The contract between State Fund and the "legally uninsured Departments of the State of California."

• The Nov. 9 SEIU Local 1000 "Union Update" flyer that explains how some employees at State Fund moved to avoid a layoff and then found out their jobs were in jeopardy anyway.

• Our Oct. 9 story about State Fund layoffs.

As we reported earlier today, State Compensation Insurance Fund employees targeted for lay off can receive what amounts to severance pay if they volunteer to leave by Dec. 31.

Here's the 'transition package' State Fund negotiated with SEIU Local 1000:

SEIU Local 1000 is planning an "Occupy Highway 99" event later today to show support for the broader Occupy movement that has swept the nation.

The local, which represents 95,000 state employees, wants members to meet at the Highway 99 pedestrian overpass just north of 12th Avenue from 4 p.m. to 7 p.m. today.

On Saturday the union is staging a "Put America Back to Work" rally at Cesar Chavez Park in Downtown Sacramento from noon to 1:30 p.m.

Click here for more details about both events.

Local 1000's announcements underscore how organized labor is now embracing the "Occupy Wall Street" movement by lining up with protesters who are dissatisfied with the economy, high unemployment and the widening gap between the wealthiest 1 percent of Americans and everyone else.

And with California's public employees taking fire for everything from their members' pay and pensions to their relative job security and civil service protections, labor has been trying to refocus the public debate about what government workers have to a discussion about what just about everyone in the private sector doesn't.

PHOTO: Traffic on Highway 99 in Sacramento on July 5, 2011. A.Tambunan / Sacramento Bee

Steve Maviglio, spokesman for Californians for Retirement Security, read this morning's report about tweaks to two pension reform ballot proposals and emailed a comment on behalf of the labor coalition:

"They can shop this measure to lawyers on the East Coast and try to get their funding from an Enron billionaire from Texas," Maviglio said in the email to The State Worker, "but at the end of the day, as the LAO has said, trying to slash the retirement benefits of California's public workers is unconstitutional, period."

What the Legislative Analyst's Office said was this:

An attorney with SEIU Local 1000 says the union will continue to press litigation against "special fund" furloughs, even though the courts have slimmed down the case to covering employees in just a handful of state departments.

Local 1000 had identified 63 "special fund" departments that it said shouldn't have been included in the Legislature's furlough authorization. The union won that argument in Alameda Superior Court, but San Francisco's 1st District Court of Appeal in July overturned that ruling. It made exceptions for five departments that it said deserved further argument in the lower court. (For more background, click here.)

SEIU appealed to theCalifornia Supreme Court, which refused take up the matter.

The union said it would keep fighting for its members in those five departments -- First 5 California, the Prison Industry Authority, the California Earthquake Authority, the California Housing Finance Agency and the Office of Administrative Hearings -- even though the remanded case now covers relatively few of its 95,000 employees.

The State Worker caught up with SEIU Local 1000 attorney Felix De La Torre to ask about the status of the case. Is the union still planning to continue the fight? If so, what's the hold up? Here's part of an email De La Torre fowarded to us last week, which is his response to an SEIU member who asked the same question:

The Department of Personnel Administration earlier this week posted the contract addenda on realignment for the last three unions to sign agreements. The arrangements are intended to streamline the transfer process for Corrections and Rehabilitation employees and cut the department's cost as it downsizes.

Click the links below to download the documents:

Bargaining Unit 2 - California Attorneys, Administrative Law Judges and Hearing Officers in State Employment

Bargaining Unit 9 - Professional Engineers in California Government

Bargaining Unit 10 - California Association of Professional Scientists

It seems like everybody is talking about public pensions.

Gov. Jerry Brown has a 12-point plan he wants to put before voters next year. Republicans applaud the governor for offering up the proposals and have challenged him to call a special session to address the issue. Democrats are wary of Brown's plan.

Meanwhile, California Pension Reform has filed two pension proposals with the attorney general for title and summary, aiming to put one of them on the November 2012 ballot. Labor insists that any pension downgrades should be negotiated, not just legislated.

So what do you think?

California Pension Reform's Mike Genest has issued this statement about the LAO's review of Gov. Jerry Brown's pension proposals:

It is disappointing that the LAO omits the most critical flaw of the Governor's proposal: By his own admission his plan only solves $4-$11 billion of what is at least a $240 billion unfunded liability. While the Governor's plan has merits, it solves less than 5% of our problem. We need bold, comprehensive reform now and cannot continue to wait as politicians debate the issue and tinker around the edges.

California Pension Reform recently filed two ballot proposals with the attorney general's office for official title and summary. It hopes to start gathering signatures in January in hopes of qualifying one of the two measures for the November 2012 ballot.

Californians for Retirement Security, a labor coalition representing 1.5 million state and local public employees, has issued a statement in response to this morning's LAO review of Gov. Jerry Brown's pension reform package.

Here's the statement emailed to media a few minutes ago quoting Dave Low, the coalition's chairman:

The LAO's mixed assessment of the Governor's pension proposals hits the nail on the head when it says that the Legislature should move forward in a deliberate and reasoned fashion to craft solutions to California's complex pension systems. There are far too many unanswered questions and lack of details to fairly and accurately evaluate the impact of these proposals. Those proposals that impair the negotiated benefits of current employees are a legal dead end. As the report points out, these are matters that should be settled at the bargaining table, not in courtrooms. We will continue to work in the upcoming Legislative session, just as we have for the past several years, to achieve the spirit of the Governor's reforms without taking a wrecking ball to the retirement security of California's teachers, firefighters, police officers, and other public workers.

PHOTO: Dave Low / Courtesy California School Employees Association

The Legislative Analyst's Office has published its review of Gov. Jerry Brown's pension plan, concluding that it is "a bold, excellent starting point" for changing public pensions, but that it also "leaves many questions unanswered."

In particular, we do not understand key details of how his hybrid benefit and retirement age proposals would work. Moreover, the Governor's plan leaves unaddressed many important pension and retiree health issues, including how to address the huge funding problems facing the state's teachers' retirement fund, the University of California's (UC's) significant pension funding problem, retiree health benefit liabilities, and other issues. In making significant changes to pension and retiree health benefits, we would urge the Legislature also to tackle these very difficult issues concerning the funding of benefits.

The report also cautions that Brown's plan to mandate current employees pay more toward their retirement accounts is a "legal and collective bargaining minefield." Ditto for suggestions by The Little Hoover Commission and others (not Brown) that current employees' accrued benefits could be frozen and then reduced going forward:

California Attorneys, Administrative Law Judges and Hearing Officers in State Employment has announced the results of its Board of Directors election. The officers are elected to two-year terms:

Officers
President -- Peter Flores, Jr.
Vice President -- Donna David
Secretary -- Timothy Weiner
Treasurer -- Rama Maline

Directors at Large
Regina Brown
Howard Goodman
Mark Henderson
Matthew Mulford

The union said Friday on its website that 731 ballots were cast. Here's the breakdown of the votes for all candidates:

Watch Modesto for an indication of the public's mood about public pension "reform." Residents of the Central Valley city on Tuesday consider three ballot measures that sound a lot like retirement changes proposed by Gov. Jerry Brown and others rolled out last week by the California Pension Reform group.

Measures Q, R and S, written by city councilman and mayoral candidate Brad Hawn, are non-binding advisory measures, but they would gauge the direction that that residents in the Stanislaus County seat think their officials should take labor negotiations.

Measure Q asks whether the city should transition from traditional defined benefit pensions for employees to defined contribution plans common in the private sector. Measure R asks whether the city should jettison the single-year salary factor for pension calculations in favor of a three-year salary average. Measure S asks voters to weigh in on increasing the minimum retirement age, which for most city employees is 55. Police officers and firefighters can start drawing pensions at age 50.

Click here for the measures' ballot language. Click here for the Stanislaus County sample ballot. Analyses and statements for and against Q, R and S start on PDF page 36.

Labor has launched local ads against the measures, including the one above that criticizes pushing back the retirement age for police.

Hat tip to Blog User S for alerting us to the union ad.

Two lists at the center of a plan to reshuffle staffing within the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitationwere temporarily removed from the agency's website because of errors.

The department's job reduction list, which details positions slated to be axed, and its job vacancy list, which lays out positions that need to be filled, registered some of the same jobs. Following an inquiry on Monday from The State Worker about why the lists were removed, the department posted the lists again with a notice: "LINK TO OVERS AND UNDERS LISTS: (LISTS ARE IN THE PROCESS OF BEING UPDATED. WE ARE SORRY FOR THIS TEMPORARY INCONVENIENCE)."

Department spokesman Paul Verke confirmed the snafu in a voice mail to The State Worker, and we expect to speak with him soon about the particulars of the problem and when the lists will be updated.

Corrections published the lists as tools employees could use when considering whether to voluntarily transfer from facilities with too many staff to facilities with too few. The information has been on the department's continually-updated Layoff Resources website.

SEIU Local 1000, which represents several thousand CDCR workers from cooks to teachers to computer programmers and others, called the duplications to the attention of department officials last week, said union spokesman Jim Zamora.

CDCR confirmed the duplications and notified Local 1000 on Thursday that the department would postpone the Voluntary Transfer Process while it straightened out the problem. Local 1000 said in a memo to members. "CDCR is currently working on this issue and will notify Local 1000 when they are ready to meet."

SEIU Local 1000 says that it has trained 30 staff and member leaders who will conduct meetings with Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation employees about the agency's voluntary transfer process as it goes through realignment.

The voluntary transfer program is complicated and still has a few kinks to work out. Last week, for example, a snafu involving the department's lists of jobs slated for elimination and open positions surfaced. (When the lists are fixed, CDCR will post them on its Layoff Resources webpage.)

Since the start of realignment, officials have expected some problems. After all, we're talking about changing a far-flung department with more employees than the City of Rancho Cordova has residents.

Which is why SEIU has trained the task force to get its affected members up to speed and armed them with this summary of the realignment process and its impact on members' jobs:

Details of Gov. Jerry Brown's pension change plan are leaking out tonight.

Two of the most significant components: A mandatory hybrid pension system and aligning the retirement age to receive full benefits with Social Security, currently 67 for most employees. Both of those provisions would apply only to new hires.

Click here for the breaking news story by David Siders and look for more details in Friday's Sacramento Bee.

More than half the state workforce will return to full hours and pay starting next week.

The so-called "Personal Leave Program" ends Nov. 1 for the 95,000 employees covered by SEIU Local 1000 and another 30,000 excluded workers such as managers and supervisors.

The state sent paychecks to about 230,000 employees last month, according to the latest figures from the controller's office.

A little over one year ago, Local 1000 agreed to a contract that included one day of PLP per month for 12 months That agreement, which went into effect Nov. 1, 2010, also gave members a no-furlough guarantee during the PLP period.

Excluded managers and supervisors received similar terms via a memo issued by the Department of Personnel Administration.

Several blog users have asked if the end of PLP means that furloughs might return. Technically, it's possible, but we think it's extremely unlikely.

Family members of slain hospital employee Donna Gross, state lawmakers and state workers will gather at various locations around California on Sunday to highlight concerns for patient and employee safety at state mental health facilities.

The Safety Now! Coalition is organizing the events at seven state facilities to observe the anniversary of her death at Napa State Hospital. The 54-year-old psychiatric technician from Concord had worked at the hospital for 14 years when she was killed last year by patient Jess Willard Massey.

We never get all of what we learn into a news story, but this blog can give users the data, the notes and the quotes from the notebook that informed what was published.

The new contract amendments discussed in our story in today's Bee share many details, but they're very different in the incentive payments they offer when employees transfer.

As of this writing on Tuesday, California Attorneys, Administrative Law Judges and Hearing Officers in State Employment (Unit 2), Professional Engineers in California Government (9) and California Association of Professional Scientists (10) hadn't signed any contract amendments.

The California Association of Highway Patrolmen (Unit 5), the California Statewide Law Enforcement Association (7) and the California Department of Forestry Firefighters (8) don't have members who work for Corrections, so they weren't approached to amend their contracts.

Here are the incentive pay differences as spelled out in the various agreements signed with SEIU Local 1000 (Bargaining Units 1, 3, 4, 11, 14, 15, 17, 20 and 21), California Correctional Peace Officers Association (Unit 6), International Union of Operating Engineers (12 and 13), Union of American Physicians & Dentists (16), California Association of Psychiatric Technicians (18) and American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (19).

SEIU Local 1000
Voluntary transfers to High Desert State Prison, California Correctional Center, Pelican Bay State Prison, or Salinas Valley State Prison: $5,000
Voluntary transfer to other institutions: $3,750
Involuntary transfer: $1,980

CCPOA--first layoff wave only
Transfers to High Desert State Prison or Pelican Bay State Prison: $7,500, drops to $3,750 after deadline set by CDCR
Transfers to Salinas Valley State Prison: $5625, drops to $3750 after deadline set by CDCR
California Medical Facility or California State Prison-Sacramento: $3,750, drops to $2,550 after deadline set by CDCR

CCPOA--second and subsequent layoff waves
Transfers to High Desert, Pelican Bay, or Salinas Valley: $3,750
Other institutions: $2,550

AFSCME, UAPD, CAPT, IUOE:
$3,750 for voluntary transfer
$1,980 for involuntary transfer

A new report from the University of California, Berkeley's Center for Labor Research and Education and Center for Wage and Employment Dynamics finds that state budget woes around the country have come from imploding housing markets and the Great Recession -- not public employee costs.

The report takes a look at the relationship between public sector workers, their unions, and state budget deficits.

"The Wrong Target: Public Sector Unions and State Budget Deficits" by researchers Sylvia Allegretto, Ken Jacobs and Laurel Lucia concludes that:

Yvonne Walker, president of SEIU Local 1000, said in a telephone interview this morning that the union will continue to push for easier access to government outsourcing costs, despite Gov. Jerry Brown's veto of a labor-backed measure aimed at making those expenses more transparent.

Walker said she was disappointed that Brown vetoed Assembly Bill 172, which would have forced the state agencies and departments to post contracts of $5,000 or more on the Reporting Transparency in Government website.

While labor had a big stake in the measure because it would have put a spotlight on what the state pays for outside services, Walker said that the bill "isn't just about the workers we represent, it's about how the public's dollars are being spent. We're going to be a watchdog on this."

This just in from Torey Van Oot on our sister blog, Capitol Alert:

Proponents of an initiative to prohibit unions from automatically deducting dues from members' paychecks for political purposes without permission say they've collected more than 900,000 voter signatures in hopes of placing the measure on next year's ballot.

The so-called "pay-check protection" measure would also limit contributions to candidate-controlled committees by corporations, labor unions and contractors that receive government contracts.

Click here for more details.

PHOTO: A man solicits petition signatures on K Street in Sacramento. (Sacramento Bee 2007 file photo / Brian Baer).

With just 400 to 450 words for our weekly State Worker column, some of what we learn each week never sees print. Column Extras give you the notes, the quotes and the observations that inform what's published.

Our column in today's fiber/cyber Bee cites several statistics about union coverage of U.S. employees and public opinion polling about organized labor.

Click here for more information about the 75-year-old Gallup polling (pictured in the graph above) of responses to the question, "Do you approve or disapprove of labor unions?"

We've also put together this spreadsheet on public employee and private employee union membership and coverage using data compiled by Barry Hirsch and David Macpherson on unionstats.com.

Specific details have surfaced about the research that went into a now-tabled proposal to increase the pay of SEIU Local 1000 officers.

According to a 13-page rough draft of a PowerPoint presentation that was going to be given at the local's Sept. 16-19 council meeting in Oakland, the researchers looked at wages paid for comparable positions and checked IRS rules before proposing to pay Local 1000's president $150,000 per year and $125,000 per year to each of its three vice presidents.

(Our first report on the proposal referenced the research and legal vetting the plan received, but the PowerPoint goes into great detail.)

The plan riled up rank-and-file members once it became widely known, however, and Local 1000 President Yvonne Walker asked to have it pulled from the Oakland agenda. The presentation, acquired by The State Worker and confirmed as authentic by the union, was never brought to the council.
SEIU Local 1000 Officers' Pay Proposal PPt

The Rhode Island Retirement Security Coalition, a labor organization fighting for public employee retirement benefits, has posted a video that explains the unions' side in that state's pension debate. The arguments in the 10-minute piece are similar to those made by public employee unions in California and elsewhere.

Hat tip to Blog User D for calling this video to our attention.

SEIU Local 1000 President Yvonne Walker this morning pulled back a proposal that would have tripled her income and significantly boosted the pay for the local's three vice presidents.

Walker said this morning at the local's 64-member council meeting in Oakland that she had asked the author of the controversial pay proposal to pull it from the council's weekend agenda.

According to union spokesman Jim Zamora and members present at the meeting, the room of about 230 union officers and rank-and-file members--some attending specifically to talk about the pay plan--burst into applause at the announcement.

The plan would have set the total annual pay for the local's president at $150,000 and $125,000 for its three vice presidents by adding a union stipend to the state wages that the union reimburses the government. Walker stood to receive $103,000 above her state wage of $47,000 as a Department of Justice legal secretary.

Proponents of the plan said that the jobs' responsibilities and the size of the 95,000-member organization justified the increases. Opponents blasted the proposal as a tone-deaf, self-serving perk that is out of step with the union's leadership values.

Walker also said this morning that the local would continue to study the issue.

The California Association of Professional Scientists will recognize three finalists and announce the winner of its Outstanding Young Scientist Award at a luncheon Thursday in Sacramento.

From the Sacramento area, Mira Loma High School student Ashish Nag, 17, is competing with a project that looks at a process that increases the growth of stem cells that can replace damaged heart cells.

La Jolla High School senior Meredith Lehmann, 15, reached the contest's final round with a study that examines how disease epidemics spread via transportation networks.

Apoorva Dharmadhikari, a 17-year-old student at Evergreen Valley High School in San Jose, was picked for the contest's final round with a project that looks at ways to induce sterility in harmful pests.

The CAPS awards luncheon runs Thursday from 11:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. at the Sacramento Zoo's Kampala Center. The winner will receive a $1,000 cash award with other two finalists receiving $500 each.

IMAGE: CAPS logo / courtesy California Association of Professional Scientists

A letter criticizing an SEIU Local 1000 proposal to increase executive pay is making the rounds among rank-and-file members, just days before union officials will convene in Oakland and consider the idea.

The letter, written by Paul Smilanick, former president and current vice president and chief steward of SEIU Local 1000 District Labor Council 768 in Sacramento and former Local 1000 Vice President and Secretary-Treasurer Cathy Hackett to Local 1000's council members, says that adding stipends to the state pay that the union's president and three vice presidents receive "is just plain wrong."

The council will consider whether to adopt the pay plan during a four-day meeting in Oakland that starts Friday. The proposal would set the president's pay at $150,000 per year and the three vice presidents' yearly pay at $125,000. The union would add a stipend to each officer's state pay to get them up to the new compensation level.

Currently, those officers receive their government pay and benefits while working full time on union business. Local 1000 then reimburses the state.

Proponents say that's not nearly enough, given the 95,000-member union's size, budget and the long work hours put in by those four elected officials.

More than a dozen people forwarded the e-mail to The State Worker. We contacted Smilanick and Hackett to verify their authorship. Both gave permission to post their joint e-mail here, unedited:

We've been fielding a steady stream of e-mails and phone calls since reporting last week on a proposal to add a union stipend to the union paid leave that SEIU Local 1000's president and three vice presidents receive.

The plan would set the president's combined state pay and the new union stipend at $150,000 per year. Vice presidents would receive their pay and enough stipend money to earn $125,000 annually. The proposal's author, Marie Harder, has said that the extra union payment wouldn't affect the four officers' state retirement, nor would it qualify them for SEIU's employee retirement plan.

We've heard enough reaction that it seems like a poll is in order:

Editor's note, Sept. 9, 11:59 a.m.: This post has been corrected from an earlier version that listed the incorrect dates for the Local 1000 council meeting in Oakland.

SEIU Local 1000 President Yvonne Walker would receive three times her current wages under a new executive pay proposal that the union's statewide council will consider at its Sept. 16-19 meeting in Oakland.

The plan calls for members serving in Local 1000's top job to earn a total compensation package of $150,000 per year. In Walker's case, the union would tack on $103,000 to the $47,000 gross pay she receives as a legal secretary with the Department of Justice.
Because Walker is on full-time union paid leave, SEIU already reimburses the state for her salary plus 35 percent to cover her benefits. So in reality, the entire $150,000 would come from union resources.

A measure that would require state agencies and departments to terminate illegal private contracts is on its way to Gov. Jerry Brown's desk.

Assembly Bill 740, authored by Assemblyman Bob Blumenfield, D-Woodland Hills, cleared the Senate last Thursday on a 24-14 vote. The Assembly voted 54-17 in May to approve it.

SEIU Local 1000, the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees and Professional Engineers in California Government, supported the bill, which aims to strengthen laws against needless private contracting.

Ken Hamidi hasn't given up his quest to decertify the Service Employees International Union Local 1000, but the union says his efforts are not gaining much traction.

Hamidi, an employee at the Franchise Tax Board who made national headlines while working for Intel, has attempted each of the past few years to get other state workers represented by Local 1000 to challenge the union's annual financial audit.

The numbers show how much money the union spends on direct representation such as collective bargaining compared to what's considered under state and federal law to be non-germane to direct representation, including donations to election campaigns.

In 2010, 32 percent of the union's spending was designated as non-germane. Included in that category was $5.4 million for political activity and $12.9 million for meetings and activities with affiliated groups.

Hamidi and other formal "challengers" argue that the union's audit, done by an independent firm, is incorrect and that the percentage of non-germane spending is actually higher. A union spokesman and its attorney counter that Hamidi's claim has no merit and that he is just trying to find ways to bankrupt the union so he can replace Local 1000 with his own group, California Professional Public Employees Association.

A group looking to abolish collective bargaining rights for all of California's public sector employees filed three proposed ballot initiatives this week that would hit the pocketbooks of state and local government workers.

Whether California Center for Public Policy, led by UC Santa Barbara economics lecturer Lanny Ebenstein (right), can raise enough money to put the proposals before voters is unclear.

The center released a report last year concluding that voters need a chance to resolve California's persistent fiscal problems by cutting government workers' compensation rather than raising taxes and eliminating services.

"Government does not exist to provide compensation and pensions for government workers," Ebenstein said in a news release. "Government exists to provide good public services at a reasonable cost."

He said he filed the three initiatives Tuesday with the state attorney general's office.

We never get all of what we learn into a news story, but this blog can give users the data, the notes and the quotes from the notebook that informed what was published.

Our story in today's Bee touches on pension changes around the nation and at the state and local government level in California.

Here's a table that shows pension reworkings instituted or proposed in cities and counties around the Golden State as of July 4. CalPERS did the research.
California local government pension changes (as of July 4, 2011)

A coalition of state hospital workers' unions today is reviving its call for the state to address safety concerns at Department of Mental Health hospitals.

Four labor unions joined together to form the Safety Now! Coalition after the death of hospital psychiatric technician Donna Gross in October. They staged a protest in March outside the Napa facility where Gross died. This morning, the group is scheduled to protest outside Metropolitan State Hospital in Norwalk, saying that safety measures need to be put in place to protect workers and patients at all five state hospitals.

"DMH has done little to improve safety in its Napa facility," the group said in a press release. "But DMH has done even less to improve safety in its four other mental hospitals, despite the fact that several, including Metropolitan State Hospital, share Napa's high rate of violent assaults."

The latest protest comes after a Metropolitan nurse was assaulted by a patient last week and had to be transported to a nearby hospital, according to the group.

Several measures intended to put more safety precautions in place (Assembly Bill 366, Assembly Bill 1114, Senate Bill 60 and Senate Bill 796) are still pending. The coalition also wants to see increased staffing levels at the facilities, including more hospital police officers.

The coalition includes the American Federation of State County & Municipal Employees (AFSCME Local 2620), Service Employees International Union (SEIU 1000), the California Association of Psychiatric Technicians (CAPT) and the Union of America Physicians & Dentists (UAPD).

The California Division of Occupational Safety fined Napa State Hospital more than $100,000 for lax safety measures in the wake of Gross' death. The hospital is appealing the fine. Metropolitan State Hospital is appealing a similar fine of nearly $10,000. The citation said 42 hospital workers suffered assaults in the first three months of this year -- a rate of about one assault every other day.

IMAGE CREDIT: Courtesy of Safety Now!

We mentioned in a post on Tuesday that today is the last day for most state employees to burn their 2010-11 Professional Development Days, although department mandates and some union contracts have caveats to that rule.

Here's a May 25 memo that outlines how CDCR is handling the policy for managers and rank and file. (Hat tip to Blog User J for passing it along.)
Requesting and Approving Professional Development Days

State workers, the clock is ticking for you to use or lose your Professional Development Days for the current fiscal year.

But since almost nothing is simple when it comes to California state government and human resources, there are some caveats. More about that in a moment.

Contracts negotiated first with former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's administration and then with Gov. Jerry Brown allow two PDDs per fiscal year that must be used or lost. Simply put, If you're a state employee who hasn't taken your 16 hours of PDD leave by the end of Thursday -- with management approval -- the time vanishes. PDD can't be banked or cashed out.

Now for the fine print:

From the Associated Press:

LOS ANGELES -- A California union for registered nurses says its membership has approved a contract with five University of California medical centers.

California Nurses Association spokesman Chuck Idelson said Friday more than 11,000 nurses will get an average of an 11 percent pay increase over the next 26 months.

Nurses voted all week at the UC's Los Angeles, San Francisco, San Diego, Irvine and Davis campuses.

Idelson says the contract will also provide for break protections and limit health care cost increases.

The University of California did not provide comment on the passage of the contract.

Senate Bill 151 may be on the Assembly floor for a vote this afternoon.

As of this writing, it's not clear whether the Republicans in the lower house are ready to give up the two votes required to get the two-thirds approval needed to pass the bill, which implements the labor contracts for six bargaining units, including the California Correctional Peace Officers Association.

Bee Capitol Bureau colleague Jim Sanders is on the Assembly floor and will have news if the measure comes to a vote. If it doesn't, it's a sign that Republicans and Democrats are still dickering for those key votes. The Senate passed the measure two weeks ago.

After talking with various union and government sources, The State Worker expects the deal will pass and then go to Gov. Jerry Brown for his signature.

The California Correctional Peace Officers Association said today that its members have approved the union's tentative agreement with Gov. Jerry Brown by a wide margin.

CCPOA spokesman JeVaughn Baker told The State Worker that 11,651 of the ballots cast, 85.6 percent, favored the contract. Another 1,960 opposed the deal, or 14.4 percent.

The union represents roughly 32,000 correctional and parole officers who have been working without a contract since 2006. In 2007, then-Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger imposed terms on the union after mediated talks broke down.

The CCPOA contract is one of six pacts contained in Senate Bill 151, which will go up for an Assembly floor vote next week. If it garners two-thirds of the lower chamber's vote, the legislation will go to Brown and become binding with his signature. The Senate has already approved the bill.

We're looking for the California Correctional Peace Officers Association to announce today how its members voted on the tentative agreement reached with Gov. Jerry Brown's administration.

We hear the deal has garnered big-time support with the rank and file. The PacoVilla.com Corrections blog posted an internal CCPOA e-mail that indicated early tallies showed union members will overwhelmingly approve the contract. JeVaughn Baker, spokesman for the union, told The State Worker that he expects the vote count to be certified today.

CCPOA's contract is one of six bargaining unit agreements contained in SB 151, which is headed for an Assembly floor vote next week. Both administration and union sources tell us that they think they have the two Republican votes needed to get the measure sent to Brown for signature into law. The Senate passed the measure last week.

But the budget proposal by the Assembly Republican Caucus makes the vote a little dicier, one source said, because the plan calls for $1.1 billion in employee cost cuts next year.

And Brown will release a revised budget plan for 2011-12 next week, and that proposal will have to account for the difference between the $308 million in general fund employee cost savings his January budget envisioned and the roughly $100 million actually achieved in SB 151.

IMAGE: www.freeclipart.com

A few blog users have e-mailed that they are worried that Senate Bill 151, which adopts six state worker labor contracts, will get hung up in the Assembly. "After all," as one person wrote, "the Assembly Republicans killed SEIU's deal two years ago."

SB 151 will probably come up for an Assembly floor vote in a couple weeks, we've been told. The measure adopts contracts for six unions. It cleared the Senate last Monday, but it now needs at least two GOP supporters in the Assembly, assuming all the Democrats vote for the bill.

The state's political and fiscal circumstances were different two years ago. California's budget hole was bigger and was getting deeper as revenues fell. The 2011-12 budget remains $15.4 billion underwater, but state revenues appear to be improving a tad.

Then-Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger had won a court fight that allowed him to furlough state workers. It was authority that he was willing to use. He walked away from the deal. (The state Supreme Court later found that furlough authority resides with the Legislature, but that it had implicitly deputized Schwarzenegger to enact the policy.) Gov. Jerry Brown doesn't like furloughs, so there's no executive cover for Republicans to reject the contracts.

And these deals are much like the SEIU deal reached last October and passed by both chambers, including pension roll backs for new hires and higher employee pension contributions. That was absent from the 2009 agreement that Republicans blocked.

The one thing that might unhinge the bill is Brown's budget revision, due next Monday. It will have to make cuts from other areas to make up for a $200 million general fund savings shortfall from the contracts. It's a relatively small amount of money in the overall budget scheme, but it's also could be enough to stir opposition.

Still, we expect the measure to pass after much posturing on both sides of the aisle, even though the contracts fall far short of the savings target in Brown's original budget plan and in budget legislation passed later by lawmakers.

What say you?

Look for Senate Bill 151, which adopts six union labor agreements, to take a least a couple weeks to get to an Assembly floor vote.

Labor leaders tell us that the measure has to go through three committees before the 80-member lower chamber takes up the measure, starting today in the Assembly Committee on Public Employees, Retirement and Social Security.

Every Democrat plus at least two Republicans must vote for the bill to send it on to Gov. Jerry Brown for his signature.

The bill covers memoranda of understanding with CASE (state lawyers), CCPOA (prison and parole officers), CSLEA (law enforcement and business inspection), PECG (engineers), CAPS (scientists) and IUOE Bargaining Unit 13 (stationary engineers).

The measure needs support from all the Assembly's Democrats and at least two Republicans to reach the two-thirds approval required to send the bill to Gov. Jerry Brown for signature.

During a meeting with The Bee's editorial board last Wednesday -- The State Worker was invited to sit in -- CCPOA President Mike Jimenez stopped short of saying that the bill would go through more smoothly than when the Senate took it up last week, "but the math is better," because there are 27 GOP members in the Assembly as opposed to just 15 Republican state senators.

The rate at which state workers drew their first pension checks in the first four months of this year slowed dramatically compared with the same period in 2010, according to CalPERS most recent data.

Some 4,271 state employees put in their retirement applications between Dec. 15 of last year and April 15 of this year (which CalPERS considers the January through April period), up just 3.6 percent from a year earlier. By contrast, the retirement rate for those same four months jumped 26.5 percent from 2009 to 2010.

Last year was perhaps the most tumultuous period for California's state work force since union organization was established during Gov. Jerry Brown's first administration more than 30 years ago. Furloughs, minimum wage threats, contentious labor negotiations, layoff warnings and epic court and public relations fights with Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger damaged morale and no doubt prodded many state workers to retire who might have stayed under less contentious circumstances.

The number of state workers who retired in March fell slightly compared to the same month in 2010, while April saw a slight year-over-year increase of first-time pensioners.

The overall upward retirement trend will continue as more and more baby boomers in the state work force grow old enough to retire. But the data also suggest that state workers aren't going to continue an all-out stampede for the exits, a likely bi-product of the relative labor peace under the new Brown administration and the weak prospect for post-retirement jobs in the private sector.

Here we go.

Senate Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg plans for an upper house vote Monday on SB 151, the bill that adopts labor pacts for six unions including CCPOA and PECG.

Talks with Republicans haven't produced a firm commitment to deliver the two GOP votes needed to reach the two-thirds needed to approve the measure and send it to the Assembly, Steinberg said on Thursday. A floor vote will be a gut check for Republicans who must weigh upsetting the correctional officers' union or the GOP's fiscally conservative base.

For the record, we think the deals will go through, but your humble blogger is a horrible prognosticator.

This just in from Bee Capitol Bureau colleague Torey Van Oot, who covers the California Senate:

Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg, D-Sacramento, announced on the Senate floor this morning that the upper house will vote Monday on Senate Bill 151 , the measure that would make binding the contract agreements reached with six state employee unions.

The scheduling decision came after Democrats and Republicans held separate, closed-door caucus meetings for more than an hour.

Steinberg downplayed chatter that Democrats could seek to pass the bill on a majority vote by making it a budget trailer bill, saying he expected that the contract measure would still require two-thirds legislative approval. He said the vote Monday was meant to accommodate "members that had a few questions and wanted to communicate over the weekend with their constituents."

"We had a good, substantive caucus, and a couple of members just wanted to clarify a few things, and if it means a difference between Thursday and Monday, I'm on the side that I give my members the time that they need," he said.

Steinberg said he has yet to receive assurance that enough Republicans will support the bill to hit the two-thirds threshold, but he is "ready to stand up on the floor and defend the MOUs."

PHOTO: Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg listens to questions during a recent committee hearing. Hector Amezcua / Sacramento Bee

With just 400 to 450 words for our Thursday State Worker column, much of what we learn in the ramp-up to writing it never sees print. Column Extras give you some of the notes, the quotes and the observations that don't make the cut.

Our column in today's fiber/cyber Bee discusses the fitness pay provisions in the contract that Gov. Jerry Brown recently negotiated with the California Correctional Peace Officers Association.

As part of our research, we looked at all the CCPOA contracts (and the terms imposed on the union in 2007) to see how the language had changed over the last 20 years. We thought that State Worker blog users might like to see the pertinent sections, so we've cobbled them together here from documents posted on the Department of Personnel Administration's website.

Click the images to enlarge them:

The Bee's Sunday editorial about the California Correctional Peace Officers Association contract has prompted Corrections Secretary Matt Cate to respond with a rebuttal to assertions the piece made about the deal.

Cate's letter, published on the department's "CDCR Star" web page, fires back at 10 points in the editorial.

Click here to read it.

Update, April 20, 5:15 a.m.: The Bee's editorial board has published a correction. Read it here.

PHOTO: CDCR Secretary Matt Cate / www.cdcr.ca.gov.

One of what we think is the most significant -- and least discussed -- parts of the new CCPOA contract is the elimination of what's called POFF II contributions by the state beginning this month. With the fund now frozen (no more money is going in, but the fund investments continue), a correctional officer called us to ask, "What can we do with that money?"

Under the terms of the Peace Officer and Fire Fighter II program, the state put an extra 2 percent of correctional officers' pay into a 401(k)-type account. As we reported last month, the union suggested terminating POFF II in exchange for an extra 1 percent addition to the 3 percent top-step raise that kicks in at the end of the contract on July 2, 2013. The administration took that offer and stopped contributing to the program as of April 1.

According to the contract, which still needs to get through the Legislature to make it to Gov. Jerry Brown's desk for his signature, "Any member with POFF II balances may withdraw them to the extent permitted by law."

In other words, consult your tax professional if you're thinking about pulling the money out. Or, of course, you can let the money stay where it is.

Here's the language on PDF page 178 of the 218-page Memorandum of Understanding:

The five-member Senate Committee on Public Employment and Retirement passed Senate Bill 151 on a 3-2 party-line vote this afternoon. The brief hearing was the first step toward legislatively adopting six state employee contracts negotiated last month with Gov. Jerry Brown's administration.

Chairwoman Sen. Gloria Negrete McLeod, D-Chino, supported the bill. Sen. Alex Padilla D-Los Angeles and Sen. Juan Vargas, D-San Diego joined her.

Republican Sen. Ted Gaines of Roseville and Sen. Mimi Walters, R-Laguna Niguel, opposed.

The meeting lacked any drama. Schduled for 2 p.m., the hearing started 90 minutes late, and then with only Negrete McLeod present. She listened as representatives of the unions made one- or two-sentence public declarations supporting the bills. No opponents stepped forward.

The other committee members eventually joined the meeting, cast their votes on the bill with no debate, heard a handful of bills, voted on them and then left to go back to the Senate floor.

Union representatives at the hearing said that they don't expect the bill to get to a floor vote before the Legislature goes on a week-long break next week. It needs two-thirds support in both the Senate and Assembly to pass. To reach that threshold, two Republicans in each chamber will have to vote for the bill.

Bargaining units covering state engineers and a broad swath of law enforcement officers have ratified their Memoranda of Understanding negotiated with Gov. Jerry Brown.

Members of Professional Engineers in California Government, Bargaining Unit 9, approved the contract with 93 percent casting "yes" ballots and 7 percent voting "no." The union represents about 13,000 employees. It didn't announce the ballot count.

PECG started counting votes on Friday after it received ballots from half its members, in keeping with the union's ratification rules.

The California Statewide Law Enforcement Association rank and file ratified with 86 percent support, or 1716 of the 2003 votes counted. CSLEA represents approximately 7,000 park rangers, game wardens, drug agents and business inspectors.

Both unions announced their results on Friday. Their contracts run toJuly 1, 2013.

Now the focus shifts to the Legislature, which must adopt labor pacts. The agreements with PECG, CAPS and four other state labor groups are rolled up in Senate Bill 151, The measure is scheduled for a committee hearing today at 2 p.m. It needs two-thirds passage from both the state Senate and the Assembly to go to Brown's desk for signature.

We expect to hear soon -- perhaps today -- about contract ratification votes for the California Statewide Law Enforcement Association and Professional Engineers in California Government.

If recent history is any guide, the deals for both units will win overwhelming approval.

We expect those deals and four others will prompt plenty of political rhetoric on Monday during the Senate Public Employment and Retirement Committee hearing.

IMAGE: www.freeclipart.com

Nine of 10 state scientists who cast ballots have voted to accept a tentative labor agreement between their union and Gov. Jerry Brown's administration, the California Association of Professional Scientists announced on Wednesday.

Of the 1038 valid ballots cast, 923 supported ratification and 115 voted against accepting the deal. The agreement will cover roughly 2,400 employees, assuming it gains the two-thirds vote in the state Senate and Assembly required for passage. The CAPS contract and similar contracts for five other unions are bundled together in Senate Bill 151.

"While the Governor's signature is virtually assured, state legislative approval isn't," CAPS told members in a Wednesday memo announcing the ballot results. "There is no known opposition to the bill. That could change in light of the highly charged political atmosphere in Sacramento."

You can read a summary of the CAPS deal or the entire document by clicking here.

The bill is schduled for its first committee hearing on Monday.
Senate Bill 151

Our Monday post about the new analysis of the tentative agreements for California's state scientists and engineers contained a paragraph about personal leave having cash value that needs some clarification:

The Department of Personnel Administration's savings estimates don't include a provision that it negotiated later with the California Correctional Peace Officers Association and then applied via a March 30 memo to the five units that reached deals with Brown. The provision gives cash value to personal leave program time.

The Legislative Analyst's Office came to that conclusion from a hand-written note in the Unit 6 tentative agreement signed by Department of Personnel Administration Director Ron Yank, pictured below: "DPA to issue PML giving PLP cash value. For you and any of the other five open b.u.'s with whom we reach a deal. You bet, Ron Yank."

The Legislative Analyst's Office has published its review of the tentative agreements reached with California Association of Professional Scientists and with Professional Engineers in California Government.

This review, like those before it, says that the administration has overstated the contract's cost savings for the current fiscal year and that the savings for 2011-12 are about 6 percent, short of the 8 percent to 10 percent in contract savings that Gov. Jerry Brown has said that he needs.

The Department of Personnel Administration's savings estimates don't include a provision that it negotiated later with the California Correctional Peace Officers Association and then applied via a March 30 memo to the five units that reached deals with Brown. The provision gives cash value to personal leave program time.

The analyst published its analysis of the contracts on Friday. That same day, DPA sent the CCPOA contract to the LAO for review. The analyst has 10 days to issue its review of the deal, although we expect it will finish earlier.

Here's the fiscal analysis of the contracts for units 9 and 10:

California's state attorneys union members have overwhelmingly ratified a new contract that runs through July 1, 2013. The deal now goes to the Legislature for a vote and, assuming at least two-thirds of lawmakers approve it, on to Gov. Jerry Brown's desk for a signature.

Officials with California Attorneys, Administrative Law Judges and Hearing Officers in State Employment said that 1,388, or 85 percent of the 1,631 ballots cast, supported the agreement.

The deal exchanges thrice-monthly furloughs for the union's members for a single unpaid day off each month for one year, starting today. It also increases what employees toward their pensions and introduces a top-step pay increase at the end of the contract matches the retirement contribution hike.

Only union rank and file who were full dues-paying members for least 45 days before today's tally could vote on the contract. CASE has been under the terms of an expired deal for nearly four years.

The union represents roughly 3,300 legal professionals, a little less than 2 percent of the state's roughly 200,000 unionized workers. Members of five other unions representing a combined 45,000 employees are voting on similar agreements reached with the Brown administration last month.

The contracts are part of the governor's plan to attack the state's budget deficit, now $15.4 billion for next year. The governor and lawmakers figured the 2011-12 budget would include union contract concessions equal to an 8 percent to 10 percent cut from previous contracts.

The nonpartisan Legislative Analyst's Office reviewed the CASE agreement and concluded that it saves the state about $3.5 million or about 3.5 percent. The analyst has reviewed three other recently negotiated contracts and figures that they also fall short of the state's savings goal.

California Attorneys, Administrative Law Judges and Hearing Officers in State Employment should be announcing today the results of its members' vote on the memorandum of understanding that the union recently negotiated with Gov. Jerry Brown.

When Brown took office, CASE was the first of the six unions without contracts to reach an agreement. The Legislative Analyst's Office has dinged the contract for failing to save enough money.

We'll report the results of the CASE vote on this blog as soon as we hear the outcome.

IMAGE: www.freeclipart.com

Contracts recently negotiated by Gov. Jerry Brown's administration don't come close to saving the state enough money, placing "greater pressure on the administration to achieve employee compensation savings through other administrative actions, such as hiring freezes, furlough programs, and layoffs," an internal state memo says.

The memo sent Wednesday from the Legislative Analyst's Office to the Senate Republican Budget Committee, embedded below, estimates that the contracts will produce only about one-third of the $308 million in general fund savings that Brown proposes in his budget.

Steve Maviglio, spokesman for the union coalition Californians for Health Care and Retirement Security, sent The State Worker an e-mail with this take: "This memo is another strong dose of pension reality. For all the alarmist political attacks on public employees, this shows that they are making significant concessions to get us through this economic crisis."

The LAO, which not long ago suggested that lawmakers impose pay cuts to save money, bases its MOU cost estimate on a review of the ratified or tentative memoranda of understanding reached with 19 of the state's 21 bargaining units. As of Wednesday, the LAO hadn't received the details of deals reached with the California Correctional Peace Officers Association or the International Union of Operating Engineers (Unit 13).

Will Republicans hold up a legislative vote on the tentative MOUs? It's happened before.
Legislative Analyst's Office memo regarding state labor contracts, Mar. 30, 2011

Angered by former Assemblyman Roger Niello's proposed ballot initiative to reduce pension benefits for California state and local civil servants, public employee unions are pushing back.

Californians for Health Care and Retirement Security, a broad-based labor coalition, is retaliating with a 10 a.m. Wednesday protest at Niello BMW on Fulton Avenue in Sacramento.

The group also is calling for a boycott of Niello family dealerships in the Sacramento area.

The Department of Personnel Administration has just posted the tentative memorandum of understanding with the California Correctional Peace Officers Association.

The PacoVilla.com Corrections blog posted a draft of the agreement earlier this week, but we're told by DPA spokeswoman Lynelle Jolley that the 208-page document released today is complete. One example: The DPA document includes a side letter about a field officer training program, whereas the earlier draft says the parties will meet within 90 days to hammer out a program.

The administration usually publishes a summary of labor agreements that include cost estimates. DPA hasn't done that with the Unit 6 contract because, we hear, the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation and the Department of Finance are still hammering out the final estimates. Those numbers should post soon.

Then the contract will go to the Legislative Analyst's Office for review. The LAO has 10 days to issue a report on what it believes the contract will cost or save the state.

Because polls often get pushed off the State Worker home page, we'll occasionally pull back the most popular items so that you can see the trends without hunting around on the site. It's also a chance for folks who missed the the opportunity to vote or comment the first time around to weigh in.

We originally posted these two questions on Wednesday.

For the first time in more than four years, all 21 state employee bargaining units that negotiate with California's governor have either signed agreements or have tentative deals that they're putting to a member ratification vote.

Details for some of the final six deals reached this month haven't been published, but from what you know so far, which union won the most? Which lost the most? And given that the contracts came at the price of several months of furloughs, was the sacrificed pay worth the result?

Take our poll and weigh in with your comments. (Hat tip to State Worker Facebook community member Amy Bauer Tome, whose suggestions inspired today's questions.)

The Legislative Analyst's Office says that tentative labor agreement recently reached by the California Statewide Law Enforcement Association gives new employees nearly eight weeks of time off in their first year, so many days off that they'd have trouble using them all.

The LAO's review, which you can read by clicking here, contains this table on page 15:

Worth noting: The 12 days off for the personal leave program are unpaid, equal to a 5 percent reduction of pay prior to furloughs.

The LAO also figures that the deal between the union and Gov. Jerry Brown's administration falls short of a budget the state's goal to saving 10 percent with new employee contracts:

The 2011-12 budget, as approved by the Conference Committee, assumes that the state will save 10 percent in employee compensation costs for the six bargaining units with expired contracts (Units 2, 6, 7, 9, 10, and 13). This proposed MOU would result in significantly lower savings (around 2.8 percent), falling short of the assumed savings target by $30 million ($8 million General Fund). The proposed Unit 2 MOU (currently pending before the Legislature) also would result in significantly lower savings. If both Unit 2 and Unit 7 MOUs were ratified, achieving the savings assumed in the 2011-12 budget through collective bargaining would require the remaining four bargaining units to agree to contracts with savings averaging 11.4 percent (all funds).

The agreement contains several features contained in other contracts, including unpaid leave days, protections from furloughs and minimum wage, two paid "personal development days" and more.

The LAO will soon review the four agreements reached with unions representing engineers, scientists, stationary engineers and correctional officers.

With just 400 to 450 words for our Thursday State Worker column, much of what we learn in the ramp-up to writing it never sees print. Column Extras give you some of the notes, the quotes and the observations that don't make the cut.

This report started with that conversation. CCPOA hasn't yet returned an e-mail seeking comment.

The state is ending contributions to a retirement fund for Bargaining Unit 6 employees, according to state officials, in exchange for a higher deferred pay raise and to maintain the current leave system for the 32,000 or so correctional and parole officers represented by the California Correctional Peace Officers Association.

Our earlier report, based on a letter to members by union Executive Vice President Chuck Alexander, said that the program, called POFF II (Peace Officer and Firefighter) would be temporarily suspended to help offset the state's cost to bring CCPOA members' health coverage even with the rest of the state work force. State payments into the fund -- an employer contribution equal to 2 percent of base salary -- were to resume in January 2014.

Employees have paid nothing into POFF II, which was established in fiscal 1998-99 as a capped supplement to union members' regular CalPERS pension. CCPOA was the only state union that negotiated the benefit for members. As of January 31, the plan had nearly 40,000 participants and $79 million in assets, according to CalPERS.

As we worked on the mountain of e-mail in our inbox this morning, we ran across several forwarded items carrying the subject line, "Additional Information," from the board of the California Attorneys, Administrative Law Judges and Hearing Officers in State Employment.

Apparently, the union's leadership had heard that members might reject the recent tentative agreement reached with Gov. Jerry Brown, since furloughs will end before the deal is ratified by members and the Legislature.

With so many other state employee unions facing similar issues, dates and deadlines, we thought the CASE response was worth sharing:

For the first time in years, CASE is dealing with an administration that is bargaining in good faith. Part of the tentative agreement negotiated by CASE was the condition that furloughs would end on April 1, 2011. The fact that the Brown Administration has agreed to honor that provision and to stop furloughs while the ratification process is pending should not be mistaken for an opportunity to exploit the temporary cessation of furloughs by rejecting the MOU on the false assumption that once furloughs stop on April 1, 2011, that they will never resume.

The 2011-12 budget bill has language that deputizes Brown to enact furloughs on behalf of the Legislature, the memo notes. So, while Brown may not be firing at state workers who don't yet have ratified contracts, there are furlough bullets in the chamber.

Click here to read the entire CASE e-mail.

The board of the California Correctional Peace Officers Association on Monday approved the tentative agreement that union negotiators reached last week with Gov. Jerry Brown, according to Pacovilla blogger Bob Walsh.

As of Monday night, we couldn't find the agreement's language posted on CCPOA's website. The Department of Personnel Administration hadn't published the agreement online either.

Walsh, a retired correctional officer, attended the Monday board meeting. The late-afternoon vote went 47-4 with six abstentions, Walsh reported, noting that, "Interestingly enough, the whole Executive Council except (CCPOA President) Mike Jimenez abstained."

Walsh had a few more details that didn't surface in our reporting on the CCPOA contract:

Holidays will now pay double-time, as opposed to the old 1.5 time plus 8 hours of holiday time. There will now be no mechanism to earn holiday time. Holiday relief officers will go away, though the state still has an obligation to allow people to burn existing holiday time.

On July 1 every Unit 6 employee loses 1 hr of vacation time, which goes into the (release time bank.)

Walsh's opinion: "I honestly think that this is likely the best deal that can be had for Unit 6 at this time under these circumstances."

Several blog users have asked that we post the tentative agreement reached by Bargaining Unit 7, the California Statewide Law Enforcement Association. The Department of Personnel Administration put the memorandum of understanding on its website last week after CSLEA's board signed off on sending the pact to union members for a ratification vote.

Here's the link to the tentative agreement. The summary is embedded at the end of this post.

As of Monday night when we wrote this blog item, DPA hadn't posted the recently-reached tentative labor pacts for Professional Engineers in California Government, California Association of Professional Scientists, California Correctional Peace Officers Associaton or International Union of Operating Engineers (BU 13). We'll post those documents or link to them as they become available.

We'll also be watching for the Legislative Analyst's cost estimates for each contract. The LAO has to run the numbers within 10 days of receiving the tentative terms from DPA. Its analysis is considered a nonpartisan report for lawmakers to consider when labor contracts come up for legislative vote.Click here for the LAO's recent take on the tentative pact reached with California Attorneys, Administrative Law Judges and Hearing Officers in State Employment.

Here's the CSLEA tentative agreement summary:

Gov. Jerry Brown's administration said today it has reached a tentative labor agreement with the International Union of Operating Engineers, the last bargaining unit left without an announced deal.

The announcement followed the Department of Personnel Administration's confirmation Thursday of tentative agreements with unions representing the California Association of Professional Scientists and Professional Engineers in California Government.

The three unions had been working under expired contracts since 2008, the administration said.

"We're grateful to these last three unions for persevering at the bargaining table to help us achieve necessary savings," DPA Director Ron Yank said in a prepared statement. "It's also a huge relief -- for employees and the administration -- to face the fiscal challenges ahead with some degree of certainty in working conditions and compensation, which have been anything but certain over the past few years."

The International Union of Operating Engineers represents about 1,000 building maintenance engineers.

According to the administration, employees' monthly pension contributions will increase from 5 percent to 10 percent for miscellaneous employees and from 6 percent to 11 percent for safety employees. Employees will take one day of unpaid leave each month for a year but will not be subject to additional furloughs, the administration said.

If ratified, the contract will run from April 1 to July 1, 2013.

Unions representing state scientists and engineers say that they have reached tentative agreements with Gov. Jerry Brown.

The memoranda of understanding will affect nearly 3,000 scientists and about 13.000 engineers and related state workers who have been furloughed three days per month in the absence of a negotiated agreement. Both contracts would start April 1 and run through July 1, 2013.

The details released in memos to members by the California Association of Professional Scientists and Professional Engineers in California Government are in line with terms recently negotiated by several other unions:

• Three-days-per-month furloughs, equal to nearly a 15 percent pay cut, end this month.
• Starting in April, employees start a personal leave program that equals one unpaid day off per month for 12 months. Contracts guarantee no furloughs during that period.
• Employees at the top step of their job classification get a 3 percent step raise on July 1, 2013.
• Starting April 1, scientists in the "miscellaneous" category will kick in more for their pensions, going from the current 5 percent of pay to 8 percent. The contribution for the few scientists in the "safety" category will go from the present 6 percent to 9 percent.
• No change for current or future employees' health and retirement benefit programs, including what employers contribute.
• No minimum wage in the event of a budget impasse.
• Two floating professional development days each year that replace the Columbus and Lincoln's birthday holidays that the Legislature erased from the state's paid holiday calendar in 2009.

CAPS says it's going to press its claim that the holidays were removed illegally and seek compensation for its members.

Neither union disclosed estimates of what their contracts save or cost the state and neither are commenting beyond their announcements to members.

CAPS' tentative agreement is posted online here. The union has a Q&A page here. It's not commenting beyond this announcement.

PECG told members in this e-mail.

Department of Personnel Administration spokeswoman Lynelle Jolley confirmed that the government has reached agreements with both unions, but it's not prepared to disclose more details.

CAPS and PECG were two of six unions without contracts when Brown entered office in January facing a budget deficit now projected at $26.6 billion through mid-2012. The governor built a budget plan that closes the hole with a mix of tax extensions and budget cuts.

Part of his proposal assumes closing $308 million of that gap with concessions bargained with those six unions. Ron Yank, the governor's director of the Department of Personnel Administration, gave the unions until this month to get contracts negotiated. Those that failed to get deals done would continue taking furloughs three days per month, equal to nearly a 14 percent pay cut.

This evening's announcements leaves the International Union of Operating Engineers (Bargaining Unit 13), which represents about 1,000 stationary engineers, as the last group without announced tentative agreements.

In response to its members' inquiries about the tentative agreement, Calfornia Attorneys, Administrative Law Judges and Hearing Officers in State Employment issued its fifth FAQ memo earlier this week.

This time union officials address questions that many state workers are wondering about: pending furlough litigation, COLAs and "pension reform" proposals that have recently surfaced.

Click here for CASE FAQ No. 5.

Miss the earlier CASE memos in the series? Click here for CASE FAQ No. 4. This link opens a post with links to FAQs Nos. 1 through 3.

Here's proof that numbers and contracts, like 3 year olds and Jackson Pollock paintings, require interpretation:

The Legislative Analyst's Office says that the tentative agreement reached with California Attorneys, Administrative Law Judges and Hearing Officers in State Employment will cost the state $6.3 million ($1.8 million of that from the general fund) for the current fiscal year. The Brown administration had said the deal lops off $34.5 million this year ($9.4 million from the general fund).

More important, the two groups agree that the deal saves $3.5 million next year, or a cost cut of about 3.5 percent. Brown has said he wants union deals to save between 8 percent and 10 percent of pre-furlough costs.

Why the $41 million swing in estimates for 2010-11?

DPA is comparing the new contract to the old contract, which did not include the three-day-a-month furloughs many in the unit have been forced to take. The analyst is comparing the new contract with what the state would save if furloughs continued.

(The LAO report doesn't mention that CASE is one of the unions still pressing litigation that alleges those 2010-11 furlough days were illegally imposed.)

Here's what the analyst said:

Column Extras give State Worker blog users notes, quotes and details that inform our weekly State Worker column. From the notebook items expand on news stories that we write. This week, we're combining both features into one post.

Our news story and The State Worker column both reference findings from a Field Poll on unions and public pensions released to the public this morning. We thought State Worker blog users would like to see the poll tabulations and the Field Research summary of the results.

Click here for the tabulations.
Click here for the Field Poll summary.

In the fourth in a series of memos to members, California Attorneys, Administrative Law Judges and Hearing Officers in State Employment answers questions about the union's new tentative agreement. This time CASE addresses the deal's unique 1.73-hours of monthly paid leave provision, professional development days, holidays and the continuous appropriation section of the contract that agrees to introduce legislation that would protect employees from minimum wage during a budget impasse through July 1, 2013.

Click here for the CASE FAQ #4. This link opens the Department of Personnel Administration's web page with links to the tentative agreement and a summary of its terms.

The Department of Personnel Administration, which represents Gov. Jerry Brown in contract negotiations, has put out a press release on the deal reached this morning with the California Correctional Peace Officers Association:

The California Correctional Peace Officers' Association has reached a tentative agreement with Gov. Jerry Brown.

DPA spokesman David Gay said that the administration isn't releasing the details yet.

CCPOA has been without a contract since July 2006 and has been working under terms imposed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger since September 2007. The union represents about 32,000 state prison officers and parole agents.

The union "went all in" for Brown's gubernatorial run, CCPOA President Mike Jimenez told the Bee in an interview after the November election, putting in about $2 million toward media ads supporting the Democrat and attacking Republican candidate Meg Whitman.

CCPOA's deal, reached after marathon talks that concluded around 5 a.m. today, leaves bargaining Units 9 (engineers), 10 (scientists) and 13 (building maintenance and operations engineers) without contracts. Units 2 (legal professionals) and 7 (law enforcement and inspectors) reached tentative agreements last week.

Here are the details, in a letter from Chuck Alexander, CCPOA's executive vice president:
110315 Alexander MOU memo

This post has been updated with details of the deal. Updated at 3:27, March 15, 2011.

Gov. Jerry Brown and the California Statewide Law Enforcement Association have reached a tentative labor agreement that the members will vote on starting next week, the union said this afternoon.

The union represents 7,000 state workers in 180 different job
classifications, including fish and game wardens, park police, drug agents and business inspectors.

The Department of Personnel Administration, which handles state labor talks, confirmed the news in this e-mailed release and says that the deal saves the state $37.8 million for the current fiscal year and $12.2 million in fiscal 2011-12 before increasing costs by $25.5 million in its final year, fiscal 2012-13.

That brings the total savings for the lifetime of the agreement, which starts April 1 and ends July 1, 2013 to $24.5 million.

"This agreement balances budget relief with California's need for public safety," said DPA Director Ron Yank in the department's press release, Director of DPA. "We gain immediate savings through increased funding of pension benefits, and at the same time we provide a stable work environment for our employees."

The deal contains several of the same elements found in the October's agreement reached by SEIU Local 1000 and and the tentative agreement announced on Monday by California Attorneys, Administrative Law Judges and Hearing Officers in State Employment.

Among the specifics: unpaid days off, an increase in what members pay toward their own pensions and an eventual pay increase for members at the top step of their job classification.

Some of the tentative agreement's details include:

• A 12-month Personal Leave Program beginning April 1 that equals a 5 percent pay reduction in exchange for 12 days of unpaid leave.
• An immediate 2 -percentage-point increase for what Unit 7 peace officer/firefighters pension pay toward their pensions. A 3-percentage-point hike in Unit 7 safety members' contribution towards retirement.
• Peace officers/firefighters will get a 2-percent step added to the top of their pay scales on July 1, 2013. Safety workers will receive a 3-percent top step increase on that same date.
• Two professional development days each year, while accepting legislation that eliminated Lincoln's Birthday and Columbus Day as paid state holidays.
• An immediate increase in what the state pays toward employee health benefits.

The California Statewide Law Enforcement Association's Board of Directors has scheduled a meeting for today -- it's not clear when it will convene or if it already has -- to review a tentative labor agreement reached with the Brown administration. If the board approves the terms, the deal will go to the union's 7,000 members for a ratification vote.

The union posted this announcement on its website that says its negotiating team and the Department of Personnel Administration had come to terms, but its not releasing any details until the board's review. The post doesn't say when the board is meeting.

DPA spokesman David Gay said that the administration wouldn't add anything to the union's announcement other than, "We confirm that we reached an agreement."

We have a call in to CSLEA. When we learn more, we'll post the news immediately.

Space limits our Thursday State Worker column to about 450 words, so much of what we learn in the ramp-up to writing it never sees print. Column Extras give you some of the notes, the quotes and the observations that don't make the cut.

We've been hearing some rumblings about the tentative agreement between Gov. Jerry Brown and California Attorneys, Administrative Law Judges and Hearing Officers in State Employment. The critics, nearly all of them SEIU-covered, are particularly upset over the deferred 4 percent increase for top-step employees at the end of the contract and the extra 1.73 hours of paid leave that the attorneys will accrue each month.

The deal negotiated by SEIU Local 1000 in October has a 3 percent deferred raise for the top step and no extra hours of paid leave each month. It's that 1 percent difference, plus the CASE deal's extra paid leave, that's prompting some SEIU-covered state workers to shoot some heated e-mails our way.

So what's the story? Did Brown throw a little extra something to the union that represents lawyers who not so long ago worked for the former attorney general? Is the CASE deal sweeter than the one negotiated by SEIU Local 1000?

Here's what sources familiar with the talks tell us:

Professional Engineers in California Government has fired off a letter to legislative leaders arguing that ending furloughs for its members and cutting back on outsourcing would save the state more money than the 10 percent employee payroll reduction that Gov. Jerry Brown wants unions to accept.

This letter to Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg, and Assembly Speaker John A. Pérez from union President Matt Hanson says that PECG negotiators presented its idea to Brown's Department of Personnel Administration on Mar. 2.

PECG estimates its proposal would save $336 million, or about $80 million more than DPA's savings target. Apparently the plan went nowhere with DPA, hence Hanson's letter, which concludes:

"In finalizing the State Budget for the upcoming fiscal year, PECG encourages the Legislature, as well as DPA and the Brown Administration, to include this proposal to achieve savings beyond its goals and to eliminate furloughs for Special Fund employees in engineering and related classifications."

The union attached a breakdown of the math behind PECG's proposal. Click here to view it.

DPA spokesman David Gay declined to comment, since the administration is in talks with PECG and doesn't talk about ongoing labor negotiations.

The union is one of six state employee labor groups working under the terms of expired contracts. Brown wants to negotiate $308 million in 2011-12 payroll reductions with those unions, which represent about 63,000 state workers. PECG covers about 11,000 employees.

If you're interested in the nitty-gritty details of the new tentative agreement between Gov. Jerry Brown's administration and California Attorneys, Administrative Law Judges and Hearing Officers in State Employment, you'll want to take a peek at two documents.

The first is the 200-page agreement posted on the Department of Personnel Administration's website. It includes all the markups and negotiators' signatures with each provision. You can click here to download the file.

And we've embedded the 19 pages of tentative agreement terms posted by the union on its website:
110309 CASE Proposed MOU - Contractual Language

Get ready for some major public employee pension push back from Californians for Health Care and Retirement Security, the broad-based coalition of government worker unions chaired by Dave Low of the California School Employees Association.

The group has tapped Steve Maviglio, head of Sacramento-based Forza Communications, to speak up for civil service workers, starting with an open letter to lawmakers Tuesday afternoon, urging that they "protect retirement security for those who serve the public."

Maviglio brings to bear 30 years of political communications experience at the state, local and national level. In Sacramento, he's probably best known as the spokesman for former Gov. Gray Davis and Assembly Speakers Fabian Núñez and Karen Bass. Most recently, he was the spokesman for the group that successfully opposed Proposition 23, the November 2010 measure that would have suspended the state's greenhouse gas law.

The Maviglio hiring signals that the unions believe they need to raise their public communications game, particularly given the growing pressures on employee pay and pensions created by the state's deep -- and deeply divisive -- $26.6 billion budget deficit. The economy also has created a bit of a tailwind for groups looking to cut current public employees' pension benefits or severely limit public employee collective bargaining.

While such changes may be a political long shot in California, the fact that the ideas have entered the public discourse pushes out the boundaries of the pension/compensation reform debate.

And if voters don't approve Gov. Jerry Brown's tax extension plan to help close part of that shortfall, it will be Maviglio's job to shape the message that keeps government workers' pay and pensions from being ripped apart in the political storm that will undoubtedly follow.

PHOTO CREDIT: Steve Maviglio testifies before the Senate Rules Committee on Wednesday, January 7, 2004. Sacramento Bee/ John Decker

Now that California Attorneys, Administrative Law Judges and Hearing Officers in State Employment has reached a tentative agreement with Gov. Jerry Brown, how will members vote? They've been without a contract since 2007.

One complicating factor that DPA Director Ron Yank mentioned in a recent interview is that the deal doesn't include a remedy for union members who were furloughed. It's particularly touchy because so many CASE members work in the Department of Justice. Brown, when he was attorney general, didn't furlough his employees. His successor, Kamala Harris, isn't furloughing them either. Other constitutional officers haven't furloughed their legal staff, either.

We've heard from CASE members who have endured furloughs. They're upset that the tentative agreement doesn't do more for them. They'll have to hope that successful furlough litigation eventually makes them whole.

Meanwhile, those Justice employees and CASE members shielded from furloughs now confront a contract with a day's unpaid leave each month.

California Attorneys, Administrative Law Judges and Hearing Officers in State Employment has told its members that union negotiators have reached a tentative labor agreement with Gov. Jerry Brown.

The deal, significant as the first reached by the Brown administration, sets out the labor terms for a 3,700-member union that has been without a current labor pact for nearly four years. The agreement also hews closely to the deal reached by SEIU Local 1000 last October.

Here are the highlights of the deal, according to a letter released to members this afternoon:

• Three-day-per-month furloughs end for all furloughed employees on April 1, 2011, conditioned upon the proposed MOU being ratified by CASE membership.

• 3% increase to employee pension contribution (total of 9% for Bargaining Unit 2 miscellaneous employees, 10% for Bargaining Unit 2 safety employees).

• 4% increase to top of salary step for all classes at end of contract (July 1, 2013), effective after employee has been at top step for a minimum of 12 months.

• All employees to receive 1.73 hours of additional leave credit per month (equal to 1% of gross salary per year) during the term of the MOU. This additional leave credit does not expire, and may be used or cashed out in the same manner as vacation leave or annual leave.

• One day of unpaid personal leave (under a program named "PLP 2010" by DPA) per month for 12 consecutive months beginning the pay period following ratification. Employees have until June 30, 2016, to use accrued PLP 2010 time, at which time it expires. PLP 2010 time must be used before any type of leave except sick leave, and has no cash value.

• Bargaining Unit 2 employees at State Compensation Insurance Fund are exempted from PLP 2010 days for the term of the contract in recognition of the successful CASE litigation and Insurance Code section 11873(c).

• Increased state health care contributions (80%-80% formula) for 2011, 2012, and 2013. Employer health care contribution for 2011 increased to $486 (employee only), $986 (employee plus one dependent), and $1,241 (employee plus two or more dependents). State health care contribution to be increased on January 1, 2012, and January 1, 2013, using the 80%-80% formula.

• Bargaining Unit 2 members will receive two additional professional development days (for a total of five professional development days) per fiscal year, to be used for either professional or personal development activities at the employee's discretion, and to be requested and granted in the same manner as annual or vacation leave.

• Consistent with legislation passed during the prior administration, the parties agree to delete Lincoln's Birthday and Columbus Day as state holidays.

• State agrees not to seek the unilateral imposition of furloughs during term of PLP 2010.

• State agrees to introduce and support legislation to continuously appropriate funding for state employee salaries and benefits during the term of the contract, to ensure employee salaries and benefits are maintained in the event of an untimely State budget.

• Employees hired after January 15, 2011, shall participate in a reduced (pre-SB400) defined benefit pension plan (2% at 60 formula).

• Contract protection ("Most Favored Nation Clause" or "Me Too Clause") which ensures that should any other bargaining unit currently without a contract receive a better overall compensation package, the members of Bargaining Unit 2 would be entitled to the difference.

• The remainder of the prior MOU, including side-letter agreements and the CUIAB caseload stipulation previously negotiated, were rolled over into the new contract.

CASE also told its members that the agreement has no impact on furlough litigation that the union hopes will eventually win back pay for unpaid days off forced on its members during former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's administration and carried forward by Brown.

Click here to read the CASE announcement to members.

Our story in today's Bee about a relaunch of furlough litigation was shortened for space. We thought that State Worker blog users might like to see the last part of the story was cut:

... The conciliatory tone from officials on both sides of the bargaining table is a marked contrast to the Schwarzenegger years, said Sacramento-based labor attorney Tim Yeung, but it's likely that the unions think the litigation gives them a little leverage, even if they don't say so.

"There's not a complete disconnect," said Yeung, who negotiates government labor contracts as a partner at Renne Sloan Holtzman Sakai LLP. "It's part of the calculus, a little extra chip. It's not reasonable to think either side entirely ignores it."

The lawsuit contends that the Legislature didn't authorize Schwarzenegger's 2010 furlough order because the 2010-11 budget that OK'd the policy also says pay cuts of furloughed employees should be proportional with cuts imposed on state supervisors.

Those imposed cuts, which are very close to the concessions negotiated by SEIU Local 1000 last October for nearly half the unionized state work force, equal to an 8.5 percent reduction between the time furloughs restarted last August and the June 30, 2011 end of the current fiscal year. Furloughs over that period will reduce employees' pay by nearly 13 percent.

State personnel chief Ron Yank told legislators this morning that the Brown administration is offering six state bargaining units without a contract "pretty much the same" deal that former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger reached with other unions.

"It's a tough sell," Yank told a joint hearing of the Assembly and Senate public employees' committees. "We can't give them more than Gov. Schwarzenegger gave other groups. That's a tough pill for them to swallow."

Gov. Jerry Brown's proposed budget counts on $308 million in savings by reaching similar deals with the six unions working without contracts. Those unions represent 63,000 employees including state lawyers, correctional officers, scientists and engineers.

The deals Schwarzenegger reached last year generally imposed one unpaid day off per month, required higher employee pension contributions and set lower pension benefit formulas for new hires.

The state legal professionals' union said today that Thursday's Little Hoover Commission report and pension change recommendations are "irresponsible" and "cynical" and notes that "the various reports of the Little Hoover Commission seldom have any significant impact on policy decisions."

And that's the nice part of California Attorneys, Administrative Law Judges, and Hearing Officers in State Employment memo to members. Here's the whole thing:

Our story in today's Bee looks at Tuesday night's union-organized rally at the Capitol to show solidarity with public sector employees in Wisconsin. During the event, we asked several people in the crowd whether the push in Madison to roll back public employee collective bargaining rights could eventually roll into Sacramento.

Most said they were concerned it could, although a few figured that the political dynamics of California -- where Democrats control the Legislature and the governor's office -- are very different than those in Wisconsin, where the Republicans control the executive and the legislative branches.

What do you think?

The California Statewide Law Enforcement Association has said that it is closing in on a tentative labor agreement with Gov. Jerry Brown's administration. Here's what CSLEA President Alan Barcelona said in a Friday memo to members:

I want to assure you that we are continuing to make good progress in working with the Brown Administration on the few remaining open issues. We have a framework for resolving all of the major issues required to bring an MOU to fruition.

The memo echoes a similar note issued by California Attorneys, Administrative Law Judges and Hearing Officers in State Employment to its members.

Both unions said that they have the contours of a deal but still need to work out specifics. Both unions also said that they believe they'll get the deals buttoned up early next month, a goal that Department of Personnel Administration Director Ron Yank set in January.

Click here to read the Barcelona memo.

No word on what's happening with the other four unions without contracts that represent state engineers, correctional officers, scientists and operating engineers.

Public employee unions in Wisconsin are going after Gov. Scott Walker for proposing legislation that would essentially end union representation of government workers in the state.

The 32-second spot (click the viewer above) features Racine firefighter Mike DeGarmo proclaiming solidarity with other public employees. "Governor Walker, public employees have agreed to the cuts you asked for. And now they're simply asking that you not take away their rights. We stand together or we fall together, and we're asking the people of Wisconsin to stand with us," he says.

According to The Washington Post, the ad was created by advisers to the national AFL-CIO, SEIU, and AFSCME, National Education Association, the American Federation of Teachers, and other unions. The Wisconsin AFL-CIO paid for it.

Worth noting: Walker's plan to rollback public employee bargaining rights doesn't affect firefighters or police unions.

California Attorneys, Administrative Law Judges and Hearing Officers in State Employment told its members last week that it has reached a tentative labor agreement but specifics can't yet be revealed.

"The CASE Bargaining Team and Board of Directors are pleased to announce that CASE and DPA have reached agreement on a cost package for a MOU for Bargaining Unit 2, and also tentatively agreed to many of the principal terms of the MOU," union officials said in an e-mail Friday to its roughly 3,700 members.

The deal, according to the e-mail, reaches for a contract that is "is both fair and realistic in light of the current budget environment."

But specific language has to be hammered out at the bargaining table, CASE says. Furthermore, "ongoing budget negotiations between DPA and the Department of Finance, (DPA) Director (Ron) Yank has informed us that DPA will not be able to formally close negotiations before March 7, 2011. However, Director Yank has stated that he has 'every confidence' that 'all issues will be agreed upon by that date.' "

Click here to read the CASE memo.

The Legislature should consider cutting state workers' pay, according to a new, grim review of what Gov. Jerry Brown's budget plan means for California's civil servants.

The Legislative Analyst's Office notes that Brown says departments won't make about one-third of the cuts required in the 2010-11 general fund budget. Furthermore, the LAO says, Brown's budget plan for 2011-12 contains several suspect assumptions about employee cost savings.

Let's hit this point by point:

Source: Legislative Analyst: 2011-12 Budget:The Governor's Employee Compensation Proposals

With just 400 to 450 words for our Thursday State Worker column, much of what we learn in the ramp-up to writing it never sees print. Column Extras give you some of the notes, the quotes, the observations and statistics that don't make the cut.

Today's column notes that tens of thousands of state employees are working under expired contracts. The chart above, from a review by the Legislative Analyst's Office, lays out which bargaining units have deals and which don't.

A Santa Barbara-based organization that wants to end union representation of California government employees has revved up its campaign contribution collection machinery for a run at putting the idea to a statewide vote.

Although Secretary of State records indicate that Californians for Public Union Reform hasn't reported that it has taken in any money yet -- it just filed with the state last week -- it is positioning itself to accept contributions with an aim toward putting an initiative on the ballot next year.

Lanny Ebenstein, UC Santa Barbara economist, head of the California Center for Public Policy and president of the Santa Barbara County Taxpayers Association is named in the state filing as the reform group's treasurer.

If his name seems familiar, it's probably because Ebenstein authored "Reforming Public Employee Compensation and Pensions." a report that purported to show that California public employees' pay and benefits are "unjust." We told you about the report in this blog post.

The Orange County Board of Supervisors has lost an appeal to invalidate a 2001 labor pact that retroactively gives county deputies a 3 percent at age 50 formula for retirement. The county has argued the agreement violates provisions of the California Constitution.

The decision by the 2nd District Court of Appeal in Los Angeles, published today, is a big win for the Association of Orange County Deputy Sheriffs. The union also had CalPERS and Jerry Brown, in his former capacity as Attorney General, on its side.

After approving the initial contract in 2001 and renewing it three times, the board shifted positions in 2008. Worried about the $187 million price tag of retroactively applying the enhanced formula, the county filed a lawsuit against the pension's board. Eventually the deputies' union joined the lawsuit.

The case raised several legal issues, but the biggie focused on article XI, section 10 of the state constitution, which prohibits payment of extra compensation to public employees. The county said that applying the formula bump to service years before 2002 amounted to "extra compensation to public employees 'after service has been rendered.' "

The court's three-justice panel said, in essence, "A deal's a deal; live with it."

Here's the ruling. (Hat tip to Blog User E for flagging this.)

SEIU Local 1000 has asked to join the legal fight to keep the state from selling 11 properties that former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger put on the sales block to help close California's budget deficit. Gov. Jerry Brown criticized the plan when he was running for office, but earlier this month said that he is weighing whether to continue the previous administration's sale lease-back plan because ending the deal would increase the state's budget gap by about $1 billion.

As the union notes in the amicus brief (embedded below) filed in the 6th District Court of Appeal in San Jose, state custodians would lose their jobs if the building sale goes through because the buyer, California First LLC, intends to use private sector employees to perform those duties.

Meanwhile, the state has pushed back the layoff date for employees affected by the pending sale. Originally their positions were set for elimination on March 30. The new date is May 1. (Click here for a previous post about the pending layoffs.)

Fans of William Shakespeare will appreciate union attorney Anne Giese's reference to "King Lear" to fortify her argument that the sale is illegal, and foolish to boot:

Since the actions of Schwarzenegger -- during repeated budget crises -- frequently appeared like tragedies of Shakespearean proportions, it is fitting, then, to compare his poor real estate decisions to those of King Lear.

You can read the rest of her analogy here. Scroll down to PDF page 9:

Welcome to Week 4 of "Let's Make a Labor Deal," with six unions representing 63.000 state workers trying to reach tentative labor agreements with the Brown administration by March.

There are some complications: Gov. Jerry Brown wants contracts that cut employees' take home pay by a cumulative $308 million. Furloughs are still in place for employees without a current deal. And furlough litigation now in the courts remains an X factor: Will those cases become a bargaining chip?

Clearly, informal talks are heating up. We told you what negotiators with California Association of Professional Scientists told its members last week. Now The State Worker has a memo to members from California Attorneys, Administrative Law Judges and Hearing Officers in State Employment that talks about bargaining:

The percentage of U.S. workers who were union members fell again last year, according to new data from the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics. Meanwhile, California's union membership ranks fell slightly, although the percentage of Golden State union members increased owing to heavier employment losses in non-union jobs,

Nationally, the rate of wage and salary workers who were union members dropped to 11.9 percent, down from 12.3 percent in 2009, according to this press release. The number of employees belonging to unions declined by 612,000 to 14.7 million.

By comparison, the union membership rate was 20.1 percent and there were 17.7 million union workers in 1983 when the government started tracking the trend.

The percentage of union members in local, state and federal government jobs fell from 37.4 percent to 36.2 percent. Union membership in the private sector dropped from 7.2 percent to 6.9 percent. Click here and scroll to the bottom for more national data about public sector unions.

California's union membership rate went from 17.2 percent in 2009 to 17.5 percent in 2010, according to this table released on Friday.

Although the number of union members in the Golden State fell by 22,000 -- a decline of about 1 percent to that subset -- California shed about 3 percent of workers who weren't union members or represented by a union. That raised the percentage of union members in the state, even though their actual numbers fell.

Negotiators for the California Association of Professional Scientists met with DPA Director Ron Yank on Thursday and pressed for an immediate end to furloughs, according to an e-mail sent to union members on Thursday:

Yank responded by confirming the Governor's initial position in these negotiations, which are outlined in the current fiscal year budget (2010-11), and Governor Brown's budget proposal for the next fiscal year (2011-12).

The current budget -- the last one under Governor Schwarzenegger -- authorizes continued mandatory furloughs of three days per month in order to achieve budget savings for bargaining units without a contract. The current budget expires on June 30, 2011, so mandatory furloughs will continue until one of three things happen: Governor Brown orders them stopped; there is an agreement between CAPS and Governor Brown to end them; or a court intervenes and orders them halted.

Yank "pledged to negotiate in good faith," CAPS reports. Click here to read the entire union e-mail.

Attorneys representing the state and the California's prison officers' union argued the legality of furloughs in San Francisco's U.S. District Court this morning. The court didn't issue a ruling and might not for several weeks.

The California Correctional Peace Officers Association filed the class action lawsuit, Newton v. Schwarzenegger, contending that its members' furloughs -- which deduct pay now but defer the corresponding time off -- violate the Fair Labor Standards Act. Click here for more background and court briefs.

Meanwhile, The State Worker has heard from several sources that the Department of Personnel Administration is scheduling or has already engaged in informal labor contract talks with the six bargaining units still without agreements. DPA Director Ron Yank also has been meeting and greeting leaders of the other bargaining units.

Yank's goal: Get contracts negotiated with all six units by the end of February/beginning of March.

PHOTO: Ron Yank, 2007 / Courtesy Carroll Burdick & McDonough LLP

Union SafetyNow flyer

AFSCME Local 2620, SEIU Local 1000, the California Association of Psychiatric Technicians and the Union of American Physicians and Dentists are rallying next week to call attention to their safety concerns at government mental health facilities around the state.

For years, the unions have said that employee, patient and public safety are in peril at state hospitals. Those concerns gained more attention last year when Donna Gross, a Napa State Hospital psychiatric technician, was killed at work. A patient there was arrested on suspicion of murder.

The unions plan to rally at the hospital from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. on Wednesday. (We've Scribd the flyer above.)

Today's online Q&A (click here for the replay) included many questions about the future of furloughs under Gov. Jerry Brown. It's a huge issue: About a third of unionized state employees in six bargaining units are still taking a three-day-per-month furlough hit to their pay.

Many state employees hoped that Brown would immediately end the policy-- which his election campaign criticized -- once he became governor.

The budget that Brown offered on Monday, however, assumes the policy will continue. Here are two key paragraphs from the employee compensation and retirement summary, which you can download by clicking here. We've underlined the sentence that touches on furloughs:

Here's our morning round up of news and views of interest to State Worker blog users.

Brown's Countdown, Day 2: Governor looking for three-sided trick shot on budget
Gov. Jerry Brown proposed a delicate trick shot Monday to balance California's budget: Persuade Democrats to slash social services, ask Republicans to place taxes on the ballot, then persuade voters to pay additional money for five more years.

State workers unhappy with Brown's budget plan (video above)
A lot of people are upset about Gov. Jerry Brown's plans to cut spending and raise revenue, especially tens of thousands of state workers.

State of the unions
The Great Depression invigorated the modern American labor movement. The Great Recession has crippled it.

We noticed that Gov. Jerry Brown didn't utter the F-word -- "furloughs" -- during his 45-minute budget press conference today.

So we asked the Department of Personnel Administration whether there were any changes to announce. Are furloughs still on, just as they were under Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger?

"We haven't been given any direction to the contrary," DPA spokeswoman Lynelle Jolleysaid this afternoon in an e-mail.

Click here for a December State Worker column that discusses of why Brown won't end furloughs for unions without contracts.

We noted earlier today that Gov. Jerry Brown's budget plan allows for a $395 million "augmentation" for the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation. The money would go to pay correctional officers' salaries, inmate medical transportation costs and a few other things.

But does that mean Brown is assuming a contract with full hours and pay for correctional officers? Is the California Correctional Peace Officers Association, one of six unions without a contract, going to escape a pay cut?

The eight words tucked into page 175 of Gov. Jerry Brown's 2011-12 budget proposal hint at changes for some state workers who carry a gun and a badge. We've underlined the key phrase:

Efficiencies in State Operations
While there have been a number of reductions in state operations costs in recent years, there continue to be opportunities for additional savings. The Governor's Budget includes $200 million in savings associated with identification of efficiencies in state operations. For example, identification of agencies, departments, and programs that can be reorganized to eliminate duplication and unnecessary functions; review of state peace officer and safety classifications; and reductions in other areas like contracting; fleet operations; and, cell phone use.

In a few minutes, Gov. Jerry Brown will release details of his budget plan to close a current $6 billion budget gap and a $19 billion or so shortfall projected for 2011-12. The lead of his office press release highlights state workers:

Governor Jerry Brown will release a balanced state budget today that slashes spending by $12.5 billion, including an eight to 10 percent cut in take-home pay for most state employees, and proposes a "vast and historic" restructuring of government operations.

Sacbee.com will have live coverage, chats and reaction throughout the day. Click here for more info.

The Bee's editorial page this morning fixes its skeptical eye on Gov. Jerry Brown's appointment of retired labor attorney Ronald Yank to head the Department of Personnel Administration.

"While some may suggest that Brown is being shrewd - nabbing the opposing team's quarterback," the editorial board writes in a direct reference to our Thursday State Worker column about Brown's pick, "it remains to be seen where Yank's loyalties will lie."

If you haven't already, check out the column by clicking here and catch this post of highlights from Yank's interview with The State Worker.

Then consider our poll question:

An administrative law judge has decided that IT employees in Bargaining Unit 1 can't leave SEIU Local 1000, dealing a serious blow to a dissident group that has been pressing their severance case for years.

The ruling by Acting Chief Administrative Law Judge Christine A. Bologna says the group that wants a separate bargaining unit for roughly 7,500 IT staff didn't prove that Local 1000 insufficiently represents them.

Lyle Hintz, a Unit 1 employee who has spearheaded the 4-year-old push to sever, told The State Worker he plans to file an appeal to the Public Employee Relations Board. The deadline for appeal is Jan. 10.

Here's the Bologna decision:
101221 PERB Proposed Order

A Sacramento Superior Court judge on Tuesday ruled that a multimillion dollar lawsuit filed by the state against the California Correctional Peace Officers Association can proceed.

The union had argued that the matter -- which involves money CCPOA owes the state to reimburse wages and benefits paid for members on leave to do union business -- should go to arbitration as provided in their expired contract.

The state, specifically the Department of Mental Health, the Department of Personnel Administration and (mostly) the Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, said that the deal to continue union paid leave was a separate agreement, so a taking the matter up in court was appropriate.

(For more details and links to court documents, you can start by clicking here.)

On Tuesday, the court agreed with the state. Here's the tentative ruling, which was subsequently affirmed Tuesday afternoon.
CDCR v. CCPOA

Dec. 22 editor's note, 1:56 p.m.: The LAO has revised its estimate of the cost of the SEIU Local 1000 contract compared to the cost of continuing furloughs. The new estimate is $112 million.

The numbers, albeit late, are in: The deal that SEIU Local 1000 cut with Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger in October is better than furloughs for the 95,000 state employees the union represents.

The state will spend $410.7 million more on compensation this fiscal year for those workers than it would have if the three-day-per-month furlough program had remained in place through June. Here's the breakdown from the LAO's report:

Our lastest State Worker column noted that Gov.-elect Jerry Brown's signature will be at the bottom of any labor pacts negotiated from here on out.

Six bargaining units that represent state legal professionals, scientists and engineers, prison and parole officers, public safety inspectors, game wardens and park rangers, and building maintenance staff are still without contracts. So who will be the first to get a deal?

Take our poll and explain your rationale in our comments section (which is now up and running for Internet Explorer users after some hiccups in the switch to the Disqus system on Dec. 1):

The California Statewide Law Enforcement Association has issued a press statement disclosing that it had a contract agreement with the Schwarzenegger administration that was pulled off the table by the governor's side. It was an "inexplicable last-minute change of mind," the union's release says.

Our column in today's Bee points out that Gov.-elect Jerry Brown is now the final legislative word on any labor deals. The full Legislature -- which has to approve any contracts that go to the governor's desk -- probably won't be back at work until Jan. 3, the same day that Brown takes office. CSLEA has had a rocky relationship with the guv-to-be.

Still, the union wants the Schwarzenegger administration to OK the deal. "CSLEA believes that finalization of a contract is in the best interest of its members, as well as the state of California, due to the cost savings the contract would achieve," its press release says. "The ball remains in the Administration's court."

Click here to read the CSLEA release.

Blog backs review your thoughtful and provocative online comments, amplify points, answer questions, correct our mistakes and humbly accept your warranted criticism.

We're on the record as supporting SEIU Local 1000's decision to publish the raw numbers from its recent contract ratification vote. It was an unusually transparent move for the union, especially given the unpopular concessions in the MOU.

Of course, revealing the numbers also reignited debate about the contract, the voting rules and the veracity of the union. All of that spilled into the comments section of this blog.

SEIU Local 1000 has posted its contract ratification ballot totals online. The State Worker learned of this after nearly two dozen blog users e-mailed the PDF to us, although no one sourced the information.

We didn't know that the numbers were on the union' website, so we called SEIU spokesman Jim Zamora to verify them. He said the the tallies were posted Monday after local President Yvonne Walker ordered them published in response to inquiries from union members. "Yvonne heard the members and didn't see any reason not to do this," Zamora said a few minutes ago.

The union announced the overall percentage of the vote on Nov. 9.

Here are the tallies by bargaining unit:

SEIU Ratification Vote Counts

The board of California Attorneys, Administrative Law Judges and Hearing Officers in State Employment painted a bleak labor picture in an e-mail sent to its 3,700 or so members last week.

It also updated the status of key furlough litigation involving constitutional department employees, the union's State Compensation Insurance Fund members and so-called "special fund" departments. The punchline for all of that litigation: The implications from last month's state Supreme Court furlough decision are still rippling through the court system, and its impact isn't yet clear.

Regarding contract talks, CASE told members that it's highly unlikely that a deal can be done with Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. Even if it happened, the Legislature's schedule and the ratification process would delay any new terms taking effect for several months.

Then there's this grim analysis:

Victor Szendi, a steward in DLC 749 of SEIU Local 1000, believes that the union's new contract stiffed State Compensation Insurance Fund employees by failing to arrange a side agreement to exempt them from furloughs. Szendi is a claims representative at the fund.

Here's the background: CASE first won a lawsuit that argued furloughs at State Fund violated state insurance code.

SEIU wanted no part of the litigation since it carved out special status for state workers based on workplace instead of union representation. Union President Yvonne Walker criticized CASE for its lawsuit and for what she said set a "dangerous tone" that undercut organized labor.

After coming under severe criticism, however, SEIU tried to piggyback on the CASE ruling and get Local 1000 employees at State Fund included in the CASE decision.

When that didn't work, SEIU sued and won, which created another problem: explaining why it went to bat for a select group of employees.

Now the pendulum is swinging back, with Szendi and other State Fund employees like him upset that the the new SEIU contract imposes unpaid days off on them when they have been receiving full pay and hours because of the court decision.

Here's Szendi's e-mail, unedited. The views expressed are his own. He does not speak for his employer or his union.

More than three-quarters of SEIU Local 1000 employees who voted have ratified a labor agreement worked out with Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, union officials said this afternoon.

Seventy-six percent of full dues-paying members who cast ballots supported the deal , the union said in a press release issued this afternoon. It did not release raw ballot numbers.

"I've always said, 'Trust the members,'" SEIU Local 1000 President Yvonne Walker said in a telephone interview moments ago.

While some unions have refused to accept contracts with the kind of concessions in the SEIU pact, Walker said the contract was the best deal to be had, especially given the state's continued financial problems. Holding out, she said, would only weaken the SEIU's bargaining position as the state continued to bleed red ink.

"This gives our members stability and security," Walker said, "especially after 20 months of furloughs."

Still, the the deal angered some state workers. It accepts 12 unpaid days off over the next 12 months on top of the nine furlough days imposed on employees from August through October of this year. The contract also increases the percentage of wages that employees contribute to their retirement and sets lower pension benefit formulas for new hires.

Six other unions have accepted contracts with similar pension changes. Six unions representing more than 60,000 workers are still without new contracts that make concessions. Those employees are being furloughed three days per month by Schwarzenegger with the Legislature's approval.

On the upside for the 95,000 employees it covers, the SEIU contract avoids furloughs for at least one year, shields employees from minimum wage in the event of a state budget impasse and eventually gives a raise employees on the top step. The agreement adds two floating "professional development days," to be used at the employee's discretion, in return for eliminating Lincoln's Birthday and Columbus Day and paid holidays.

The Legislature passed the contract last month and the governor signed it as a "trailer bill" to the 2010-11 budget bill enacted last month, so the pact takes effect immediately. It expires July 1, 2013. The agreement saves the state more than $386 million annually, according to state estimates.

Dues-paying members of SEIU Local 1000 have until 5 p.m. today to hand-deliver their MOU ratification ballots to one of seven union offices around the state:

• Fresno: 1551 E. Shaw Avenue, Suite 139
• Los Angeles: 4221 Wilshire Blvd., Suite 388
• Oakland: 1433 Webster Street, Suite 200
• Rancho Cucamonga: 10600 Trademark Parkway North, Suite 405
• Sacramento: 1808 14th Street
• Sacramento: 1108 O Street (member resource center)
• San Diego: 3456 Camino Del Rio North, Suite 104

Local 1000 spokesman Jim Zamora told The State Worker in a text message this morning that the union will count the ballots on Tuesday, with an announcement expected by 5 p.m. that day, "if not sooner."

So what do you think will happen? Will the 95,000-employee union's rank and file accept the deal?

While everyone watches California's gubernatorial election today, another vote for about half of California's state work force ends next week with Monday's deadline to cast ballots to accept or reject SEIU Local 1000's new labor deal.

With nearly a week between the election for the state's employer in chief and the union vote, we've heard from many Local 1000 members who say they're holding their union ballot until Wednesday.

If Republican Meg Whitman wins, they say they'll vote for the deal worked out with Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. If Democrat Jerry Brown wins, they'll vote against the tentative agreement.

So what do you think will happen?

Caltrans has issued a correction to Thursday's memo that had indicated employees represented by SEIU Local 1000 would be subject to furlough until union members ratify a new contract.

"The Department of Administration (DPA) has indicated that for employees in bargaining units with a new contract or one in the works (applicable to Caltrans include (sic) BUs 1,4, 11, 12, 14, 15, and 21) and excluded employees, furloughs are over," wrote Caltrans Deputy Director Cris Rojas, in this e-mail sent to employees just after noon today. "We very much regret the confusion over this issue."

Rojas' e-mail corrects one sent by Caltrans Chief Deputy Director Malcolm Dougherty that had said workers covered by Local 1000 could be furloughed until the union ratifies its new labor deal with the Schwarzenegger administration. The deadline for submitting ballots is Nov. 8 with a tally likely announced that evening or the next day.

After the Dougherty e-mail hit, confused department employees fired off angry e-mails to The State Workers, upset that Caltrans was contradicting what the union and the Department of Personnel Administration had said: October is the last furlough month for the 95,000 employees the local represents. Click here for what we reported about the mixup.

Caltrans employees in bargaining units without contracts are still subject to furloughs, Rojas' e-mail says.

Worth noting: If voting members reject the deal, the Schwarzenegger administration would have plenty of time to direct departments to continue furloughs for employees represented by the local, since the cutoff date for payroll changes is Nov. 18.

A "no" vote by the majority of SEIU members who cast ballots also would mean the union and the (Schwarzenegger? Brown? Whitman?) administration would have to return to the bargaining table.

Ira Eisenberg, an EDD employee and SEIU Local 1000 steward, takes issue with points made by union official Jim Hard in our Oct. 20 post, "SEIU Local 1000 exec argues for contract ratification."

Eisenberg, who thinks the rank and file should reject the contract, shared his thinking in an e-mail to The State Worker. We're publishing it here unedited and with his permission. He's not speaking for the union or his employer.

We're continuing our look at state employee unions' political spending this month. This installment: the California Association of Highway Patrolmen. The 8,500-member union spent a total of $163,000 so far, with $100,000 going to the state Democratic Party. The union didn't report any independent expenditures.

Professional Engineers in California Government spread its political cash around this month with the California Democratic Party getting a bit more than $600,000, and "Your Transportation Improvements Voter Guide, a Service of PECG," receiving almost $250,000. That money funds mailers that go out to likely voters in districts where an election outcome isn't already locked up. The mailers promote candidates and ballot measures that the union supports.

PECG's independent expenditures so far in October (detailed on a second worksheet you'll see by clicking PECG Oct. IEs at the bottom of the window), were relatively small -- just $243,000. And the union stuck with supportive efforts for candidates and ballot measures instead spending money to attack opponents, according to the union's filings with the secretary of state.

We've been asking constitutional officers for reaction to new furlough instructions from the Department of Personnel Administration, acting on budget bills that allow the administration to furlough state workers.

The instructions, part of a set of Personal Management Liaison memos issued late Thursday afternoon, say that rank-and-file state employees in unions without contracts will continue furloughs of three days per month in November. That includes folks working for the lieutenant governor, the secretary of state, the treasurer, the attorney general, the controller, the superintendent of public instruction and the insurance commissioner.

(The Board of Equalization also is a constitutional agency, but it's among the eight departments and agencies whose employees are exempt from furloughs regardless of contract status.)

The California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation is planning to eliminate 31 dentist jobs early next year.

The State Worker learned of the decision from this notice to members of the Union of American Physicians and Dentists and confirmed it with CDCR spokeswoman Terry Thornton.

The target date for the layoffs is Jan. 14. A total of 93 notices went out last month. Corrections has 294 prison dentists on staff.

While the UAPD note says that layoff warning notices went out, it doesn't mention that the department is going to hire dental hygienists to perform the routine cleanings and examinations. "We currently have just two hygienists in the entire system," Thornton said.

At $15,183 per month, a CDCR dentist earns more than three times the $4,763 hygienist monthly wage. The department plans to hire enough of the lower-salaried professionals to get the ratio down to 2000 inmates per each hygienist -- roughly two hygienists per dentist. That will free up prison dentists to focus on higher-level dental care.

Thornton said that the courts have signed off on the plan.

UAPD is one of six unions that reached new labor agreements with Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger last summer. The deal, which shields members from furloughs and minimum wage in exchange for pay and benefits concessions, doesn't include layoff protections.

IMAGE: www.cdcr.ca.gov

As we reported last week, look for the Department of Personnel Administration to issue details on state employee compensation changes that the Legislature passed in budget bills earlier this month.

And then look for a new round of union lawsuits to follow.

Jim Hard, former president of SEIU Local 1000 and the union's current vice president for organizing and representation, sent an e-mail to members on Tuesday that passionately argues for ratifying the local's tentative agreement with Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Ballots went out to members on Monday. The deadline to return them is Nov. 8. Clearly, the union has caught flack from some members who are upset with the deal's concessions.

In the lengthy e-mail that follows, Hard says the contract is a shield from future turmoil, "From my viewpoint our choice is this contract or no contract, and negotiate with the next Governor during the next budget fight.

"Yes, there is an election, but if the Governor turns out to be Meg Whitman she will make Schwarzenegger seem mild. Also, every Governor has to deal with the 2/3 majority for budgets and taxes (increased revenue) and an extreme legislative minority pledged to only cut services, state employee compensation and positions."

With contract ratification ballots now out to members of SEIU Local 1000, The State Worker has been asking for particulars about how the vote will be counted. We've been hearing from some state workers covered by the local that they had concerns about the process, including rumors that unreturned ballots are counted as "yes" votes.

The union has posted details of the ballot counting procedures on its website, which you can click here to read.

For the record, Local 1000 says that only returned ballots count toward the final tally.

IMAGE: www.hasslefreeclipart.com

We have received hundreds of e-mails from state employees, academics and other reporters asking questions about the interplay between the new state budget and the SEIU Local 1000 tentative agreement. Here are answers to some of the most frequently asked questions:

A week after lawmakers passed bills making sweeping changes to state employee pay and benefits, state officials still don't know exactly what the new legislation means.

Here's why: Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger left the country after signing the main budget bill (which authorized him to continue furloughs for employees in unions without contracts), but he didn't sign the trailer bills containing employee compensation particulars, such as changes to pensions.

Apparently, those measures weren't rushed through the vetting and proofing process for his signature.

But the bureaucracy, like nature, abhors a vacuum. So in the absence of clear information from the administration, at least one well-intentioned department sent out some incorrect info to its employees about what the budget's passage means to its employees.

After we reported the confusion in our weekly State Worker column and posted the erroneous department memo and a subsequent retraction, the Department of Personnel Administration issued this e-mail Thursday afternoon:

This blog has fielded dozens of e-mails from folks wondering about the member ratification vote timeline for SEIU Local 1000's tentative labor agreement. The short answer: Member voting starts Monday and runs through Nov. 8

Click here for an SEIU flowchart of the process.

IMAGE: www.hasslefreeclipart.com

Two unions have responded to the news we broke in this blog post Tuesday that Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger plans to extend three-day-per-month furloughs for state workers in bargaining units without contracts. Furloughs for those employees will start in November and run through June 30, 2011.

The California Association of Professional Scientists sent this memo to its 2,700 or so members this morning.

The key paragraph:

As the dust settles from last week's Supreme Court furlough decision, the SEIU Local 1000 tentative agreement and the 2010-11 budget legislation, the impact of the interwoven events is becoming more clear.

In this post we'll share some answers to questions about what this means to state workers whose unions don't have a contract.

California Attorneys, Administrative Law Judges and Hearing Officers in State Employment says that the 2010-11 budget authorized by the Legislature may actually give Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger more authority over state workers.

Here's a paragraph from the union's Oct. 8 e-mail:

Many members have asked how the current furloughs can continue in light of the Supreme Court's ruling. The short answer is simply that the Governor concluded that because the opinion is not final for 30 days, he did not have to abide by it. The practical reality is that he was counting on the Legislature authorizing the furloughs again in this budget, just as the Supreme Court found they had done in earlier budgets. An early draft of the budget control language contained language that was very similar to the language relied upon by the Supreme Court in deciding that the Legislature had authorized furloughs, and may in fact grant broader authority to the Governor than the original language. Once the final version is in print, the CASE Board and legal team will analyze the budget control language to determine what options may be available.

The final version is in print. You can read SB 870 here. The section that applies to state employee cost cuts is in Section 3.91(a) on page 755. The language didn't change from the draft we posted here last week.

The CASE e-mail goes into some detail about the budget drama's final hours and how the employee contracts, pension reform legislation and the budget talks interlocked. Click here to view the CASE memo.

Several dozen blog users have sent the following questions our way, in one form or another, about the SEIU Local 1000 tentative agreement:

Will the terms of the SEIU agreement affect all of its members? Including its members at the agencies that have never been affected by furloughs? (Mainly constitutional agencies.)

The SEIU tentative agreements affect everyone in each bargaining unit, regardless of where they work. If voting members ratify the deal, it's "Hello, 12 unpaid days off," for employees working under constitutional officers, at State Compensation Insurance Fund and other currently furlough-free departments, just like everyone else.

Our guess -- and this is just a guess -- is that it's unlikely that workers covered by the TA and who work in constitutional agencies and departments will have to take any make-up furlough time. Why? Because the governor used his line-item veto power to cut the constitutionals' budget by amounts equal to the payroll savings from furloughs. Reaching back to impose furlough makeups -- or imposing them now -- would be a sort of budgetary double-jeopardy.

However, we've asked the Department of Personnel Administration its position. We'll let you know what they say.

If the contract is effective July 1, 2010 then how will we make up the 3 percent increase in our pension payments for July, August, September, October, and November? Will they pro rate the increases for those months over a period of time?

The increased pension payments start the pay period after the deal is ratified. The rate won't be prorated to make up for lower contributions at the start of the 2010-11 fiscal year.

The Jerry Brown campaign's "whore" whodunit has received a lot of attention the last few days for it's language, but the recording at the core of the controversy also is an unvarnished, behind-the-scenes look at how union and pension politics are playing out in this year's gubernatorial race.

Now that you've had time to look at the bones of the tentative agreement reached between negotiators for SEIU Local 1000 and Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, what do you think?

With some help, we've waded through the 800-page budget bill and found the language that lays out the $1.5 billion in employee compensation cuts that GOP and Democratic leaders in the Legislature are putting up for a vote. (Click here for one version of the measure, Assembly Bill 1630.)

Here's the key language. Note that lawmakers changes are in strike through and italics.

The Department of Personnel Administration has provided The State Worker with the following outline of provisions in the tentative agreement with SEIU Local 1000:

• Reduced pension formulas for new employees:

Misc.: 2% at age 60 for (from current 2% at age 55)

Safety: 2% at age 55 (from current 2.5% at age 55)

• Increased pension contribution for current employees:

Misc.: 8% of salary over $513/mo. (from current 5% over $513/mo.)

Safety: 9% of salary over $317/mo. (from current 6% over $317/mo.)

• Personal Leave Program: One unpaid leave day per month for 12 months, which reduces pay by roughly 5 percent. This leave cannot be cashed out.

• Furloughs: Nine furlough days (covering Aug. through Oct. 2010 -- do not count toward PLP days)

• Health premiums: State increases its share of health premiums to 2010 rates for bargaining unit 3 only (from 2008 rates); this share will be adjusted each January during the contract period to reflect annual changes in health premiums.

• Pay scales: Effective July 1, 2013, increases top step by 3%; only affects employees who reach top step.

• Holidays: Columbus Day and Lincoln's Birthday eliminated as paid holidays; employees will receive premium pay if required to work any of six major holidays: New Year's Day, Memorial Day, Fourth of July, Labor Day, Thanksgiving, and Christmas.

• Employees entitled to two professional development days per year.

• Continuously appropriates payroll during term of this contract, which protects employees from minimum wage payments in the event of budget delays.

• Employees will not be furloughed during 12 months that Personal Leave Program is in effect. No furlough protections thereafter.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's press office has issued a press release about the tentative agreement reached with SEIU Local 1000 last night. It contains this quote from the governor:

"This agreement continues our progress toward critically needed pension reform and, along with the previously reached union agreements, will help address the state's soaring retirement costs. Unfunded retirement benefits for government employees are a huge problem because, as these costs rise, the state has less and less money for the programs that Californians depend on.

"Not only will this agreement address long-term unsustainable costs, it also brings necessary relief to California's taxpayers in the current budget with additional savings in employee pay. I commend SEIU for being a part of the solution to these problems."

The release doesn't contain any unreported details. Click here to read it.

An earlier version of this post erroneously linked to an site with outdated tentative agreement documents on the Department of Personnel Administration's website. We regret the error and will publish current contract details as they become available.

This post now reflects tentative agreement details confirmed with either the union or DPA.

The Department of Personnel Administration and SEIU Local 1000 have put out more details this morning about the tentative agreement announced late last night. . Here's a quick scan of the deal:

Service Employees International Union Local 1000 has reached a new three-year labor agreement with the Schwarzenegger administration. The union and the Department of Personnel Administration issued simultaneous announcements of the tentative deal shortly before midnight. It runs from July 1 of this year to July 1, 2013

The agreement includes higher pension contributions for current employees, lowered retirement benefits for newly hired workers and unpaid leave days. In exchange, covered workers receive protections from furloughs and minimum wage during budget impasses. DPA has said it will publish more details on its website in the morning.

We've written a brief story with the details released by the union and the administration. Click here to read it. We'll be writing more in the morning.

Talks between state employee unions and the Schwarzenegger administration are continuing -- sort of -- while pension costs remain a sticking point to a budget deal between Democrats, Republican Arnold Schwarzenegger and his GOP colleagues in the Legislature.

The last negotiations with SEIU Local 1000 were last Friday, Department of Personnel spokeswoman Lynelle Jolley told us this morning. No more negotiations have been scheduled with the state's biggest state labor union, but Jolley said that DPA is "in talks with SEIU and virtually all of the unions" even though there's been no direct bargaining.

We have a call in to Local 1000 for the union's take. The union's last bargaining report on its web site is dated Sept. 2.

From where we sit, it looks like the Schwarzenegger administration is hoping to get a deal with the Big Dog, Local 1000, which represents 95,000 state employees, and then herd the smaller unions into the same kennel.

We've received some calls and e-mails asking what the MOUs recently ratified by the Legislature and signed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger mean to paychecks issued on Wednesday for the August pay period.

The short answer: Nothing.

The new contracts say that the employee pension increases, for example, take effect the first pay period following ratification by the Legislature. That means checks issued in October for September's pay period will reflect the new contribution increase. The one day of unpaid leave per month will show up on that October check as well.

Those terms will apply to all six bargaining units whose MOUs cleared the Legislature, including Unit 8 (California Department of Forestry Firefighters), even though CDFF members are in the midst of ratifying their contract.

Another question: How will departments handle scheduling disparities created with some rank-and-file workers taking off just one day each month while supervisors and managers continue the three "Furlough Friday" schedule ordered by the governor?

Over at our sister blog, Capitol Alert, Bee Capitol Bureau colleague Keven Yamamura has a report on Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's comments about public employee unions at an event in Goleta.

Here's the top of Kevin's report:

The closer Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger gets to leaving office and the longer the budget stalemate drags out, the more frank he seems to become.

Speaking today at the Goleta Valley Chamber of Commerce, the Republican governor had no qualms about attacking public employee unions, whom he blamed for high costs everywhere in government.

In a perfect Schwarzenegger world, courtroom cameras would replace court reporters, courthouses would use private security guards and schools would hire local gardeners rather than union employees to mow the lawn.

Click here to read the rest of, "Schwarzenegger shoots from the hip with business leaders."

PHOTO CREDIT: Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger speaks Aug. 6 in Santa Clara in front of a chart showing the difference between public and private sector job losses during a two-year period. (Photo by Justin Sullivan/ Getty Images)

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has signed two measures that make binding the labor agreements that his administration negotiated with six unions, Senate Bill 846 seals the deals with California Association of Highway Patrolmen (Bargaining Unit 5), the Operating Engineers Union for craft and maintenance workers (Unit 12) and the California Association of Psychiatric Technicians (Unit 18).

Assembly Bill 1592 covers state firefighters (Unit 8), physicians, dentists and podiatrists (Unit 16) and health and service professionals (Unit 19).

Click here for more about the contracts. All take effect upon the governor's signature except the California Department of Forestry Firefighters' pact, which must be ratified by the union's members.

Union spokesman Terry McHale said that ballots will go out next Monday. After that, members have 60 days to return their ballots, during which each of the union's 21 chapters around the state must hold two informational meetings.

Three days after the voting deadline, the ballots are counted.

"We anticipate (the contract) will be ratified by a large margin," McHale said.

UPATE, 4:45 p.m.: Read the Schwarzenegger administration's press release by clicking here.

Well, here's one that got past us.

On Thursday, the state Senate passed SB 846, which ratifies the tentative labor pacts between the Schwarzenegger administration and bargaining units 5, 12 and 18. Click here to read the bill.

The Senate approved the measure 31-1, with six senators failing to vote. Two senate seats are vacant. Click here to view the unofficial floor vote tally.

The bill was enrolled on Friday and sent to the governor. It will take effect immediately after he signs it.

The Assembly has sent a similar measure, AB 1592, to Schwarzenegger. That bill covers labor pacts with units 8, 16 and 19. Unit 8 members haven't yet voted on the contract, since CDFF union rules call for the rank-and-file to cast ratification ballots only after the Legislature approves the deal. Click here for more details.

The state Assembly just approved Assembly Bill 1592, which ratifies memoranda of understanding between the Administration and three state bargaining units: CDF Firefighters (Bargaining Unit 8); Physicians, Dentists, and Podiatrists (Bargaining Unit 16); and Health and Service Professionals (Bargaining Unit 19).

The vote, which approved changes to the bill made in the Senate, was 66-4. The measure now goes to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and becomes effective immediately after he signs it.

Furlough court fights have dominated the news, but don't forget that the Legislature is considering several bills of keen interest to state workers, including ...

MOU bills: The State Worker has calls out to the Legislature regarding Senate Bill 846 and Assembly Bill 1592. The two bills cover labor agreements reached with bargaining units 5, 8, 12, 16, 18 and 19. They're in the final stages of legislative action before going to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's desk for his signature.

State workers in Bargaining Unit 12, which is represented by the International Union of Operating Engineers, have ratified a tentative labor agreement with Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger. The union's website says that voting members were 2 to 1 in favor of the deal.

IUOE's release didn't include a vote tally.

Of the six units that reached tentative agreements with the administration, five have now ratified them. The sixth, represented by California Department of Forestry Firefighters, won't put its deal up for a vote by members until the Legislature approves it. The union's own rules dictate when its members vote.

Meanwhile, it appears that the contracts are moving through the Legislature fairly quickly. Click here for more info.

IMAGE: www.freeclipartnow.com

The Assembly Committee on Public Employees, Retirement and Social Security passed SB 846 on Tuesday afternoon. We'll let the analysis by committee consultant Karon Green explain what the bill does:

Wednesday's order to resume furloughs next month essentially doubled-down Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's bet that he has the authority to impose unpaid days off on state workers. It's also a high-stakes gamble that the policy will wring concessions from state labor unions and squeeze the Legislature, now seven weeks late on passing a budget, to craft a deal that includes significant reductions to employee pensions.

Will it work?

Voting members of the California Association of Highway Patrolmen have ratified the union's tentative agreement with the Schwarzenegger administration. The union said Tuesday evening that 99.6 percent of the ballots cast favored the deal.

The agreement now moves on to the Legislature for ratification. If approved there, it goes to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's desk.

The CAHP vote means that four unions so far have ratified their tentative agreements. The other three: CAPT, UAPD and AFSCME.

Those yet to announce: IUOE (Bargaining Unit 12) and CDFF (BU 8).

Note: CDFF's contract goes through the Legislature first, and then on to union members for a ratification vote. BU 8's internal policy sets the order, union spokesman Terry McHale told The State Worker. The law says only that union members and the Legislature must ratify labor agreements, but it doesn't prescribe the order of the votes.

You can read the Bargaining Unit 5 tentative agreement by clicking here. DPA's summary is here. And this link opens a post about what the Legislative Analyst's Office had to say about the CAHP deal and those reached by five other unions.

IMAGE: www.cahp.org

As we've just reported, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has issued a new executive order that requires state employees take three furlough days per month until lawmakers enact a 2010-11 budget.

The order exempts the following departments:

California Highway Patrol
California Department of Fire and Forestry Protection (CalFIRE)
Franchise Tax Board
Board of Equalization
Employment Development Department
State Compensation Insurance Fund
California Housing Finance Authority
California Earthquake Authority

It also excludes Bargaining Units 12, 16, 18 and 19, which along with unions representing CHP officers and state firefighters, recently reached tentative agreements with Schwarzenegger.

Click here to read the executive order.

VIDEO CREDIT: Dino Gomez, a California state worker with the Department of General Services, reacts to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's order to start three days of furloughs a month starting Sunday. Video by Hector Amezcua/ hamezcua@sacee.com

Editor's note: This post has been changed to specify the departments excluded from the governor's furlough order. It also clarifies payroll cost savings from furloughs last year.

Less than one month after ending furloughs for about 200,000 state workers, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger this morning brought back a scaled-down version of the policy, effective Sunday.

The governor made the decision this week after Controller John Chiang said that unless lawmakers enacted a budget soon, the state's cash would go into the red by October. Chiang said he'll start issuing IOUs in August or September to conserve funds as long as possible.

"We have a fiscal crisis," Schwarzenegger spokesman Aaron McLear said this morning as he explained the new furlough order. "We're doing what we have to do to conserve cash."

Like the policy that ended June 30, the governor's new executive order requires employees take three unpaid days off per month. The administration figures the payroll savings will amount to $147.2 million per month, about $80 million of that from the general fund.

But unlike the earlier policy, this one has no termination date: Furloughs will end when lawmakers pass a 2010-11 budget. That could be weeks or months after the Legislature reconvenes on Monday.

And unlike earlier policies, the new order exempts employees who work several departments, specifically the Board of Equalization and the Franchise Tax Board, the Employment Development Department, State Compensation Insurance Fund, the California Housing Finance Authority and the California Earthquake Authority. All employees of the Highway Patrol and the Department of Fire and Forestry Protection are also exempt.

The order doesn't explain the criteria for deciding to exclude those departments.

The California Correctional Peace Officers' Association said a few minutes ago that the Schwarzenegger administration "virtually closed the door on more than $150 million in savings for taxpayers," causing contract negotiations between the union and the governor's representatives to end.

The Department of Personnel Administration, responding to the CCPOA announcement, said that talks with the union never reached the formal stage.

"Negotiations never even got under way," said DPA spokeswoman Lynelle Jolley.

CCPOA says it has been bargaining since July 13, according to this union press release.

"CCPOA negotiators were informed by DPA officials that their proposal was 'dead on arrival' and the governor has declined to entertain any further discussions with CCPOA," the union's release says.

Jolley said that the two parties had "private talks" and that the union was proposing a return to terms of its old contract. There was no way that was going to happen, she said.

"Still, we're always ready to return to the bargaining table," Jolley said.

Union spokesman JeVaughn Baker said that the union was "in fact at the table in off-the-record informal talks" during which its negotiators offered up savings proposals and pension reform.

"We made a sincere effort, an honest effort," Baker said. "We're stunned that he would walk away."

Still he welcomed the invitation back to the bargaining table: "We're excited to hear that DPA is ready to return to the table," he said. "We are, too."

The State Worker recently reported that CCPOA was taking a new direction in its bargaining strategy by sending in a new negotiating team without President Mike Jimenez or other union executives who were part of earlier discussions that went off the tracks.

CCPOA has been without a contract since July 2006 and has worked under terms imposed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger since the talks reached impasse in September 2007.

American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Local 2620 has announced that its members have ratified the tentative agreement reached last month with the Schwarzenegger administration.

According to the union's website, 92 percent of Bargaining Unit 19 members who voted supported the deal.

Court challenges. Budget politics. The November elections. Pension politics. The California economy. Furloughs. Minimum wage.

All of those issues and more have shaped labor talks between Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and state employee unions. Some negotiations have produced tentative agreements, including the those ratified this week by the California Association of Psychiatric Technicians and the Union of American Physicians and Dentists.

Some talks have broken down. California Association of Professional Scientists rejected the governor's take-it-or-leave-it offer last month. As we reported Thursday, California Attorneys, Administrative Law Judges and Hearing Officers in State Employment has filed an unfair labor practice charge with the Public Employee Relations Board over the governor's minimum wage order.

So what do you think? Where is this headed? Take our poll:

Thursday was sort of a finish line for long-suffering state workers since it was the last day that the State Controller's Office could make mass changes to July payroll.

That means formerly furloughed state workers on Aug. 1 will receive paychecks reflecting full hours and pay for the first time in 17 months. The August checks for straight time worked will be nearly 15 percent more than those issued on July 1.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger lifted furloughs on June 30. The next day he issued instructions to withhold state worker pay to the federal minimum. A court last week refused to force Controller John Chiang to comply this month. A hearing before Sacramento Superior Court Judge Patrick Marlette will likely be scheduled for late August, but it's likely that will come after the payroll change deadline for Sept. 1 checks.

How long will it last? It's not clear what will happen with the minimum-wage court fight, so let's set that aside.

Editor's note: The links to the UAPD tentative agreement and the summary of the agreement have been repaired.

The Union of American Physicians and Dentists announced on twitter and on its website that Bargaining Unit 16 members who cast ballots "have voted overwhelmingly in favor of the Tentative Agreement reached with the State on June 25, 2010."

The Thursday announcements provided no details about the vote.

The agreement now goes to the state Legislature for ratification in the Assembly and Senate. It would take effect upon signature by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Click here to read the Unit 16 TA. DPA's summary is available here.

Hat tip to Blog User A for flagging this news for us.

California Attorneys, Administrative Law Judges and Hearing Officers in State Employment on Wednesday filed an unfair labor practice charge against Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and the Department of Personnel Administration.

The union, which represents about 3,800 state legal professionals, contends that the governor and DPA have engaged in bad faith bargaining and violated aspects ofWhite v. Davis by issuing a pay letter that attempts to "punish" CASE members:

The issuance of the pay letter is thus a patent example of the administration
attempting to ensure that CASE members receive no wages despite the fact that even
under the administration's own reading of White v. Davis, those CASE members
employed in positions funded out of a continuous appropriation are entitled to their full
salaries. The pay letter thus represents an example of the administration attempting to
punish CASE members for failing to agree to the Governor's demands.

This link opens the document filed with the Public Employee Relations Board. Click here for the union's e-mail to CASE members about the complaint.

That e-mail also mentions that DPA on Monday tried to intervene in CASE v. Chiang and State Compensation Insurance Fund. San Francisco Superior Court Judge Peter Busch denied the request but left open the door for the administration to apply again. CASE v. Chiang challenges technical aspects of Schwarzenegger's minimum wage order. Click here for more info about that case.

Members of the California Association of Psychiatric Technicians have voted to accept the contract negotiators hammered out last month with Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.

CAPT said in this press release that 96 percent of voting members approved the deal.

The union, which covers roughly 7,000 state workers in Bargaining Unit 18, didn't say how many members voted.

Click here to read the CAPT tentative agreement, which must be ratified by the Legislature and signed by Schwarzenegger to take effect.

The Legislative Analyst's Office released its take late Wednesday on all of the tentative agreements reached so far. Its analyses cover deals for Bargaining Units 5, 8, 12, 16, 18 and 19.

Among the LAO's conclusions:

The cost reductions to the state that would come from unpaid personal leave in some MOUs and pension cost shifts common in all the contracts would be completely offset by the additional top-level step raises that would start in January 2012. Still, the pension cost shift and reduced retirement benefits for new hires "should reduce state costs substantially in the coming decades."

SEIU Local 1000, which represents 95,000 state workers, is back at the table today after the union offered a contract proposal last week that was a mixed bag of gains (such as two 5 percent COLAs) and concessions (like lower pensions for new hires) over the life of a five-year deal.

Talks Tuesday ended after 30 minutes, the union says, with no proposal from the administration. The sides met again today.

Here's what we passed along earlier about Local 1000's proposal. This link opens the union's latest bargaining update.