California state attorneys, scientists seek raises of 30% and more in contract talks

California state employee unions representing scientists and attorneys are making the biggest demands for raises in contract negotiations this year.

The attorneys want 30%. The scientists, citing inequities dating to 2005, are asking for up to 43% for some job classifications.

The proposed increases would be among the largest in the history of organized labor in California state government. Gov. Gavin Newsom’s administration in recent years has signed off on annual raises of around 2% to 3%, with some bigger bumps for select positions that have encountered recruitment and retention issues.

The scientists and attorneys are two of six state worker unions bargaining over pay. Contracts for all six expired by the end of June. Most of the groups would like to reach new agreements before the end of August, the last chance to secure approvals from the Legislature before the finish of its current session, rather than waiting until lawmakers reconvene in December.

This year’s negotiations are colored by a set of unusual circumstances, including inflation above 8%, a $100 billion budget surplus, a lingering pandemic and shifting union dynamics.

“This bargaining is a little bit different because we just survived a pandemic, so we’re feeling a little more aggressive on that front,” said Ann Lyles, chief negotiator for the California Association of Psychiatric Technicians.

The union represents about 6,800 employees who work in state mental hospitals. Five have died from COVID-19, and many have spread the virus from workplaces to family members, Lyles said.

Union leaders said their phones are ringing with calls from members who had their pay reduced when the state was anticipating a $54 billion budget deficit. They now want a piece of the surplus.

“We got furloughed, many think unnecessarily,” said Tim O’Connor, president of the California Attorneys, Administrative Law Judges and Hearing Officers in State Employment, which represents about 4,600 people. “I think the combination of the furloughs and the huge surplus everyone knows we have has caused our members to be much more fired up than in the past.”

The unions negotiate with the state Human Resources Department. An agency spokeswoman declined to discuss bargaining, but Newsom’s administration has been intent on spending the vast majority of the surplus on one-time outlays rather than ongoing costs, which would include salary increases.

A contract agreement

Just one union secured a new agreement before its contract expired this year. The International Union of Operating Engineers (IUOE) reached a three-year deal that provides raises totaling 10.9%, starting this month, for state HVAC employees who are at the top of their pay scales.

The deal provides 2.5% this year, 4% next year and 4% the following year, along with new retention stipends of up to $750 that are paid every six months through August 2024. The stipends don’t count toward employees’ pensions.

Each bargaining season, the first agreement often serves as a template for others. But the unit of about 1,000 employees is one of the smallest in state government, and the deal is unusual in providing a permanent raise only for employees at the top of the pay scale — about 70% of the group.

“It’s way, way too low,” said O’Connor, of the attorneys’ union. “Even if you were to double that, I’d say that’s too low.”

The Legislative Analyst’s Office, which often questions justifications for raises in its recommendations to legislators, surprised some union leaders by suggesting the IUOE agreement might not do enough to retain state employees if inflation keeps increasing.

The office’s review of the IUOE agreement noted the state’s pay for the group lagged other employers by 15%, and about 22% of the state’s HVAC jobs were vacant.

“If we do reach an extended period of the higher inflationary levels we’ve seen, it could affect our ability to recruit and retain, especially if local governments have provided higher pay increases,” said Nick Schroeder, an analyst who reviewed the agreement.

Attorneys

The attorneys’ union elected a slate of new leaders last year who promised to take a more aggressive stance in contract negotiations. The organization’s longtime president and two other board members resigned months later, saying internal politics had become unworkable.

State attorneys want a 30% raise to catch up to peers in the private sector and local government, O’Connor said.

Entry-level state attorneys start with salaries of about $84,000 per year, according to figures on CalHR’s CalCareers website.

The most recent CalHR survey found the state’s pay and benefits — pensions included — lagged the private sector by about 25% and local government by about 9%. About 14% of state attorney jobs were vacant.

“We’re losing members because the pay isn’t high enough to keep up, and that’s going to be extremely damaging for the state of California,” O’Connor said.

Scientists

The California Association of Professional Scientists, which represents about 3,300 employees, has been without a contract since June 2020 (terms of expired agreements remain in effect).

Their argument centers on a big pay increase a group of state engineers received in 2005. State environmental scientists perform very similar work to the engineers, and sometimes hand off projects to one another, but the scientists didn’t get the same raise, said David Rist, the union’s bargaining chairman.

The scientists’ union sued on behalf of scientists in supervisory roles who didn’t get the raise, saying the engineers’ deal violated California’s “like pay for like work” provisions. After a lengthy legal battle, the supervisory scientists got the raises, worth 18% to 43% of their pay, in 2014. But the rank-and-file didn’t.

The inequity has grated on rank-and-file state scientists ever since, and they’re more engaged now than in the past two rounds of contract negotiations, Rist said.

“We’re hoping that after all this time the state recognizes we’ve got a unique issue, it’s different than the other units, and it needs to be addressed,” Rist said. “So we’re waiting for the state to acknowledge that and act on it.”

Wade Crowfoot, California’s Natural Resources Secretary, wrote a memo in support of more substantial raises for the scientists in 2020, according to CalMatters, which obtained a copy. Crowfoot in May took the unusual step of saying in a Q&A with employees that he generally supports their wage proposal.

“Know that you’ve got somebody in me and my role that is working to elevate just how important having talented scientists who can stay in their positions in state government throughout their careers is to the work we now do, given the climate crisis and the biodiversity crisis and a crisis of inequity across our state,” Crowfoot said in the meeting.

About 15% of state environmental scientist and specialist jobs are vacant, and the scientists are paid slightly below market average, according to CalHR’s most recent survey.

Engineers

Ted Toppin, the executive director of the Professional Engineers in California Government, declined to share specifics about the union’s bargaining objectives.

But Toppin noted that the recently passed federal infrastructure bill will intensify competition for engineers across the country, making it all the more important for California to stay competitive on pay.

Additionally, the recently passed state budget creates 1,000 new jobs for engineers and employees with similar roles, Toppin said.

“Prices are up 8%; employees feel it,” Toppin said. “And employers, including the state, have to account for it. If you don’t, they’ll lose employees to employers who will account for inflation. So it’s certainly a big deal.”

Firefighters, psychiatric technicians

A key issue for Cal Fire firefighters and psychiatric technicians in state hospitals is mandatory overtime, said leaders of the unions representing both groups of employees.

Cal Fire firefighters are quitting due to the demands of spending weeks at a time away from their families fighting wildfires, said Cal Fire Local 2881 president Tim Edwards. The union represents about 5,600 full-time firefighters and about 2,000 seasonal firefighters.

Even when they’re not fighting wildfires, Cal Fire firefighters work 72-hour shifts in local stations around the state, Edwards said. They’re on duty for three full days, responding to calls and completing other tasks and resting when they can. Fifty-six hours are counted as regular work and 16 are overtime.

“You can go to local government, work less — a 56-hour duty week — and make more money,” Edwards said. “And that’s been our biggest push from the membership is to get us at least some kind of parity with local government.”

Edwards praised lawmakers for passing a budget that calls for hiring 486 new permanent firefighters and a similar number of seasonal firefighters over the next four years, but said more needs to be done to address the grueling OT requirements.

The California Association of Psychiatric Technicians is once again fighting to ease the burden of mandatory overtime for its members, who have worked through waves of COVID-19 infections in state hospitals.

“Each and every day they were required to go to work and risk their lives, and those were their families at risk,” said Eric Soto, the union’s president.

Psychiatric technicians often don’t learn they’re going to have to work a mandatory shift until the end of the shift they’re working, Soto said. That’s especially hard on single parents, who sometimes have to scramble to find child care.

Newsom’s administration recently agreed to deliver $1,500 bonuses to California state law enforcement employees who worked through the pandemic. Soto said state hospital employees deserve something similar.

“We’re pushing real hard to make sure our folks get that recognition and acknowledgment in some monetary form for the difficult work they did in the pandemic,” he said.

Doctors

The Union of American Physicians and Dentists, representing about 1,600 employees who work mostly in state prisons, has been rallying for raises for state psychiatrists.

The most recent vacancy rate measured in CalHR’s surveys was about 39%.

Dr. Stuart Bussey, the union’s president, blamed the vacancies on “poor compensation and benefits” along with dangerous working conditions and “oppressive management” at an early June rally at the Capitol.

The corrections department uses contractors to fill the vacancies, often paying the contractors more than state employees.

State psychiatrists, with benefits including pensions converted to wages, earn $178 to $212 per hour, while the contractors earn $135 to $325 per hour, according to corrections department figures.

This story was originally published July 13, 2022 at 5:00 AM.