Steven Greenhut:

Too much is never enough

Sunday, August 9, 2009

State government workers get more, more and still more.

I was going to argue that California public employee unions are delusional – given that they keep demanding higher pay and pensions and other perquisites even as the state's unemployment rate tops 11 percent, as average Californians struggle with fewer jobs, higher taxes and a particularly brutal recession, and as governments at all levels struggle with dramatic decreases in revenue.

But these unions really aren't crazy. In fact, they understand reality better than the rest of us, who still hold to the quaint belief that public employees serve us.

The unions know the truth: that the public servants are now the public's masters.

Examples abound at every level of government.

The city of Costa Mesa met Tuesday to approve cost-cutting plans to bring the books in balance, but even during dire times, the council majority of Wendy Leece, Katrina Foley and Gary Monahan gave preliminary approval to an absurd plan to hike pension benefits for members of the city's firefighters union.

In exchange for keeping some vacant positions unfilled and reducing minimum staffing levels, the council increased the union retirement benefit to the coveted "3 percent at 50" (enhanced from the current "3 percent at 55" benefit) deal that has been destroying government budgets throughout the county and the state.

For starters, staffing levels shouldn't even be part of a union contract and, instead, should be management decisions made at the city council level.

And no government worker should receive permanent taxpayer-funded pensions that allow them to retire at the ripe young age of 50, with 90 percent of the final year's pay guaranteed forever (and that's before the worker taps into any number of dubious pension-spiking schemes that allows many employees to retire with pay well above their final year's salary).

Costa Mesa officials point to as much as $8 million in potential savings from the deal thanks to some of the concessions.

But those savings and concessions are temporary – they last only through the course of the four-year Memorandum of Understanding. The hefty new benefits go on for the life of the firefighters, which means that for decades the city will endure more than $700,000 a year in additional costs. These negotiations are always rigged from the start.

For instance, the past firefighters' contract guaranteed the union members a raise this year even if a new deal isn't struck. City officials always find themselves in a difficult position negotiating with their unions, who have all the cards and all the power. Even when concessions are desperately needed to save a city, they often can't gain them. That's why Vallejo went bankrupt, and other cities likely will follow suit.

Over in Irvine, the Police Department – officials there already receive the "3 percent at 50" retirement benefit – are demanding a huge raise and are resorting to theatrics to make their point at the City Council meeting (showing up in black T-shirts at council meetings and voicing their demands).

Although Irvine cops are the fourth-highest paid in the county, they want a continuation of their current contract formula – negotiated in more affluent times – that would result in 5 percent to 8 percent raises.

The city is threatening layoffs if cops don't accept a wage freeze. The union wants the city to tap reserve funds, which is not a fiscally prudent idea, but with cop unions, fiscal prudence is not high on the priority list. It is entertaining, however, watching the union members go up against the council's pro-union leftist majority of Larry Agran, Beth Krom and Sukhee Kang.

For a further idea of how government employees constantly ratchet up their pay and benefits, consider, as the Register reported, that "other city unions … have a 'me too' clause allowing them to revisit their tentative agreements if another city union gets an increase."

Everything is designed to give public employees more, more and still more. You know who gets to pay for this. City management officials, who often benefit from the same lush pension deals they strike with unions, rarely fight too hard, although with revenue drops they are stuck making their budgets work with far fewer resources. Hence, the half-hearted push for furloughs and other modest concessions.

Even though they enjoy outlandish benefits and higher-than-average pay, government employees are fonts of belligerence, borne perhaps of the entitlement mentality and years of union fealty. Even though California's state government is struggling to balance the budget, the Service Employees International Union and the California Correctional Peace Officers Association – the politically powerful prison guards, who muscled a 38-percent pay raise over five years out of then-Gov. Gray Davis during a previous state budget calamity – are threatening to break the law and go out on strike.

Why should the laws that apply to others not apply to these groups? Of course, recent strike votes – to protest mild pay cuts and a few layoffs – are basically temper tantrums. It doesn't mean they will actually go out on strike, but I'd suggest they give it a whirl.

I doubt Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has the moxie of former President Ronald Reagan who, wonderfully, fired the air-traffic controllers when they held an illegal strike.

These folks aren't worried about the governor/girlie man, but I don't think they want to chance showing the state how dispensable they really are.

Still, if you're not annoyed enough at the attitudes and demands of the public sector, consider this story from the San Jose Mercury News:

"California's state government has managed to add thousands of jobs during the past year, defying a mammoth budget deficit and a brutal recession." Government workers are still demanding raises, getting pension increases, and the state is still hiring. This is unfathomable, but it also is California, where the state novel ought to be "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland."

Contact the writer: sgreenhut@ocregister.com or 714-796-7823

http://www.ocregister.com/articles/city ... government