Monthly Archives:' September 2011
Chico CTP Unit Decertifies SEIU and Recognizes Chico Employees Association, represented by Goyette, by a vote of 54 to 2
In a landslide, the City of Chico Classified, Technical and Professional employee unit voted to get rid of SEIU and recognize the newly formed Chico Employees Association as their new representative. 54 to 2 (in a unit with a total size of 67) was the election result, counted on September 29 by the City Clerk Debbie Presson.
This was the second time in the past couple of years that this unit tried to decertify from SEIU and they did so resoundingly. The Chico City Council is poised to formally recognize CEA on Tuesday, October 4.
“This unit is filled with hard working, talented and dedicated employees of the City of Chico,” says Rafael Ruano, CAO, Goyette and Associates, who has been guiding CEA on this process. “We are looking forward to a long term relationship with CEA to help them work with the City of Chico to improve not only working conditions but also the services provided to the citizenry. “
PUBLIC SECTOR EMPLOYEE ORGANIZATIONS NEED TO CAREFULLY CHOOSE THEIR MESSAGE IF THEY HOPE TO KEEP THEIR CURRENT PENSION BENEFITS
As the movement for pension reform gains momentum in Sacramento and throughout California public employee organizations need to carefully look at their message, much of which has not changed in many years. First, public sector employees should be sure that their message or argument is accurate. Next, does that message make sense to the voter? In other words, will that argument persuade the voter to vote against drastic pension reform measures? Public employees should stay away from some of the mythical arguments that national and international unions have traditionally made. These arguments have become a part of the very fuel of the pension reform movement. Here are a few of the classics that, believe it or not, I have recently heard from union leaders:
Old School Union: Public Employees Are Taxpayers Too and Basically Pay for Themselves.
Try It This Way: Public Employees Provide the Essential Services to Keep Our Communities Running.
The old school union argument enrages pension reform activists. Of course most public employees pay taxes, just like everyone else. But the fact is tax revenue generated by public employees only pays for a fraction of their cost. Depending on the study, tax revenue generated from public employees only covers between 8% and slightly over 10% of their costs. It takes many private sector taxpayers to pay for one public sector employee. The old school union argument misses the point entirely. The focus should not be on the actual taxes paid by public sector employees. Rather, the focus must be on the value of the services provided by those employees. For example, most communities would not be desirable places to live without services such as police, fire, parks and road repair. A community without a high level of these services begins to look like a third world country.
Old School Union: Payment of Pension Benefits Stimulate the Economy to Such a Degree That California’s Economy Will Fail Without Them.
Try It This Way: Pension benefits are an investment in the future of our communities.
According to the California Public Retirement System expenditure of pension benefits by CalPERS retirees generates about 26 billion dollars in economic activity in California. That represents less than one half of one percent of California’s overall 1.2 trillion dollar economy. The economic footprint of pension benefit expenditures by CalPERS retirees is inconsequential to California’s overall economy in a pure economic sense. However, public sector employee organizations must focus on a different type of benefit that stable pension benefits provide the community. Stable and attractive pension benefits attract a high quality, committed employee. California public employee organizations need to focus on the overall benefit to the community and not boil it down to economic analysis. Stable pension benefits are the foundation to a stable workforce. In many ways, 1.9 trillion dollar California economy is not possible with a relatively inexpensive stable public sector workforce to support it.
Old School Union: Public Employees Could Easily Make a Lot More Money Working in the Private Sector.
Try It This Way: Public Sector Employees Have Chosen the Path of Public Service, are Valuable, and Should be Recognized.
While historically public sector jobs tended to pay lower salaries than their private sector counterparts recent studies show that is no longer the case. Over the last fifteen years public sector base salaries have increased dramatically, in some cases more than 100%. Those gains have far out distanced their private sector counterparts. Today, in many jobs the public sector employee actually makes more money than a similarly situated private sector employee. What public sector employees have done is make a choice of public service. Many public sector jobs take extensive training and years of experience to master. A community as a whole benefits from this experience. By making a commitment to public service, the public sector employee has undoubtedly sacrificed career opportunities that existed in strong economic times. And those times with return. The skill, expertise and experience of the public sector employee should be recognized and respected by their private sector counterparts.
Old School Union: We’ve Earned It. The Rich Taxpayer Is Just Going to Have to Figure out a Way to Pay.
Try It This Way: The Payment of Wages and Benefits To Quality Public Sector Employees is an Investment in Our Community’s Future.
Believe it or not, the “just tax the rich” argument is still commonly made around the union boardroom and enrages pension reform activists. Again, the focus of the union’s argument should be the value the public employees provides to its industry and the community as a whole. For example, teachers’ unions should focus on school reform and ways of making our schools more effective educational institutions. The primary tool for reform in the schools is a highly skilled, motivated teacher. That teacher will make the real difference in the classroom.
How Do the Big Teacher’s Unions Get Away With It?
How Do the Big Teacher’s Unions Get Away With Such High Dues?
As a California public school student through high school, son of a public school employee, and a long time coach at a public school for fifteen years, I have seen how hard the majority of teachers work, despite the obstacles they are forced to deal with on a daily basis. As a labor attorney, I am shocked at that these same dedicated and intelligent teachers have tolerated and continue to tolerate being represented by a union that takes from them much more than what it gives them.
Over the past couple of years, and especially since last March when I have taken a more active role in helping to represent the Horizon Certificated Employees Association (HCEA), a public charter school teachers association, I have started looking into what the traditional, “big” teachers unions offer their members, and at what price.
The standard union dues for a full time teacher in California is about $650/year for the state association and another $175 for the national association. The local association keeps another $100-$300. The part-time dues are lower proportionally. That comes out to over $100 per month since most teachers are paid on a ten month contract.
What do these teachers get for these high dues? Surely they must get an attorney to represent them if they are being investigated for discipline or have a professional labor negotiator working for them to negotiate their contract or handle workplace grievances and problems? No. For the most part, teachers use a system of stewards (fellow teachers) to “represent” other teachers as they go through the disciplinary process. When it comes to bargaining, teachers typically have a negotiations team that spends hours undergoing training from the state association to negotiate for themselves. To be fair, the state associations do provide some level of professional support, but far less than the huge dues would suggest.
For comparison, Goyette & Associates represents a large number of police, fire and general employee public employee associations. Each of these associations’ members gets professional representation at the earliest stages of discipline and we are actively working with each group on their contract issues and negotiations. Even the public safety unit with the highest rate of usage pays only 60-70% of what teachers pay in union dues.
Surely, the political arm of the state and national teacher associations must justify the huge dues? Die-hard members may make this argument, but the reality is that only a small portion of union dues actually get to political campaigns. Most dues goes to the huge administrative overhead of these massive organizations. Certainly, California teachers’ unions have a big voice in state politics, but that does not clinch the argument that teachers ought to pay such high fees for that voice. In the alternative framework below, a local teachers association can use the money currently earmarked for the state and national groups and use most of it for local politics, or send it to the big unions for politics – but by choice.
There is another way of doing this.
A local California teachers association with 800 members currently brings in about $800,000 in dues. Of that, almost $700,000 goes to their state and national associations. The other $100,000 is used by the local association to cover meeting expense, a small local office and maybe staff, and other costs. Usually, one of the biggest “discretional” expenses is travel and registration fee expenses to attend conferences and trainings put on by the state and federal associations.
What’s the alternative? Decertification…”fire” the big union.
What if instead of the budget picture painted above, the local association could keep that $700,000 in dues each year? The local association would still keep its rights to collectively bargain a contract with the school district, but it would have the freedom to decide how much and to whom ALL of its membership dues were spent.
An “independent” teachers association with these 800 teachers could take the $700,000 and do a lot of things…this is just one possibility: 1) Use $240,000 and hire a law firm to provide the teacher members with professional representation at every step of the disciplinary process and to hire a professional labor negotiator; 2) Return $200,000 to the members ($200/year); 3) Set aside the other $260,000 for a combination of public relations, local politics and state/national politics. For the politics/PR piece, think about the impact this teachers association would have in a local school board election (the group that approves their contract) if they spent even a portion of that $260,000 on a local election. Also, if the membership felt strongly about the political actions of the state and/or national associations that they formerly belonged to, they could simply send them a check for whatever amount they wanted to support their activities – I doubt that the money would not be accepted.
But Decertification has to be nearly impossible to accomplish? Not true. The process is actually simple and straightforward, though there are some critical timelines that must be met and each step has to be properly taken. The reality is that there are decertifications taking place throughout California of big unions in all layers of public services. The biggest obstacle to teacher taking charge of their labor organizations and dues is their ignorance of the alternatives to the status quo.