☆ Expert on SJ union deal: "City should've stood firm"
Sheridan Swanson, Research Manager at California Policy Center, surveys SJ's union contract kerfuffle. She finds that while Mayor Mahan was pursuing the firm, fiscally responsible approach to union negotiations—his colleagues on the Council wimped out. An Opp Now exclusive.
Opportunity Now: SJ City Council caved to union demands even before a strike was enacted. What's with that?
Sheridan Swanson: The timing of the agreement was curious. By giving in to union demands so close to the potential strike, the City appears to have painted themselves into a corner, negotiations-wise. It showed both the unions and the public that the threat of strike had real currency and credibility with the City—that the strike warning made the city sweat and revealed that the Council was afraid of being blamed for service disruption. While it's true that the strike would've caused general inconvenience, and put some public services on hold, it is by no means clear that the City would've shouldered the blame. From my perspective, the City could've held firm and communicated that the increases they offered were the best they could do. They should have had better communication about what the union's demands would mean for taxpayers.
In my opinion, the City should've followed the leadership of their mayor and shown more fortitude.
ON: Local media is trying to create a narrative of a union upswing in California—is that legit?
SS: I noticed that County workers just got a big raise, too. So there's a sense of dominoes falling, of growing power and momentum behind increased wages. But that momentum is tenuous, not inevitable. I think it would only take one city to stand up the way SJ's mayor did to slow it down, to stop the dominoes falling, to show other cities that they can support fair-minded increases without getting rolled over.
ON: We couldn't help but notice that one of the union reps stated that City employees deserve "tenured" positions. "Tenured." Like, can't get fired. Like, employment for life. Wow.
SS: Taxpayers deserve a public service force that has accountability. Tenure—which makes it virtually impossible to fire employees—makes that accountability very hard to achieve. It appears that unions want to be held to a different standard than the people who are actually paying their salaries and benefits. Their focus is always on what they think the City owes them, not on the value they are bringing to taxpayers. Most people work in private enterprise, where compensation is generally tied to performance and where nothing is guaranteed. It's more than a little odd that people working for the taxpayers get such a more generous and lax employment model.
ON: SJ 's mayor said "Council did not do its job" by acceding to union demands without a whimper. Is this out of the ordinary?
SS: I really liked the way the mayor pointed out that the City has $4bn in unfunded pension liability and $1.7bn in deferred maintenance. That's vital data; and I can see why the unions don't want the public to see the long-term liabilities and debts this deal will make the City deal with. That is thoughtful, responsible messaging on his part.
ON: As writers and bloggers, we can't help but notice the messaging strategies at work in these types of conflicts. Compliant local media plays an important role here, but unions have been doing these campaigns for a long time; and it shows. They have refined their communication such that they sidestep the tradeoffs inevitably required to meet their demands, and get local media (which in SJ they actually fund) to focus on stories of members' financial hardships.
SS: Unions are frequently saying their members are the "poorest they've ever been." It's up to the City and local media to educate taxpayers and the public and have them look at fiscal realities. Your mayor looks like he is trying to do that, and it's to his credit.
ON: Why would the union prefer a raise now if it invites layoffs later?
SS: The unions probably think that time is on their side, and that when cities get around to confronting the tradeoffs these increases inevitably bring, people will forget that it was precisely these increases that are forcing service cuts and tax increases in the future. They're betting that they can just start over every new negotiation from a new, higher floor, and the city will wilt for fear of disrupting services.
But it doesn't always work out that way. If there are layoffs later, that means there will be fewer dues payers—and that isn't good for the union. But it's easy to predict that they will have a strategy to counter that, and will come back later with another campaign about how the vacancy rate is really high, how employees are poorer than ever, and use similar messaging as this time. The M.O. of public employee unions is to pretend that tradeoffs—such as layoffs, service cuts, and/or tax increases—aren't an issue or don't exist. They're betting the Council will blink yet again, for fear of being blamed for service cuts.
For more from California Policy Center, click here.
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