I have to admit, when it comes to personal relationships with honchos in public employee unions, I really don’t have too many. I worked for the Orange County Sheriff’s Department for many years, and so I have a friendship with Wayne Quint, the President of the Deputy’s union there. And my mother-in-law is the Secretary/Treasurer of a union within the California State University system. I think that may be it, actually.
So I really didn’t know what to expect yesterday when I sat down for lunch at the Esquire Grill by the State Capitol in Sacramento with the Mike Jimenez, the President of one of California’s largest and most influential public employee unions — the California Correctional Peace Officers Association.
I guess you could call this lunch a "victory lap" of sorts as we toasted the defeat of Fabian Nunez’s Proposition 93 scheme.
Jimenez came with his "posse" – longtime CCPOA spokesman Ryan Sherman and Juan Vasquez, the "Assistant to the President" — who seemed rather unintimidating, though undoubtedly he can kill people with his little pinky finger.
Actually, this is a good point to insert an editorial about the CCPOA that is important. People sometimes like to refer to them as the "Republican" Union because about two-thirds of California’s prison guards are registered Republicans (so they say) and the fact that they spread around a lot of cash to Republicans, which is different than just about every other public employee union. That said, there is no doubt that the impact of public employee unions in California has been devastating. When we often refer to the "special interests" that have control over the legislature, the CCPOA is part of that mix, albeit from a more unique angle than more of the traditional ones. In the battle to reduce the size and scope of state government, in general, one is not looking to the CCPOA for assistance. As a matter of fact, like most unions, their reason for being is to improve the salary, benefits and working conditions for their members. They have been very effective, and California prison guards are VERY well paid, thanks to a lot of very successful and aggressive lobbying and political action.
Jimenez is a colorful character. He has an accent that I guess is "Midwest" as he hails from Kansas, and has been a Correctional Officer (undoubtedly the preferred vernacular to "prison guard") for more than two decades. Of course, for many years he has been working full time for the CCPOA, the last five years as President, taking over for his infamous predecessor, Don Novey. Jimenez is a Republican, though he’s a bit down on the GOP these days.
I don’t know if I was expecting Jimenez to be a funny guy – but he is. In fact, disarmingly so. Kind of like Darth Vader with charisma, I suppose, given my theory that all of these union leaders by definition prioritize money and goodies for their members over the best interests of California taxpayers.
We spent quite some time talking about Capitol politics, including in depth discussions about Governor Schwarzenegger and some of our legislators.
More that anything though, we relished the defeat of Proposition 93.
At the end of our lunch, right after our server took a CCPOA credit card to pay for our lunch (thanks guys!), I took the opportunity to editorialize to Jimenez, Sherman and Vasquez. I told them that I supported the privatization of prisons. I told them that I didn’t think union employee funds should be used for political purposes without the express permission of individual union members. And I told him that I didn’t even think public employees should be unionized.
You could see Jimenez’ eyes light up, and he was ready to "take me on" to discuss these issues. "Just give me a few minutes and we’ve have you convinced about what a terrible idea it is to privatize prisons."
Then he showed a big grin — he obviously liked my moxie. And while I clearly have a lot of differences of opinion with the CCPOA, I didn’t really come to lunch expecting to walk away with "warm fuzzies" for a Public Employee Union President. But I did. Go figure.
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