As reported in the Sacramento Bee on Sept. 26 “Teachers union, SEIU open wallets to California Republican Party,” in recent weeks the California Teachers Association donated the California GOP $15,000, the SEIU Local 1000 donated $10,000, and the California Correctional Peace Officers Association donated another $25,000. Representatives of all three of these powerful public sector unions were present at the GOP convention in Anaheim last weekend.

As a proportion of total GOP fundraising in California in 2013, $50,000 is small potatoes. Under the leadership of their new chairman Jim Brulte, theCalifornia GOP has raised over $3.0 million so far in 2013, enough to pay off their debts and put them onto viable financial footing. As a proportion of total public sector union political spending in California, $50,000 is even smaller potatoes. Just the CTA, with 325,000 members who on average pay over $1,000 per year in dues – about 30% of which is used for political activities – spends around $100 million per year to… Read More

Most fire fighters do not get Social Security, so they completely count on the pensions they have contributed to, been promised and earned over a career. Take their pensions away or cut their pensions and you have fire fighters who risked their lives over a career to save others living in destitution, on public assistance, meaning the taxpayers have to foot that bill, too.

– Harold A. Schaitberger,President of the International Association of Fire Fighters, Press Release Sept. 26, 2013

The implication in Mr. Schaitberger’s remark, apparently, is that $234,000 per year isn’t enough to permit someone to save enough money to avoid “living in destitution.”

Here’s how Orange County’s full-time firefighters did in 2011, according to data from their own website (ref.OCFA Employee Compensation,2011 – Grand Jury Format). Anyone who wishes to verify all of the calculations referenced in this post can… Read More

On Sept. 23rd the New York Times published an in-depth report on how the cost of public employee pensions is causing budget challenges in San Jose, California. Entitled “Struggling, San Jose Tests a Way to Cut Benefits,” this article ran over 1,500 words and was filled with examples of city workers who are struggling financially.

Referring to city employees who face having more pay withheld from their paychecks to fund their pension benefits, the authors provide quotes:

“They’re kind of encouraging us to leave.”

“I’m leaving as soon as I get my 25 years in.”

”What they’re doing is destroying what had been a great police department.”

”I have to sell my house.”

While replete with quotes, however, the NYT only chose to share one statistic with its readers:

“San Jose now spends one-fifth of its $1.1 billion general fund on pensions and retiree health care, and the amount keeps rising.”

Since the New York Times is unwilling to… Read More

By Larry Sand and Ed Ring

September 16, 2013

Although California is not a right-to-work state, public school teachers have the ability to receive a yearly rebate of $300 – $400 from the California Teachers Association.

Teachers have these options because the United States Supreme Court has held that a union can’t force a non-union member to pay for the union’s political and other activities unrelated to bargaining and representing workers.

A teacher’s ability to exercise these options is limited, however, and the necessary paperwork must be sent to CTA by November 15. (All teachers in LA Unified and those represented by the California Federation of Teachers have different rules and information is available on CaliforniaTeacherFreedom.com.)

First, if teachers are CTA members, they must leave the union. A generic resignation letter is available here. Teachers only have to opt out of CTA one… Read More

“Just as the overseer of Detroit lied to the public about Detroit’s unfunded pension liability, these extremists are likewise lying to the taxpayers of Orange County, and they’re following his playbook.” – Jennifer Muir, Communications Director, Orange County Employees Association

We’re not lying, Jennifer. We’re not even stretching the truth.

What government union spokesperson Muir is referring to is an analysis released last week by the California Public Policy Center entitled “Are Annual Contributions Into Orange County’s Employee Pension Plan Adequate?”

They aren’t adequate. They aren’t even close to adequate. No lie.

The problem with pensions, unfortunately, as Teri Sforza aptly put it in her coverage of the CPPC study on September 10th in the Orange County Register, is“the nature of America’s public pension systems is to peer 20 to 30 years into the future – and the crystal ball can get a bit… Read More

[Publisher’s Note – We are pleased to offer this column from Ed Ring, Executive Director of the California Public Policy Center. He is one of the state’s leading experts on public employee and public employee union finance issues – Flash]

Last week UnionWatch reported on new efforts underway in the northwest to implement right-to-work laws. In particular, we reported on a public sector right-to-work initiative proposed for the November 2014 Oregon state ballot, “Oregon ‘Public Employee Choice Act’ Aims for 2014 Ballot.” These efforts will trigger a union funded backlash that will intensify in direct proportion to the probability these reforms may have to be successful. What happened on Sept. 4th in Vancouver, Washington is a sobering, and mild, reminder to reformers of what they are in for if they ever gain real momentum with voters. Click on the links, especially the video.

From the Macinack Center website: Two people were arrested Thursday night as part of an anti-worker… Read More

An initiative that will permit public employees to not only opt-out of paying full membership fees, but actually allow them to opt-out of paying anything whatsoever to unions has been filed in Oregon. While public sector union membership is supposedly voluntary in most states that permit unionization of their public servants, the unions nearly always are able to still collect the lion’s share of the dues via the so-called “agency fee,” or “fair share” fee. Typically equal to about 75% of normal dues, this is the portion of dues the unions claim is necessary to fund collective bargaining. If a worker benefits from collective bargaining, so the argument goes, they have to pay the costs for bargaining, even if they aren’t members.

Here is the text of “Initiative Petition 9,” and here is the pendingtitle and summary. The initiative is currently before the Oregon Supreme Court, facing a challenge by the unions to language used by their attorney general in the title and summary. Once released, proponents will have until July 2014 to gather the… Read More

“Not surprisingly, within moments of news of Detroit’s bankruptcy, pension scare mongers took to their pedestals to place all the blame on pensions. California, Los Angeles, and other governments would surely follow Detroit’s footsteps in short order, they cried. It’s simply not true, like most of the claims made by the anti-pension soldiers who have been trying for years to take away the retirement security of firefighters, teachers, police officers and other public servants.”

Ralph Miller,President, LA County Probation Officers’ Union, AFSCME,Fox & Hounds, August 20th, 2013

Miller has a point. California is not Detroit. California’s population has not imploded, nor will it. Detroit’s economy was reliant on one industry, California’s huge economy is diverse and relatively healthy. Turning California around, while daunting, is going to be a lot easier than turning around Detroit. And, yes, it was a collapsing industrial base and an imploding population that did as much or more… Read More