“He told the class to take advantage of the academy, and then find jobs elsewhere. The police union tries to get us to leave the department.” – Anonymous source to NBC Bay Area, television report “Another San Jose Police Recruit Says Union Tried to Get Cadets to ‘Find Jobs Elsewhere’,” Oct. 28, 2014 (excerpt begins at 1:38 in report).

A precedent setting new development in San Jose last week provides abundant evidence of just how powerful local government unions really are in California.As reported today inSan Jose Insideand elsewhere, an embattled city council has tentatively approved a new contract with San Jose’s police union that awards them“a 5 percent ‘retention’ bonus and an 8 percent raise over the next 16 months. In addition, former officers who return to the force in the next year can claim… Read More

“Once people get the facts, they do not support slashing people’s pensions.” – Dave Low, chairman, Californians for Retirement Security (Washington Post, February 25, 2014)

Really?

Making sure “people get the facts” is difficult when most “facts” the public sees are promulgated to the media by pension fund PR departments eager to preserve the torrent of taxpayers money flowing into their favored investment firms, along with PR firms representingtaxpayer-funded public sector unions whose primary reason to exist is to increase the wages and benefits of their members.

According to the most recent data available from the California State Controller – over $600 billion of taxpayer’s money is privately invested by public employee pension funds (Public Retirement Systems Annual Report, FYE 6-30-2011, released 5-22-2013, page xv, Figure 2),… Read More