

A union known as the California Attorneys, Administrative Law Judges & Hearing Officers in State Government offers an example of the difficulty facing state workers this year.
The lawyers say they are so far behind in their pay scales and the state's proposals so lacking that they went to court to see whether they could go out on strike – against their client, the government. A judge denied the request.
Altogether, 18 of the 21 contracts covering the state public employee unions go up in smoke June 30. Deals on two other groups have already expired. The attorneys have been working without a deal since last June 30, and the correctional officers union saw its contract expire in July 2006. The California Highway Patrol union is the only labor group at peace. Its contract runs through July 2010.
Last week, the state Department of Personnel Administration invited the nine unions representing the 18 bargaining units under the contract gun to submit their proposals. Only one did.
Representatives of the rest said they're still surveying members or measuring their initial contract moves against a state budget projected to run at least $8 billion in the red through the next fiscal year.
Negotiators at the Department of Personnel Administration are bracing for the worst.
"We know it's going to be difficult – that's a given," said DPA spokeswoman Lynelle Jolley. "But we're going into negotiations with the greatest respect for our employees and their union representatives, and we're looking forward to hearing their ideas."
The contracts about to expire cover more than 140,000 of state government's 182,576 unionized employees. They include administrative and clerical workers, scientists, psychiatric technicians, firefighters, plumbers, janitors, heavy-equipment operators, teachers, nurses and more.
Jim Hard, the president of Service Employees International Union Local 1000, which represents nine of the bargaining units, said his organization is not ready yet to unveil its contract opener. Right now, he said, the union is more interested in pushing a plan to resolve the state budget problem by compelling state agencies to collect $8.5 billion in unpaid taxes that SEIU 1000 believes are owed.
"We're not interested in rushing to the bargaining table," Hard said. "The budget is actually our priority right now."
Only the California Association of Professional Scientists forwarded a contract opener in Thursday's "sunshine" proceeding. The union asked for an "equity" increase to match "corresponding classifications and jurisdictions," as well as a cost of living adjustment. Union spokesman Chris Voight said the scientists who staff California's environmental and public health programs need the raises badly, or the state risks losing them.
"We can't wait any longer," Voight said. "The natives are getting restless."
In this contract year, no bargaining unit is more ill at ease than the state attorneys' union. Its 3,654 members have been working without an agreement since June. They've gone without a raise since July 2006, and the state, in its initial contract proposal, said the unit's senior attorneys could forget getting one until July 2009. Entry-level lawyers, meanwhile, some of whom make less than $60,000 a year, were in line for a raise of 2 percent to 4 percent this July 1, under the DPA's pay proposal, which it has since withdrawn.
With state lawyers lagging behind public-sector lawyers in the state's biggest cities by double-digit percentages, their union filed suit against Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's administration last year claiming that California is failing to meet its constitutional, civil-service obligation to provide "like pay for like work."
Attorney General Jerry Brown, who has about 900 deputies who are union members, filed a declaration in the case on behalf of the employees.
"In many parts of the state, our lawyers are so underpaid that it's not only unfair, but it's a grave disservice to the state of California," Brown said in an interview. "It's affecting recruitment and it's forcing some good lawyers to look elsewhere."
The lawyers' case was thrown out of Sacramento Superior Court, but it's still alive on appeal.
Brown did not submit a declaration in support of the attorneys' strike request, but he said the action speaks to "their discontent."
"I'm not going to encourage anyone to withhold their service," Brown said. "But I will say that over time, the state's going to start losing cases. You're not going to have the legal firepower to defend the state's interests. And we have big lawsuits, in the prisons and everywhere else."
On the prison front, the 30,500 members of the California Correctional Peace Officers Association are now approaching two years of working without a contract. When the state imposed its "last, best and final" offer on the union last year, its negotiators said they'd be going to the Legislature this year asking to give the covered employees a 5 percent raise. So far, nobody in the Legislature has stepped up to carry the proposal, and contract talks are moribund.
"We remain where we were at two years ago," union spokesman Lance Corcoran said.
Everybody else is preparing for what they believe will be labor's version of trench warfare.
"Everybody knows it's a tight budget year," said Bruce Blanning of the Professional Engineers in California Government, "and that always presents a challenge."
(sacbee.com)