Targeted by the governor, unions find new strength as they rally to the cause

By Mike Myslinski

When Arnold Schwarzenegger decided to try to silence the voices of California teachers, firefighters, nurses and their unions, he apparently forgot the old union doctrine that an injury to one is an injury to all.

By scapegoating the state's public employee union members as "special interests" in the process of campaigning for his so-called reform agenda, the governor has ignited the state's labor movement with a passion not seen since the general strikes that hit San Francisco and other California cities in the 1930s. Instead of using clubs to beat back the unions, the governor is using an agenda that assaults the job rights, pensions and collective bargaining power of the public servants who educate, heal and protect the state's citizens.

A television ad produced by the Alliance for a Better California, a coalition of unions, school administrators, community groups and consumer organizations that includes CTA, sums up the anger of working people toward the governor.

"He's not fighting special interests, he's fighting us," the ad says.

He's fighting us...

Two initiatives in particular are directed at silencing public employee unions altogether:

• The Public Employee Union Dues initiative, filed by Lewis K. Uhler, would require public-sector unions to go through endless paperwork before using member dues for political purposes. Citizens for Paycheck Protection raised nearly $2.4 million by late April to qualify this initiative for the next election.
• The Prohibition on Government Employee Payroll Deductions for Political Purposes initiative would prohibit California public employers from making automatic withdrawals from paychecks for political use. The Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, a drug trade group, amassed $11.2 million to push its agenda, but abruptly pulled the measure from signature gathering April 22. PhRMA is also seeking to qualify a voluntary drug discount initiative in opposition to the Cheaper Prescription Drugs for California initiative supported by CTA.

Under California law, unions already have a process whereby members can ask that their dues not be used for political purposes.

If the bans on political expenditures had been in place in earlier decades, CTA members would have had a harder time leading the fight for laws that reduced class sizes, provided a minimum funding guarantee for schools (Proposition 98), secured better teacher pensions or provided $25 billion in statewide school construction bonds in just the past three years.

"It's really offensive what the governor's trying to do," says CTA President Barbara E. Kerr. During his term in office, Schwarzenegger has already raised more than $30 million from the "real special interests" — insurance, financial, pharmaceutical and real estate companies — to support his agenda.

"Corporations have no business stopping us from lobbying to protect public schools and teachers," Kerr says. "Only CTA's 335,000 members' deciding how their dues are spent in our democratic process has made it possible to fight this governor. We only have each other. Teachers can't go out and charge wealthy CEOs $100,000 for a chicken dinner to raise money like the governor does."

She says the union dues initiatives add insult to injury because they don't restrict the spending activities of private sector unions or require that big corporations get the permission of stockholders to spend money on politics.

Kerr doesn't believe it when the governor denies that he's behind the initiatives seeking to silence unions. If he is against them, "then he should come out and say he's against them," she says. "His agenda is clear, and it's frightening."

In fact, Joel Fox, a paid adviser to Schwarzenegger during the recall, is co-chair of Citizens to Save California (the committee formed to push the governor's agenda) and the Coalition for Employee Rights (the committee formed to push Uhler's "paycheck protection" initiative). He's also chair of the Small Business Action Committee (Business PAC), which has made nearly all the contributions to CER's efforts to qualify Uhler's "paycheck protection" measure.

Another officer the groups hold in common is James Lacey, who works for CSC and serves as treasurer for CER and the Business PAC.

The information was disclosed after the Alliance for a Better California, which includes CTA, filed formal complaints with the California Fair Political Practices Commission over the governor's committee's failure to disclose the source of its funds, in violation of campaign finance laws. ABC has charged the governor, CSC, the Business PAC and Uhler's CER committee with conspiring to conceal from voters the source of campaign contributions.

ABC alleges that the governor through his CSC committee is directing contributions in support of the Uhler initiative to Business PAC, which in turn is transferring the funds to Uhler's CER committee.

At a recent Placer County event, the governor was seen handing out fliers printed by his own campaign committee in support of one so-called paycheck protection initiative, according to the San Francisco Chronicle. The newspaper also quoted the chair of the Republican National Committee as saying the national Republican Party would strongly support such a measure.

In the Wall Street Journal, John Fund, who writes from a corporate point of view, notes that even if every other initiative idea the governor has proposed falls flat, conservatives can still look forward to passage of the so-called paycheck protection measure, which he describes as "aimed at the heart of the Democratic Party's financial base."

"Redistricting, budget reform and paycheck protection are the big three," says Sen. John Campbell (R-Irvine), a close ally of Schwarzenegger.

"Don't agonize. Organize!" Kerr urged educators at meetings across the state after the governor's attacks were unveiled.

Educators have responded with a passion. Carrying signs such as "Education Cuts Never Heal" and "Arnold: Kids Are America's Special Interest," teachers have joined crowds of protesters outside the governor's fundraising events in San Diego, Palm Springs, Irvine, Anaheim, Santa Rosa, San Jose, San Francisco and Sacramento. They also packed "Save 98" rallies put on by the California Education Coalition in the Bay Area and Southern California.

A new statewide poll released April 28 shows the governor is reaping what he sows — only 40 percent of Californians approve of his job performance now, a plunge of 20 points since January, according to the Public Policy Institute of California.

"Together, unions with parents and community members have forced this governor to withdraw his pension reform initiative, knocked him down in the polls, and exposed his real agenda," says Kerr. "If the governor still wants to fight with us, I say bring it on. We're not going away."

CTA members are seeing that this fight goes deeper than politics. It's another example of what unions have been fighting against for 150 years: the desire by big business to attack unions' power to collectively negotiate better pay, benefits and a higher standard of living for the poor and middle classes.

"The governor's reforms are really about cutting off the voice of labor in electoral politics," says Katie Quan, chair of the Center for Labor Research and Education at the University of California at Berkeley. "His reforms that have been proposed are really about a fundamental restructuring of the economy and of political power."

Since taking office, the governor has tried to eliminate virtually all funding for faculty to do research in labor centers in the UC system, says Quan. "That's pretty obviously a political attack on labor."

When the governor pulled his pension reform initiative out of signature gathering on April 7, NEA Director Eugene Fernandes worried that the solidarity holding the state employee unions together would unravel. But his fears were unfounded. "They're still with us."

"The governor says he's for the people, but he's not," Fernandes says. "He's for special interests."

He's fighting us...The attacks on union political spending come at a time when the AFL-CIO estimates that corporate interests contribute 12 times what unions contribute to politics. Although CTA is not part of the AFL-CIO, it worked with all of its affiliated unions in California to defeat a similar measure, Proposition 226, in 1998.

Currently, there are 2.4 million union members in California.

The governor's camp knows that CTA and its parent union, the 2.7 million-member National Education Association, represent a powerful unionized force for change in the U.S.

While about 13 percent of all U.S. workers belong to unions, about 38 percent of education employees are unionized. The union advantage is clear: 70 percent of all unionized workers in the U.S. have guaranteed pensions compared with 16 percent of non-union workers. The median weekly wages of union workers are 27 percent higher.

"There's nothing wrong with belonging to a union, and in fact our unions should be proud of raising the standard of living for so many," says CTA Board member Tom Conry, a teacher in largely conservative San Diego County. "This governor's attacks on unions are attacks on the working people of California."

The governor has angered many teachers in San Diego County, he says, "but Republican teachers here are really outraged. They thought they finally had a Republican governor who was pro-education, and then he betrayed us all."

When Murrieta Teachers Association President Jack Mitchell saw a paid signature gatherer with an insulting poster — "Sign Petitions for Merit Pay. Don't Pay the Lazy" — he quickly organized a squad of teachers to be on call to drop in on the operation outside a Riverside County Target store and educate the public. In four hours of picketing there by teachers on a recent Sunday, only three people signed the governor's petition.

"The governor is trying to disassociate the union from the teacher. We are letting people know that the union is the teacher."

Mitchell, a Republican, is joining legions of teachers across the state who are taking up the pen to combat the governor.

"There is not a single proposal made by the governor that improves public education in California," Mitchell wrote in a letter published in the Californian newspaper. "Most of them are attempts at disrupting the teachers' union in California."

The governor could learn something by reviewing what President John F. Kennedy said about the value of labor unions in America: "Our labor unions are not narrow, self-seeking groups. They have raised wages, shortened hours, and provided supplemental benefits. Through collective bargaining and grievance procedures, they have brought justice and democracy to the shop floor."

Or this: "The American labor movement has consistently demonstrated its devotion to the public interest. It is, and has been, good for all Americans."

He's fighting us...

The Union Advantage

Sources: AFL-CIO research based on U.S Department of Labor, Employment and Earnings, January 2004; Bureau of labor Statistics, National Compensation Survey: Employee Benefits in Private Industry, March 2004.

* Defined benefit pension
** Short-term coverage