Most Californians I know believe that state government employees have a privileged position, given their defined-benefit retirement plans, Cadillac health plans, relatively short working hours, and their protection against firing thanks to civil service rules and union representation. But to some Democratic legislators, the state's public employees actually are members of an oppressed class lacking in basic rights. Hence Assemblyman Roger Dickinson of Sacramento has introduced the "Public Employees Bill of Rights."
The Sacramento Bee summarized the new rights found in the bill:
But the legislation does provide insight into the thinking of the state's Democratic majority. California's attorney general last month gave a patently false title and summary to two pension-reform initiatives, something that provoked the ire of liberal editorialists as well as conservative ones but led the reformers to drop their initiative effort. The state's leaders are mostly blind to the frustration shared by the state's private sector workers. They offer no serious rebuttal to discussions of pension liabilities. They are in denial about the way the state's bureaucracies function and really believe that all criticism of state workers is a right-wing plot. They believe that raising taxes is the best solution.
Most telling, bills such as this show the degree to which the state Democratic Party is captive to the public sector unions. Statesmanship will have to wait for another day.
• Gives unionized state employees priority over outside contractors and excluded state workers to fill permanent, overtime and on-call positions.In California's Legislature, there's a fairly good chance this will pass. It just adds another layer of special protections that already basically exist multiple times, so there's nothing here that will fundamentally change the fact that California state employees have extreme job protection. It's already nearly impossible to contract work out to private contractors for many tasks.
• Sets a one-year statute of limitations for employers to take an adverse action against a state employee. (The current law allows disciplinary actions up to three years after the discovery of fraud, embezzlement or records falsification.)
• Establishes a peer review committee to provide workplace operations input.
• Guarantees that the state won't impose "unreasonable quotas" on employees.
• Bans extra work created by vacancies, furloughs of layoffs without "fair compensation."
• Gives priority to workplace safety and health grievances.
• Explicitly bans workplace discrimination.
• Strengthens whistleblower protections.
• Requires employers exercise "preventive and corrective" actions before administering harsher employee discipline.
• Settles grievances in favor of the employee if the employer misses contractual deadlines for response.
• Defines protections and performance and merit evaluation processes for professionally licensed employees.
• Guarantees independent legal representation for professionally licensed workers named as codefendants in litigation against their employers.
But the legislation does provide insight into the thinking of the state's Democratic majority. California's attorney general last month gave a patently false title and summary to two pension-reform initiatives, something that provoked the ire of liberal editorialists as well as conservative ones but led the reformers to drop their initiative effort. The state's leaders are mostly blind to the frustration shared by the state's private sector workers. They offer no serious rebuttal to discussions of pension liabilities. They are in denial about the way the state's bureaucracies function and really believe that all criticism of state workers is a right-wing plot. They believe that raising taxes is the best solution.
Most telling, bills such as this show the degree to which the state Democratic Party is captive to the public sector unions. Statesmanship will have to wait for another day.
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