The gloves have officially come off in labor negotiations between the city and public employee unions, and whispers of potential strikes are being heard in certain City Hall corners. On Tuesday, the City Council imposed 10 percent cuts in total compensation for four unions, including the city’s largest—AFSCME—by an 8-3 vote.
Councilmembers Ash Kalra, Xavier Campos and Kansen Chu voted against the measure, which will affect more than 2,800 of San Jose’s 5,446 employees. Surprisingly, generally pro-labor councilmembers Nancy Pyle and Donald Rocha voted with the majority and Mayor Chuck Reed, who will be delivering his final budget message on Friday.
“We’ve been negotiating for four months unsuccessfully with those unions, so it was time to move ahead,” Reed said Wednesday, adding that failure to act would have resulted in up to 300 employees being laid off.
San Jose is in the 10th straight year of a budget shortfall, with this year’s deficit estimated at $115 million. Roughly 600 city worker positions are expected to be eliminated, according to a budget proposed by City Manager Debra Figone.
All but one of the city’s 11 labor unions—the Police Officers Association—have now accepted or been forced to take ongoing cuts in pay and benefits. The POA is the lone remaining group to refuse the ongoing cuts, instead offering a proposal for a one-year cut that the city rejected weeks ago. The urgency to get a deal done has never been greater, which is why city and POA officials met Wednesday morning.
“I think that’s all going to be discovered in the next 24 hours,” said Councilmember Sam Liccardo, “because we’re just about out of time to negotiate.”
If police and the city’s lead negotiatior, Alex Gurza, cannot come to agreement on a 10 percent ongoing cut in pay and benefits, which is where the city has held the line, the matter will go to arbitration. That could result in 150-plus officers being laid off, Reed said, in addition to about 120 positions that are almost certain to be eliminated regardless of any breakthrough.
Making the next month even tenser as the city approaches the beginning of the fiscal year (July 1) is the potential for strikes, an uncommon occurrence here in San Jose. The last public-employee union to strike was ABMEI, which represents planning and building inspectors, in late 2007. At that time, Nora Campos, who is now a member of the State Assembly, was the lone councilmember to support the strike by refusing to cross the picket line.
“We don’t have much experience with strikes, and hopefully we wont,” Liccardo said. “Obviously, nobody wants to see a strike, but the reality is we had two choices: we either impose cuts in wages or cuts through layoffs.”
Ongoing cuts in compensation are only a small part of the satisfying the city’s budget shortfall, though, as they would only save the city about $38 million. As part of his budget message on Friday, Mayor Reed said he plans to announce “millions of dollars in single digits” will be shifted to salvage or eradicate a range of city programs.
“San Jose is in the 10th straight year of a budget shortfall, with this year’s deficit estimated at…” blah, blah, blah.
It’s hugely annoying to see the above statement time and time again, with our politicians not lifting a finger to correct the underlying problem.
To them I say, get off of your collective arses and put measures on the ballot to shift future funding of the Capital and Special Accounts to the General Fund. Don’t continue to spew lies and nonsense about how that simply can’t be done.
Many of your constituents may be a little slow on the draw, but most of us know you’ve been BS’ing us on this for years.
If you don’t do it, we, the voters, will do it for you… and I promise you won’t like the result!
The voters should also be asking where are our refunds? Other than public safety, a very large portion of the city is funded through non-general fund sources. The pay cuts from all the city employees make those departments and divisions less expensive to run, but the savings do not go to the general fund. Where is the money?
Where are the savings to the various capital funds such as
Airport Capital Improvement Fund
Parks and Recreation Bond Projects Fund
Neighborhood Security Act Bond Fund
Where are the savings to the various special purpose funds such as
Sewer Service and Use Charge Fund (Enterprise Fund)
Airport Maintenance and Operation Fund (Enterprise Fund)
Housing Trust Fund (Special Revenue Fund)
Integrated Waste Management Fund (Special Revenue Fund)
http://www.sanjoseca.gov/Mayor/goals/budget/BudgetBasic.asp#GF_Expenses
If the savings from all those support people that are paid from non-general fund sources cannot be used to help with the city’s general fund shortfall, then where is my rebate for sewer, garbage and water?
When is the city council planning on addressing this issue of where all this saved money went?
We need to find out where the money went? As others have questioned, why can other, smaller cities prosper and San Jose cannot. Follow the mismanagement trail. This SHOULD be a wealthy, vibrant city…but it is a broke, poor city. Why? People should be questioning how that happened. Don’t let them fool you into believing it was the cause of the pensions. That is what they want you to believe, in order to deflect inquiries as to where the money really went. They want you to believe the City’s downfall was due to the pensions. It wasn’t. It is due to mismanagement and they should be held accountable.
Until the citizens actually realize that it is NOT, NOT, NOT the pensions that broke this city, the citizens are going to be pushing for correction in the wrong place. They are so focused on blaming the employee’s pensions as the cause for this city’s financial woes that they are going to let the real culprit’s escape. This is what the administration is wanting. I am telling you, you have to start looking at the real cause; the mismanagement of the taxpayer’s money. If the administration had manage the money correctly, there would be no pension funding problems. In order to correct a disease, you have to get to the root of the problem to find out what the cause of the disease was. You HAVE to find out how the money was mismanaged, which was the start of the disease. The disease was allowed to spread and now the disease is causing the death of the host…the city. People, you have to listen to me. Please take the time to find out how the money was mismanaged. They WANT you to believe the cause is the pensions. That way they can throw you off of the trail of what REALLY happened. IF you do not look to the real root of the problem, you are not going to be able to correct and get rid of the disease. You can provide medicine for a disease, which is what the administration is doing by taking everything away from the employee, but the medicine on covers up the disease. It doesn’t get rid of it. When the medicine stops working, the disease starts to grow again and spreads even more. Next year, the administration will come back and say they need more and then more and then more, because the medicine will have stopped working. YOU HAVE TO GET TO THE ROOT OF THE CAUSE OF THE DISEASE; THE MISMANAGEMENT OF THE MONEY. That is where you have to start to make the correction. Once you can cease the mismanagement of the money, the disease will stop spreading and will be eliminated. DO NOT LET THEM STEER YOUR FOCUS INTO ANOTHER DIRECTION…to the employees. START LOOKING IN THE TRUE DIRECTION FOR CHANGE>>>THE ADMINISTRATION. That is the only way you are going to find the cure for the disease.
Reed’s political career is starting to get real bumpy. All he needs now is enough people to stand together and chant “Impeach Reed’s Greed!…Impeach Reed’s Greed!…Impeach Reed’s Greed!…Impeach Reed’s Greed!…Impeach Reed’s Greed!…Impeach Reed’s Greed!…Impeach Reed’s Greed!…” Right in front of city hall and maybe the rest of his absent minded followers on the council will start thinking for themselves once again.
The Police Officers Assoc failed beyond any Union has done before. In an effort to squeeze the last dime out of the
tax paying people has failed. They should have walked in with SJFD and signed the same contract. This organization has failed it’s members and the City of San Jose. Kudo’s to the SJFD for “GETTING IT”
The tactics of attempting to always use crime and murder to scare us has ended. We already understand that is coming our way. Your dim witted sign on 101 is another attempt at gaining public sympathy has failed. You have NO credibilty and should be ashamed. The members of your own organization should be impeaching your own union people. When are you going to understand UNIONS will be a thing of the past.
And what did SJFD get for signing the contract? An immediate run to the ballot to wipe out their pensions, wipe out protection for disabilities on the job, the elimination of 90 positions, rolling brown-outs, the permanent closure of yet another engine, etc etc.
Ya, I wonder why PD wasn’t lining up to take the same deal?
And let’s see, the last time PD agreed to a deal with the city what did the city do immediately after? Ran to the ballot with Measure V and Measure W. While the city is crying that the cops won’t take a pay cut, they are holding a pension axe over their necks and promising hundreds of layoffs… and being quite clear that none of that is changing if they sign a deal.
Its no wonder that we are losing dozens of cops to other departments – young, freshly trained officers that the City just spent thousands upon thousands training.
In five years, this City will be begging for ideas to figure out what it will take to attract and retain officers to this city. Watch the salaries start shooting up again and the cycle repeats.
SJPD made several contract offers that far exceeded the givebacks that SJFD signed for. Your City negotiators (under orders from Mayor Reed, City Manager Figone and the City Council) REJECTED EVERY ONE!
Read it and weep:
http://www.sanjoseca.gov/employeerelations/labor.asp
SJPD offered a one year salary reduction, one year, not ongoing but one year. This means that next year they get a pay raise of 10% after temporarily giving back that amount for one year. That, in and of itself, precludes SJPD’s offer from exceeding what SJFD did because what SJFD did is permanent/ongoing.
SJPD made a total of two offers, I guess that is several but don’t make it seem like they were grinding away for months, they didn’t make any offers until late in April.
As far as their retirement plan offer goes, if they said that 40% would go into the new retirement plan why were they so afraid to agree to it?
cause you missed the 3 year offer from the pd of -8, -8, +5 ( which still is a net -3 not counting all the other increases in medical/retirement contributions.)
and spoken like a true Council/Mayor/Manager staffer you think getting 10% back after giving it up is a raise?
Give me a quarter, I’ll give it back to you in a year or 2 years or 10 years. I’ll keep it as long as you want me to keep it. No even better, ask for your quarter back when ever you want it back and i’ll give it to you! Tell me how much of a raise that is… please in your best Gurza / Reed / Figone – speak…
“You can’t handle the truth”
Seems the police union likes to hide behind false information.
Yes….Thank YOU!!! All you ever see in the paper or quoted in in many of these blogs is the CITY side..why not what the Union negotiating teams have been offering. The Mayor and City Manager make it sound like the Unions, for the most part, are not communicating and/or offering ANY useful ideas…it’s more like “I can’t hear you”…or “talk to the hand”, because the Unions are not taking at face value all the info that is being presented. There are questions being asked and items and figures to be checked for transparency. If the Unions are not regurgitating back what the Mayors demands are, then all of a sudden he declares impass.
There are 3 sides to every story…your side, my side…and the TRUTH.
I think if the Mercury News prints a story from the Mayor/City Manager, it needs to give equal billing to any/all of the Unions, too. The Citizens of San Jose need/have a right to see what both side are bringing to the table.
I guess I was just raised by some crazy parents how taught us to hear BOTH sides and to tell the truth…crazy ideas…huh?? Truth and fairness…what a concept!!
Bumpy? Are you serious? He ran unopposed. None of his detractors had enough balls to even throw their hat in the ring.
He’s riding a tidalwave of public support. I wonder what the kook-aid tastes like that they serve at the union hall.
There wasn’t anyone to run against him. No decent candidate. There was no other choice.
Tidal wave of support? You must be kidding! That was then, this is now, and now is I could not get police to respond when I was involved in a crash because “they don’t have the staffing to support that”. It was very frustrating and ultimately we needed an officer there. Maybe you never need police but some of us do. We citizens have heard enough BS. Ultimately Reed is a politician and I do not trust him. I supported V and W reluctantly,…NOW I FEEL LIKE I WAS LIED TO. IN FACT, I WOULD SUPPORT A RECALL so guess again. Not all citizens out here are stupid enough to believe Reed.
Reed’s political career is starting to get real bumpy. – Not when he has 75% favorable rating and is doing what voters want and is require to do by law – balance budget
Easy to blame Reed when past union controlled Mayors and Councils voted for too much city employee costs and did not have tax revenues to pay for their political payback promises so stuck current Council with budget deficit and taxpayers with high taxes for less city service
Disappointing that city unions have no solutions except to protest not getting labor controlled prior Council political payback promises when city has no money
Mayor Reed keeps taking about 10 straight years of budget deficits. Here are the facts:
Mayor Reed is in the first year of his second 4 year term as mayor. He served two 4 years terms as a city councilman. The math says he has been on the council as eith Mayor or a councilmember for???? 13 years!!!
If there have been 10 straight years of deficits and he has been Mayor/Councilman for 13 then that means that he has had a huge part in creating the 10 budgets complete with their deficits and passing them by his votes for them.
In those 13 years there have been numerous contracts that came before Mayor/Councilman Reed with City Employee Unions needing a vote for Ratification. Guess What? Mayor/COuncilman Reed voted for every single employee contract that came up for a vote before him!!! E-v-e-r-y F’ing O-N-E!!!!!
So Mayor Reed bears the all responsibility he accepted by (1) going to all those employee unions and promising his support for wage and benefit increases in exchange for???? For those unions endorsing his runs for Council and Mayor. (2) following though on his promises by voting for the contracts. That’s A-L-L of the contracts! (3) the financial peril H-I-S votes put the City in
dire financial straights.
Lets not forget that he keeps telling Major League Baseball that the City has spent millions on land which he plans on giving FREE OF CHARGE to the Oakland A’s in the hopes that they will move to SJ.
It’s not the unions job to create revenue, it’s the mayors and city counicls. So why should the budget be fixed off the working class. What has the mayor done to create revenue? I can’t think of a single thing recently.
The unions have come up with all sorts of ideas on how to save the city money and all have been rejected by the city. It’s interesting that last year public safety had to cut millions out of their budget and yet the city needs more this year. What happend to the money from last year?
To those believing in the mayor I hope he doesn’t let you down like he has with all the employees that work for this city. All the broken promises, all the lies…interesting that people still think he is something other than a politician.
I guess time will tell. Good luck to those officers that are about to lose their homes, careers, and many other things. I truly hope you find a city and department that will treat you with the respect and dignity that you deserve.
“We’ve been negotiating for four months unsuccessfully with those unions, so it was time to move ahead,” Reed said Wednesday”
Does Reed even KNOW what is going on OR is he just believing what Gurza and the others are feeding him? He made it sound like the City tried to negotiate with “THOSE” unions. It is an outright lie. The UNIONS were trying to negotiate with THEM and they refused. They made a proposal and we countered the proposal. They sent the SAME, unchanged proposal and when we TRIED to make an offer…giving up the 10%, plus concessions on sick pay, and more…they declared impasse, said there was nothing further to mediate and gave the unions a best and final offer which was not an offer, at all. It was either lose this or lose that and if you don’t choose one or the other, we will take it from you ANYWAY. I CANNOT BELIEVE that Reed made that untrue statement with a straight face. UNBELIEVABLE. He lied to the public, once again. He did that to make the unions and employees sound like the bad guys and the City sound like they were making all the effort. There is a law that requires good faith negotiations. What they did is in writing and we will MAKE SURE that those responsible will have to answer in court. And Pyle and Rocha… Well, I’ll keep my words to myself.
That there were actually only 10 meeting sessions over that 4 month period that Mr Reed is speaking of. Those 10 sessions, over 4 months lasted a total of 12 hours. Yep. 12 whole hours in 4 months…and that wasn’t by union choice. They keep spinning the lies and misleading the public, trying to make the unions look bad so they can get everybody’s vote, in November…and the public is eating it all up, without question. There was no good faith negotiations, as is required by law. They are once again pulling the wool over your eyes.
“the reality is we had two choices: we either impose cuts in wages or cuts through layoffs.”
You didn’t have to impose anything. The unions offered to give the concessions, plus more. You wanted more. Bait and switch. Bunch of liars. I hope we shut this City down. Wonder what it will be like with half of the employees gone for a month?
LOUD AND CLEAR. SAY IT…IMPEACH READ!!IMPEACH READ!!IMPEACH READ!!IMPEACH READ!!IMPEACH READ!!IMPEACH READ!!
He has lied to you all…ONCE AGAIN. I don’t know how you stand for it.
Jeez, you can’t even spell his name correctly.
Try real hard and copy it from another post, OK.
Past union tool councils got us into this mess by making promises that were unrealistic when made, and are even more unrealistic now. Reed and the current more balanced council are trying to get us out of it. Oh, let’s not forget to give special mention to all those who brought us The Taj Gonzal, which, counting debt service, cost us a $$BILLION.
Mr know it all.
Oh yeah I am sure it was spelled incorrectly on purpose.
You probably realize that mayors aren’t “impeached” they would have to be subject to recall. Just semantics though right? You are a union genius~!
If you read the SGT’s post above, you will see the initial “IMPEACH” statement. THAT is where I got it from, mr. know everything. I’ve been spelling Reed’s name correctly ALL of this time. WHY would I not know how to spell it, now? Also, I’ve been supporting RECALL ALL of this time, why would I not know that, now? Stop a$$uming you know everything. Go practice law, or something.
That was REED trying to throw everyone off…
Dude,….your “It’s all the fault of unions” is so tiring. Ur a REED tool, a little one too. Do you get him his coffee and tea or just walk his dog?
“Dude,….your “It’s all the fault of unions” is so tiring”
No matter how you try to make pinheads see the truth, they will only stick to their tunnel vision. Maybe if he would stop sniffing Reed’s a$$ fumes, his head would clear.
Before you impeach him you might try to get the name right! You might also check the city charter, which does not have any provision for impeachment.
Good luck with that impeachment. Do you know where city hall is?
(I just love these sorts of well-informed posts that add so much value to the discussion…)
It was written like that on purpose. But, of course you didn’t get it.
Just to show you how void they are, if any of you watched the May 24th council meeting, they voted that they were to go back to the unions for better negotiations and then come back on June 21st to vote of their decisions. Well, what happened? It certainly is NOT June 21st. Just a week after the vote to negotiate better, they imposed. Let’s see…the meeting was on Tuesday, 5/24. Wednesday, Thursday, Friday. Saturday, Sunday and Monday, the City was closed. Tuesday they imposed. Three full days from the vote. WHAT DOES THAT TELL YOU?????? Their word/vote is not good on ANYTHING, is it? They just make it all up as they go along and play by their own rules. That vote is in the record. Why did they impose one week later? Something REALLY smells. Something had to have happened. Something more than we know. Is it vindictiveness for something that has occurred? They break contracts, they break the law, they lie to the public. They just smell, period. The only ones with good sense were the ones who voted to take the time to make sure they were doing the right thing. Now the City faces strikes and shut down of services to the communities. I do not think the citizens are going to take kindly to that, especially when they learn that it was the UNIONS trying to negotiate and the CITY telling the lies.
Bet on it!
I’ll take that bet! He’ll sail to a second term easy. The public supports the mayor. Union workers don’t even live in the city of San Jose (cops readily admit that 60% of their staff live outside of San Jose) Rocha and all the other council members voting with the Mayor aren’t afraid of you at the ballot boxes.
Your union money isn’t buying votes like it used to (see: Measure V & W)
Time will tell, won’t it? Let’s just wait and see.
Wow…what a bold and stupid statement to say that the Union members/CSJ Employees don’t even live in the City. Take a poll…start asking employees at City Hall, for instance…Police and Fire are only part of the employees that work FOR YOU…if YOU are even a citizen of San Jose. I bet you will find that many of the “rank and file” employees you meet will proudly tell you they live in San Jose.
…and I do bet that Rocha wins a second term…he’s new…let him learn “the ropes”.
Its not shocking that the city is refusing to negotiate with the cops….the writing was and is on the wall after measures V and W were passed. The city/mayor wants the negotiations to go to an arbitrator. Good faith means nothing to any politician at any level. Thanks for running the city into the ground Deb and Chuck
The city was run into the ground long before Deb & Chuck. San Jose has been a dead man walking for many years now, thanks to the giveaways when labor tools dominated the city council.
The worst of it was in the Gonzo/Chavez era.
Add to it The Taj Gonzal, and a refusal to step in quickly when the market crashed and expenditures were outpacing revenues just exacerbated the problem.
Unionized employee, public and private, have had their fat years. There are going to be a lot of lean years ahead. The gazillion taxpayer financed programs that have become entitlements are going to shrink, as well.Get used to it.
Most taxpayers are fed up with fewer than 10,000 people (pensioners and current employees) sucking the other 940,000 of us in SJ dry.
“Most taxpayers are fed up with fewer than 10,000 people (pensioners and current employees) sucking the other 940,000 of us in SJ dry.”
“Most taxpayers are fed up with fewer than 10,000 people (pensioners and current employees) sucking the other 940,000 of us in SJ dry”
No matter how many times you repeat is JMO, it won’t make it true. While you are correct on all the other frivolous spending on programs and entitlements, the pension issue would be moot had the City of San Jose been fiscally responsible. For somebody who seems reasonably intelligent you sure have swallowed Reed’s demonization of the unions hook, line and sinker. Perhaps you are a transplant from the east coast and just hate unions in general.
Either way, the pension issue is only a part of the bigger problem. And, those former city people who agreed to pension improvements did so in a time when the private sector was rolling in pay and perks. The unions fought long and hard to get what they have now and by comparison back then, they were just catching up on the tail end. Now that the private sector has crashed your jealousy at fairly negotiated benefits for the unions is apalling. I would tend to sympathize if I knew that when the private sector booms once again you would be equally vociferous in your support of public employees enjoying the bounce as you are of wanting them to take the current fall.
One thing that the Mayor and council never seem to mention when talking about pensions is that the city does not pay into social security or state disability. The pension is the safety net for city employees. City employees can expect no social security benefit when they become older. If an employee becomes injured or disabled in some other way they have no disability benefit unless they opted to pay for it themselves. The city has saved hundreds of millions if not billions of dollars over the year by not paying into social security and disability like most employers. If San Jose Mayor and Council cut benefits below the minimum protection levels of SSN and disability then I do not see how they could attract any employees other than the dregs at the bottom of the barrel.
Very true “A lie oft repeated….”
San Jose employees do not have better salaries or benefits than other public agencies. So why is San Jose the only city in this county that is facing a fiscal crisis?
The answer is simple. Because other cities managed their finances better than San Jose.
Chuck Reed and Deb Figone are dealing with a problem that was created by Ron Gonzales and former City Manager Del Borgsdorf. Unfortunately there are no easy ways to dig the city out of the hole that it is in. But to blame the problem on the employees is ludicrous.
City of San Jose seems to be practicing Unfair Labor Practices under CHAPTER 10 MEYERS-MILIAS-BROWN ACT – LOCAL PUBLIC EMPLOYEE ORGANIZATIONS
http://www.perb.ca.gov/laws/statutes.asp
3505. Conferences; meet and confer in good faith
The governing body of a public agency, or such boards, commissions, administrative officers or other representatives as may be properly designated by law or by such governing body, shall meet and confer in good faith regarding wages, hours, and other terms and conditions of employment with representatives of such recognized employee organizations, as defined in subdivision (b) of Section 3501, and shall consider fully such presentations as are made by the employee organization on behalf of its members prior to arriving at a determination of policy or course of action.
“Meet and confer in good faith” means that a public agency, or such representatives as it may designate, and representatives of recognized employee organizations, shall have the mutual obligation personally to meet and confer promptly upon request by either party and continue for a reasonable period of time in order to exchange freely information, opinions, and proposals, and to endeavor to reach agreement on matters within the scope of representation prior to the adoption by the public agency of its final budget for the ensuing year.
The process should include adequate time for the resolution of impasses where specific procedures for such resolution are contained in local rule, regulation, or ordinance, or when such procedures are utilized by mutual consent.
3505.2. Mediation; appointment of mediator; costs
If after a reasonable period of time, representatives of the public agency and the recognized employee organization fail to reach agreement, the public agency and the recognized employee organization or recognized employee organizations together may agree upon the appointment of a mediator mutually agreeable to the parties.
Costs of mediation shall be divided one-half to the public agency and one-half to the recognized employee organization or recognized employee organizations.
3505.4. Impasse; implementation of last, best, and final offer
If after meeting and conferring in good faith, an impasse has been reached between the public agency and the recognized employee organization, and impasse procedures, where applicable, have been exhausted, a public agency that is not required to proceed to interest arbitration may implement its last, best, and final offer, but shall not implement a memorandum of understanding.
The unilateral implementation of a public agency’s last, best, and final offer shall not deprive a recognized employee organization of the right each year to meet and confer on matters within the scope of representation, whether or not those matters are included in the unilateral implementation, prior to the adoption by the public agency of its annual budget, or as otherwise required by law.
Why do I keep getting calls from Peter Campbell and Pierluigi Oliverio?
Maybe because they don’t have Twitter accounts.
“Maybe because they don’t have Twitter accounts.”
“(I just love these sorts of well-informed posts that add so much value to the discussion…) “
You’ve got a lot of nerve talking about posts that do not add value to a discussion. You call your statement valuable? Is the pot calling the kettle names? Practice what you preach, why don’t cha, David?
…and you added value to this discussion? I think you have a lot of nerve yourself-talk about the pot calling the kettle “black”.
Maybe I misunderstood-someone keeps negatively calling someone else “David”-I assumed they were referring to David Wall, who has been a great supporter of both fire and police, as well as city workers. He attends all the city council meetings and is very well informed. Not only does he attend and gets involved but he speaks every one of his 2 minutes until C Greed shuts him down. Another observation******has anyone else noticed that the Merc did NOT write, even ONE WORD, about the SF firefighter who died in the line of duty yesterday or of our other firefighter brother who lays in his hospital bed NOT BREATHING? It is on every news station-what a blatant insult from Mr Woolfolk and the Merc. For all of you that say police and fire do not have a dangerous job or that the Merc tells the truth, if you can honestly look yourself in the mirror and believe that this is true, I am so sorry for your ignorance. Bless our brother firefighter who is clinging to his life and bless the family who lost life as they once knew it.
Sorry, I’m not David, whoever that is. Happy now?
Did I touch a nerve? Was that you? We’ve been such good friends throughout these blogs. Funny how we never know who we are “talking” to.
Sincere condolences to our fallen hero in SF peace and blessings to their families and all of hero’s protecting us
“David” was just a name I gave him, which actually was the name of a real Adam Henry I dealt with, a few days ago. It just popped into my mind as I was writing the first post. I should have just given him the initials of GC. I wasn’t referring to David Wall. Sorry for the confusion.
Anybody know?
No fire and police dispatchers can’t strike, the city would get an injunction. However that does not preclude you from walking a picket line on your days off or supporting in other ways.
sorry I did not know that police /fire dispatchers could not strike , or the police officers and fire fighters cannot strike – I guess that is why it IS “clear writting” to call them “bargaining Units” rather the more negatively charged “unions”
By the way Whole Foods in Palo Alto has the best crackers at their soup buffet!, I like to go up ther and fill my pockets with crackers and take them home to my mother.
Too funny… I needed a laugh!
My wish for you is that it comes true for you. Done!
Done!
True the city can get an injunction. Also true that the injunction has to be served to each employee. I suppose if I were a fire or police dispatcher I would just be hard to find. That, or either come down with something contagious and be out sick for awhile.
Personally I think it would be great to see police officers and firefighters carrying picket signs to support other city unions. We may be prohibited from striking but we can support other unions on our off days. I am hoping our leaders are coordinting this as we speak. Reed, Figone, Licardo, and Pier (don’t steal my sign bro) deserve HELL to PAY for destroying this city. July 1 will be the beginning of the end for the afforementioned.
The budget problem wasn’t created in a day and can’t and should be solved in a day. Employees are willing to give up the 10% but the City is taking advantage of the situation to try to eliminate other non-economic benefits as well. In the end Mayor Reed is just going to drive way any hard working employees that are left.
I will always be the professional, but my effort will no longer be the very best.
“On Tuesday, the City Council imposed 10 percent cuts in total compensation for four unions….”
That is not true and I would like to set the record straight. The City imposed 12.01 percent on MEF and I think 12.4% on CEO. They TOOK back last years 2% increase, which has now breached the contract. If they are making public statements that they are requiring 10 percent concessions from all unions, why did they take more than 12 those two unions? Why aren’t they making public statements that they required 10% from some unions and more than 12% from others? They should be held to their public statements. One thing they aren’t telling people is that MEF gave up their raise the year before and they gave up yet another raise a couple years before that. MEF decided they weren’t going to give up a third raise, last year…so the City has decided to TAKE it. MEF had an agreed upon and signed contract for that 2% and the City has decided to breach the contract, imposing to TAKE it. So there is more than one reason to strike. It has nothing to do with the concessions, as MEF was willing to make concessions for the 10% and had already offered to do so. The City rejected the offer. The issue is how the City went about everything and the fact that they have done it illegally and have treated the employees like unwanted step children. The blogger, above, made reference to Reed making comment about “those” unions. That just kinda tells the story, doesn’t it? “Those” unions. Is that anything akin to “those” people? And this is a man who is running our city. What the City should be focusing on is how to curb their wasteful spending. If the spending were under control, there would not be a problem with funding the pensions. Someone needs to be held accountable for this city’s financial state and the sole cause isn’t because of the pensions, but that is what they would have you believe, to place the blame elsewhere. SJPD, I applaud you for taking your stance and not letting this administration bully you. Hang in there.
This is just my 2 cent.
Non-government workers are getting layoff and paycuts because the companies are not making enough profits. Why shouldn’t government workers get layoff and paycuts? This only make sense. Companies and government can’t operate with 10 years of negative budget and expect everything will be fine.
Personally, I hadn’t have a pay increase for years and I don’t even want to go in detail about how crappy my benefit is. What benefit? Just happy to be able to pay the bills.
To them I say, get off of your collective arses and put measures on the ballot to shift future funding of the Capital and Special Accounts to the General Fund. Don’t continue to spew lies and nonsense about how that simply can’t be done. All it takes is 6 out of 10 Council votes!
Until this gets done, lets Strike and have a petition of 44,000 signatures to recall Rufus Reed and Doug Figone!
Lets face it! Every City Dept. Every one cannot do its job because of deep cuts! Enough is enough lets Strike and start the RECALL NOW!!!!
Other Silicon Valley cities are not having layoffs, have well funded pension plans, provide good services, well maintained streets, parks and buildings, lower taxes and fees, do not have 10 years of budget deficits, are doing well and live within their budget.
What is wrong with San Jose’s city government ?
Reading San Jose Inside it seems that San Jose voters only elect career politicians some of which moved to San Jose to further or have their political careers ( Ron Gonzales from Sunnyvale )
Why can’t people who have a good community record of doing public good be elected, rather than what a be politicians who have no community involvement until they want to run for political careers and then they owe their elections to Labor Unions or Chamber and our taxes are used for political paybacks year after year ?
Actually, the situation is not restricted to San Jose. I’d call San Jose the canary in the coal mine because it runs its own pension plans instead of subsribing to the statewide pool called CalPERS.
This increased the liability and risks, but did have some pay offs in terms of retention.
Nationally, pensions are a “current” issue in terms of unfunded liability which allowed political leaders to please everyone at the time they were increasing benefits (lowering retirement ages, increasing vesting rates) by differing paying for the increases (pay as you go accounting is required with private sector pension plans but public sector officials were shrewd enough to exclude their own shops from that rule.)
Anyway, success has a thousand fathers and disaster is an orphan. No one is going to own this one.
BTW – Some adjacent jurisdictions started grappling with these issues a couple of years ago, rolling out second tier pensions with council votes and working on sustainable finance plans. But lets be honest, not all cities are equal when it comes to tax base and liabilities.
Remember the CROOK Dan Fenton and TEAM SAN JOSE has a lot to do with many missing millions at the hands of his Rotory Club Buddy Crooked Mayor Charles G-REED who gave Fenton a check book full of blank City of San Jose Checks, which he dutifully used every check up accounting into $20+ Millions!
Old Frank
in the Merky news where on Thursday night the Santa Clara County Democratic Central Committee members voted to approved a resolution that reprimanded Mayor Chuck Reed, Sam Liccardo, Pierluigi Oliverio, Rose Herrera and Madison Nguyen for signing Reed’s pension reform ballot proposal, which puts limits on pensions in the city charter? People are taking notice. Everybody knows that it is wrong.