"Does B stand for billionaire?"SF Labor Council ED Paulson Resigns From Union Busting SPUR

"Does B stand for billionaire?" SF Labor Council ED Paulson Resigns From Union Busting SPUR After It Supports Anti-Labor Proposition B "Associating the Labor Council with SPUR has been one of the largest mistakes I could have made." SF Building Trades Leader Theriault Still A Member of union busting SPUR?

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/10/06/BA741FON4K.DTL
Does B stand for billionaire? Campaign finance reports show the team behind Proposition B on the Nov. 2 ballot, which would require city employees to pay more for their pensions and health care plans, has collected $720,367 from some of the city's wealthiest residents.

Venture capitalist and billionaire Michael Moritz paid $245,000 to fund the signature drive to qualify the measure for the ballot, and a number of venture capitalists, attorneys and businessmen have also opened their checkbooks.

David Crane, policy director for Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, gave $32,500; Howard Leach, former ambassador to France, gave $25,000; and former L.A. Mayor Richard Riordan gave $25,000.

Why would the former L.A. mayor care about Prop. B? "That's a good question," quipped Nathan Ballard, spokesman for the No on B side. "Maybe he bumped into one of the other backers at the Rolls-Royce dealership."

To be fair, his team isn't exactly shopping at the used car lot. Ballard said upcoming campaign finance forms will show $617,500 raised from labor unions including police and fire - and they're expected to raise as much as $3 million before the election.

Public Defender Jeff Adachi, who came up with Prop. B, admitted he scrolled down the Forbes list and e-mailed anybody living in San Francisco to ask them to support the measure. Many of them said no for fear of being harassed and picketed by the unions, he said.

Adachi scored a major coup Monday with the endorsement of the San Francisco Planning and Urban Research Association. Some SPUR members resigned over the endorsement, including the entire Municipal Executives Association and Tim Paulson, executive director of the San Francisco Labor Council, who told SPUR's president in a resignation letter, "Associating the Labor Council with SPUR has been one of the largest mistakes I could have made."

- Heather Knight



Why Is SF Building Trades Council Secretary-Treasurer Michael Theriault On SPUR Board
by repost
Tuesday Jun 8th, 2010 2:36 PM
Downtown business and anti-labor SF Supervisors with the support of SPUR are pushing a ballot initiative to attack the wages, conditions and benefits of SF TWU 250A Muni drivers. One of the Board Of Directors of SPUR is SF Building and Construction Trades Secretary Treasurer Michael Theriault. Why is he still on the board of this anti-labor organization? Does he agree with SPUR's ballot initiative and their support of anti-labor Elsbernd?
SPUR is a big supporter of anti-labor Elsbernd.

elsbernd__sean_sworn_in_b...

Why Is SF Building Trades Council Secretary-Treasurer Michael Theriault On Union Busting Board Of SPUR?

SF SPUR May 2010 Issue Of Ubanist Backs Attack On SF TWU 250A Drivers

Sign The Muni Petition
Through all of the Muni reform efforts SPUR has led over the years-authoring policy reports, running
ballot campaigns and advocating for funding increases-there is one problem we have never resolved:
amending work rules. Currently, Muni drivers' wages and benefits are set by a salary forumula in the City
Charter, meaning that management has never been able to negotiate changes to work rules. We can change
this now. SPUR is proud to be co-leading the Fix Muni Now campaign: we are collecting 43,000 signatures
to qualify a Charter amendment for the November ballot.
For More Information, see FixMuniNow.com, where you can read Gabriel Metcalf's open leter in the San Francisco
Bay Guardian, op-ed letter in the San Francisco Business Times, and learn more about the campaign and volunteer
opportunities.

SPUR | BOARD OF DIRECTORS Includes SF Building Trade Secretary Michael Thériault
http://www.spur.org/about/board
Michael Thériault

June 18, 2010 SPUR | District 7 walking tour with Supervisor Sean Elsbernd-SF Building Trades Sec. Treasurer On The Board Of Directors
This group funded in part by union money and $7 million from a Pelosi set-aside for their building is endorsing Sean Elsbernd ballot initiative
according to their May Magazine.

June 18, 2010 SPUR | District 7 walking tour with Supervisor Sean Elsbernd
http://www.spur.org/events/calendar/district_7_walking_tour_supervisor_sean_elsbernd
WALKING TOUR
FRIDAY, JUNE 18, 2010 2:00PM
District 7 walking tour with Supervisor Sean Elsbernd


[Image: Colleen McHugh]
In this new SPUR tour series, see your neighborhood through the eyes of your district supervisor! Join Supervisor Sean Elsbernd on this walking tour of West Portal. Supervisor Elsbernd will take us to some of his favorite spots, but with only one hour, we won’t see it all. Grab your walking shoes!
http://www.spur.org/about/board
Add Your Comments
§Secretary-Treasurer, San Francisco Building and Construction Trades Council
by Michael Theriault
Thursday Jun 17th, 2010 10:49 AM
I do not agree with SPUR's ballot initiative and have argued vociferously against it at every opportunity, as the rest of the board will attest. I remain on SPUR's board because of other, more useful work the organization has done -- on behalf of disaster planning and seismic retrofit, of infill development along transit corridors, of improved bicycle networks, of high speed rail, of the Transbay Terminal, of regional planning, of improved streetscapes, and of affordable housing. If I resigned from every organization where I have been outvoted on one occasion or another, I would belong to none, including the Council I represent.
Add a Comment
§SPUR-ious
by Bradley Wiedmaier
Sunday Jun 20th, 2010 1:55 PM
Michael Theriault's curious formulation that he remains on the SPUR board for "more useful" issues than attacking transit workers, would seem to imply that he sees the Fix Muni Initiative having some "useful" practicality, only some degree less, than these other issues. Very odd. Together with the shocking "SF Chronicle" Insider piece this week about the Labor Council putting pressure on the transit workers to capitulate, without any public repudiation from the SF Labor Council, there should be an alarm in Labor. Labor should be very concerned about its leaders subjugation to the propaganda of anti-worker forces. SPUR is a very spurious planning organization. Its support for the Fix Muni Initiative, illustrates its true nature as a political front for the Chamber of Commerce, Corporations and Developers. SPUR's planning focus always puts the interests of this triad above those of Labor, the Neighborhoods, the National Minority Communities, Preservation, Environmentalists and many others. SPUR's apologia for the Urban Renewal Agency disasters past and present are scandalous.
Say no to SPUR-ious planning and those who are giving hard earned Union funds to such an opponent political think-tank front.
Building Trades and Carpenter Local 22 and the Northern California Council of Carpenters shouldn't be wasting our finite Union funds on an ideological think-tank of the Chamber of Commerce. Michael Theriault should resign from the SPUR board, that is cosponsoring the attack on transit workers as a central activity of SPUR.
Bradley Wiedmaier
Add a Comment
§Taking on Muni union puts Elsbernd at the wheel-SPUR Supported Initiative
by respost
Tuesday Jun 22nd, 2010 6:48 AM
Taking on Muni union puts Elsbernd at the wheel
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/06/22/BABE1E2JII.DTL
Taking on Muni union puts Elsbernd at the wheel

C.W. Nevius

Tuesday, June 22, 2010

C.W. NEVIUS

When it began in April, Supervisor Sean Elsbernd's quest to get enough signatures to put a charter amendment on the November ballot had its doubters.

Elsbernd was one of them.

The proposed amendment, which would delete the guarantee that San Francisco Muni operators be the second-highest-paid transit drivers in the country, has stirred up a lot of passion. But gathering 47,000 authenticated signatures in about three months is not easy.

"Sure I had my doubts," Elsbernd said. "There hasn't been a successful signature drive for a charter amendment at the grassroots level in a couple of decades."

Today Elsbernd is confident, even if he realistically needs 70,000 signers to account for duplicates and invalid signatures. Insiders think he'll cross the finish line on July 6 with signatures to spare.

Although it seems logical that Muni drivers should have their contract negotiated like all other city workers, taking on the unions can be politically dangerous.

"Supervisor Elsbernd is showing a great deal of political courage to take on this confounding sacred cow," said Alex Clemens, founder of Barbary Coast Consulting. "He's staring down a lot of big political guns right now."

He also gets a chance to trash-talk his colleagues on the Board of Supervisors, who were not supportive.

"If we're successful, it sends a message that the Board of Supervisors can ignore an issue but the people will take it up," Elsbernd said. "It will show that the board was woefully out of touch."
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?...