Angry San Francisco City Retirees and City Workers Backlash Against Concession Bargaining

Angry San Francisco City Retirees and City Workers Backlash Against Concession Bargaining

“Consensus Deal” Between SF Billionaires, Democrats and Union Tops

SF Left Paralyzed With Fear To Oppose Open Attack On SF Public Workers

By Steve Zeltzer

September 28, 2011


Furious San Francisco retired city workers and their retiree organizations plan to mount a grass roots campaign against a “consensus” ballot initiative titled Proposition C on San Francisco’s November 2011 ballot. They charge that proposition C will seriously threaten pension and healthcare retiree benefits and are appalled that the San Francisco Labor Council along with the leadership of many unions are backing this regressive ballot initiative.

The San Francisco city worker’s retirement including healthcare benefits has been looked at as one of the best managed plans in the country according to Claire Zvanski, the chair of the Health Service Board in an interview.

http://blip.tv/laborvideo/sf-city-workers-retirees-healthcare-with-claire-zvanski-5517562



Zvanski was among the union activists who fought over decades to make these benefits among the leading plans in the United States and pro-corporate forces in San Francisco have been organizing to attack these benefits over the last five years.

Leading the charge against the benefits initially was San Francisco Public Defender Jeff Adachi who was financed by billionaire Michael Moritz. He put a ballot proposition on the last election that would have severely taxed low paid city workers for their healthcare. After a united campaign it was defeated but San Francisco union leaders of the IFPTE and SEIU agreed to meet with the city to develop a “reform” pension healthcare measure.

While inviting a “liberal” billionaire Warren Hellman to be part of the negotiations, the chair of the San Francisco Labor Council Public Employees Committee and IFPTE Local 21 Executive Director Bob Muscat prevented representation from all retired labor organizations and members on the negotiating committee.

Zvanski despite her history with the Health Service Board and working knowledge of how the system as chair of the Health Service Board was excluded from the negotiations along with other leaders of San Francisco City worker retire groups. Zvanski is also a dues paying member of IFPTE Local 21 and SEIU Local 1021.



Secret Negotiations Orchestrated By Anti-Labor Elsbernd

Excluded All Labor Retiree Groups



The secret negotiations on a “reform” pension and healthcare initiative now supported by the San Francisco Labor Council and most City worker unions were in fact being orchestrated by former Mayor Newsom supported Sean Elsbernd who had attacked labor and union representation on the San Francisco Health Service Board.

When SEIU 1021 West Bay Retirees Chapter leaders asked to be on the negotiations with Mayor Ed Lee and “liberal” billionaire Warren Hellman, SEIU 1021 Vice President Larry Bradshaw from San Francisco opposed their participation arguing that since they were no longer working for the city they could not be on the bargaining team. He also threatened the retirees chapter leaders not to publish a ballot statement against the “consensus” pension healthcare retirement initiative according to chapter members. Bradshaw who is also a trade union leader and supporter ISO/Socialist Worker argued that the SF SEIU 1021 Bargaining Committee refused to walk out of the negotiations and he had no choice but to go along with the concessions in the initiative. In fact, Bradshaw admitted that since the bargaining committee would not walk from the negotiations he proposed that they “get something” from continuing the concession bargaining. His proposal was that in return for going along with pension and changes to the Healthcare Board System changes the city would agree to continue a premiums to San Francisco city museum guards who had previously been cut back to 35 hours by Mayor Newsom and the City. The contract was re-opened by the city and a deal was made to get these workers to support the concession pension and healthcare retirement proposals.

The SF Museum workers at the SEIU 1021 chapter were then told the only way they could save their premium to get their full 40 hours was to support Prop C at the SEIU 1021 COPE meeting where a vote took place for the deal. This is presently being challenged by rank and file members and SEIU 1021 official Sin Yee Poon.

Top SEIU 1021 elected leaders in San Francisco Bradshaw and Alexander Alysabeth who is the political director of the entire 55,000 member local also refused to hold any mass labor rallies against the attacks on pensions and to demand that the 24 billionaires in San Francisco pay for the economic crisis. They also abandoned any demand that increased taxes be put on the billionaires and wealthy in San Francisco instead of attacks on their own members.



IFTE Retirees Excluded From “negotiations”

IFPTE Local 21 Executive Director Bob Muscat also also prevented Health Servic Board chair Zvanski and other retired IFPTE 21 members from participating on the negotiations committee although they would be directly affected by the ballot initiatives and were most knowledgeable about the dangers to retired city workers.

Although the unions were not actually bargaining for a new contract in “bargaining negotiations” retirees charged that they were making contract concessions under the San Francisco Charter which determines retirement benefits and health benefit charges.

One major concession pushed successfully by a Newsom appointed Supervisor Sean Elsbernd was removing the veto power of elected retiree and city worker representatives from the Health Service Board. According to Zvanski, this would lead to massive increases in healthcare costs and force lower paid retired City workers out of the healthcare system and onto public healthcare. It would also eliminate healthcare benefits for thousands of San Francisco retirees who live outside San Francisco says Zvanski.

In March 2011 in an article in the San Francisco Chronicle “Elsbernd said he will advocate for the (initiative) measure to change the makeup of the board so its majority is appointed by city officials.”

http://articles.sfgate.com/2011-03-16/news/28693639_1_health-care-employees-and-retirees-pension-cost

Over several decades, San Francisco city workers and retirees had won the right to real representation and control on the Health Service Board and now under the new “consensus” pension, healthcare initiative this would be eliminated and control would be turned over to SF city politicians backed by corporate interests.


Mass Layoffs By Newsom Brings Concession Bargaining


Under former Mayor Newsom, San Francisco city and county workers were threatened with 17,000 mass layoffs unless they accepted major give-backs in their contracts.

Only days later this threat, IFPTE Local 21 Executive Director Bob Muscat who is also a former regional director of the SEIU in California under Andy Stern began a concerted campaign to push concession bargaining in the labor movement.

Muscat at the San Francisco Labor Council had also lambasted TWU 250 A operators for voting against contracts that would have eliminated benefits won over decades. The concession contracts would have eliminated overtime after 8 hours and allowed the agency to bring in large numbers of part time temporary workers.

He was joined in these attacks by former Mayor Newsom and San Francisco Supervisor Sean Elsbernd who blamed SF MTA Muni drivers for system breakdowns and accidents. The mostly Black and Latino membership of the Transit workers also came under a concerted racist attack by the Hearst owned San Francisco Chronicle and San Francisco Examiner now owned by major rightwing billionaire Phil Anschuts.

In the last election Elsbernd wrote an initiative proposition G that prevented SF Muni operators and their unions from negotiating on working conditions unless the management felt it would help the system. This Governor Scott Walker type legislation was a harbinger of things to come in San Francisco.

At the very same time that Elsbernd was pushing these attacks on the City bus and rail workers, the chair of the San Francisco Labor Council Public Employees Committee Bob Muscat was berating the drivers for voting down concession contracts three times.

Some of the concessions deals would have eliminated overtime after 8 hours and allowed the introduction of large numbers of part time temporary workers.

Also joining the campaign to get the Muni operators to make concessions was San Francisco Labor Council Executive Director Tim Paulson. Paulson was crestfallen that the Muni drivers again and again refused to accept give-backs.

http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/06/09/MN921JRH2Q.DTL

Elsbernd with the collaboration of the Michael Theriault and the San Francisco Building Trades is also pushing to bulldoze 1500 rent controlled working class apartments in San Francisco’s Park Merced to help developers make millions of dollars and supposedly create “good union jobs”. The destruction of rent controlled housing is another goal of Elsbernd who is supported by the majority of SF Supervisors. It will also drive more working class residents out of San Francisco and mean more ethnic cleansing and gentrification.

The San Francisco Labor Council has also received $500,000 from Lennar Developers after it supported a ballot initiative for residential housing on top of the highly toxic and radioactive dump site in the mostly Black community in San Francisco's Hunters Point.

Billionaires Play City Workers And The Public

Into the mix as well has come San Francisco Public Defender Jeff Adachi. Adachi had pushed a ballot measure proposition B in the last election that would have brought major increases of healthcare costs for low paid city workers.

He ballot initiative was funded by San Francisco billionaires like Michael Moritz and Warren Hellman. Hellman later withdrew his support after donating $50,000 but demanded that the San Francisco unions work with him on a “reform” measure to deal with pension and healthcare costs. City workers protested at the mansion of billionaire Michael Moritz against proposition B.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=STRhAnUE0lg

Zvanski argues that as a result of the US Supreme Court and rightwing conservatives, long term pension and healthcare benefits have now been put on the chopping block by making city and government boards put them on the budget as actual liabilities that must be dealt with immediately although according to Zvanski they can be solved over the long term. This is no longer possible and is forcing government agencies to attack these benefits for workers.

She also argues that if this change is passed less and less retired city workers will be able to participate in the healthcare retirement system meaning that it’s bargaining position will be undermined further increasing the cost of benefits.

Adachi was unsuccessful in winning his proposition B but anti-labor proposition G which attacked San Francisco TWU 250 A muni drivers did pass and now leaders of the San Francisco Labor Council argued that they needed to negotiate with Hellman the politicians to prevent further attacks.

SF Billionaires Play City Worker With Connivance Of Union Tops

Adachi As A Foil

This led to proposition C which was written by their erstwhile “enemy” Sean Elsbernd. The city workers were now in play with one billionaire financier Michael Moritz backing Adachi’s proposition D with another billionaire Warren Hellman backing a supposedly less onerous ballot measure proposition C which is supported by the San Francisco Chamber of Commerce and the “liberal” billionaire Warren Hellman.

In an article in Forbes in fact, Hellman argues that he was helped in his plan to attack pension benefits by Adachi.

"Without Jeff Adachi, I'm a little dubious that any of this would be happening," says Hellman.

http://finance.fortune.cnn.com/2011/06/02/san-franciscos-pension-smackdown/


Blow-Up At SFLC Leads To "New Rules"

The attack on Muni drivers and San Francisco city workers by the leadership of the SF Labor Council brought an angry response from some City workers. Dorian Maxwell, a TWU 250 A driver and health and safety whistleblower about the conditions of the buses and trains came to a meeting of the SF Labor Council last year and blasted the concessions and betrayals by the leadership. San Francisco city painter Doug Bias also attacked the lack of democratic process and accountability by the Labor Council officials.

Angry officials like Dennis Kelley, the president of the United Educators of San Francisco complained that these attacks were unfair and unity was needed by labor.

Following these conflicts, the Executive Board of the Council also decided that they needed to clamp down debate and discussion to make the meetings go more smoothly.

They drafted a new set of rules that eliminated debate on reports from committees and made it more difficult to present resolutions. It also required that any rank and file workers attending SFLC meetings had to have a delegate bring them as a “guest”. Supporting them in these rule changes was OPEIU Local 3 member and SFLC Executive Board member Alan Benjamin. Benjamin who is also the editor of the Socialist Organizer argued that the rules were needed to allow the Labor Council leadership to know what was coming up. He had been strangely silent when angry workers had come to the SFLC to protest and complain about the concession bargaining and betrayal by the SFLC officials. Benjamin had backed the restrictive rules to make the meeting go more smoothly.

“I don’t disagree with the Executive Committee’s new rule that resolutions have to be submitted the Wednesday prior to the Delegate’s Assembly (unless there are three EC members submit the resolution) so that no one feels blind-sighted by the last minute resolutions brought to the floor.”

The rules also put international resolutions in priority as last on the agenda.

San Francisco Labor Council president Mike Casey who is also president of Unite Here Local 2 backed the rule changes and also demanded that there be no recordings or pictures of any of the debate at the Labor Council in an unopposed ruling. Unite Here Local 2 with more than 12,000 members is entitled to dozens of delegates at the Council yet Casey has refused to allow tany rank and file lLocal 2 delegates to attend the Council meetings.


“Mea Culpa” From Benjamin

When the rules passed he immediately sought to rule out of order resolutions for action brought before the labor council including support for the Mexico city SME electricians who are fighting privatization. In a mea culpa, Benjamin later abstained on the “Motions and Minutes” after supporting the rules saying that the San Francisco Labor Council may not be going in a good “progressive” direction if debate is prevented.

The Executive Committee of the Labor Council also voted to support the pension initiative Proposition C without a vote of the COPE convention and the San Francisco Labor Council delegates although there was no quorum present at the COPE meeting. Parliamentarian Dennis Kelley from the United Educators of San Francisco ruled that the bylaws allowed the Executive Committee to act since they had to get ballot arguments in on time. His own members who are non-certificated staff with the San Francisco Unified School District and mostly lower paid workers will be feeling the brunt of these “reform” measures if they pass yet most are unaware what the costs will be, since no information was sent out before the agreement and there was no rank and file vote by their members on whether the union should support these concessions in the initiative.

Most of the left organizations that have supporters on the San Francisco Labor Council all supported this concession deal by their silence at the Council meetings. This included the Party for Socialist Liberation PSL/Answer, Workers World Party WWP, Solidarity, Workers Compass, Freedom Socialist Party along with Socialist Organizer. It was left to rank and file workers and delegates to challenge the open support for a anti-labor ballot initiative supported by union busters Sean Elsbernd and billionaire Warren Hellman.

The United Public Workers For Action UPWA.info and San Francisco Peace and Freedom party, the San Francisco Green Party, the Grey Panthers along with public workers pension groups were supporting and helping to organize the opposition.

In fact, not one San Francisco retirees group is supporting the so called “consensus” deal. Along with the leadership of the Labor Council proposition C has the support of Newsom, Hellman, Feinstein and Pelosi, the Republican Party, SPUR, The Committee On Jobs and the SF Chamber of Commerce with tens of thousands of dollars and there is growing anger not only among retirees but other city workers as they find out the details of the initiative and how it will seriously affect them.

The left Democratic party candidate for Mayor John Avalos also voted to support Proposition C despite the efforts of rank and file SF city workers to get him to oppose the measure and separate the Health Service Board from the pension issue. Avalos fell in line with the rest of the anti-labor supervisors and the SF Labor Council officials. Other "liberals" on the SF Board of Supervisors like David Campos lauded the union officials for supporting a balanced measure to deal with the crisis and voted along with Avalos for the deal despite the pleas of many city retirees to exclude the Health Service part of the charter change.

Dozens of public workers and retirees also picketed the kickoff rally for the ballot initiative at a jointly sponsored meeting with the San Francisco Chamber of Commerce on September 24, 2011. The honored keynote speaker at the rally and barbeque was none other than Sean Elsbernd the author of the anti-labor proposition C and last year’s Wisconsin type initiative Proposition G that attacked the rights of SF TWU 250 A operators to bargain on their work conditions.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kvaUxJ8-Vlc

SEIU International Flies In Operatives

Already, Mary Kay Henry and the SEIU International are sending in organizers are getting in the act to make sure that the concession pension/healthcare proposition deal passes. At the kickoff meeting they were joining with Elsbernd to win support for the reactionary measure as picketing went on the streets outside. The SEIU will be spending hundreds of thousands of dollars on political operatives from throughout the country to make sure this initiative wins at the ballot this coming November.

Thhe International in collusion with the Newsom-Willie Brown appointed Mayor Ed Lee is also pulling dozens of SEIU 1021 members off the job to begin an internal education campaign to organize SEIU members to support anti-labor proposition C. While not organizing a similar education campaign against the attacks on public workers by Newsom and Lee, they are now pulling out the stops to make sure the proposition passes.

Left in the lurch, are the over 100,00 San Francisco city worker retirees and those workers hoping to get a decent retirement when they leave civil service. Their pension and healthcare benefits will take a major hit if either proposition D or the “consensus” proposition C passes.

It will also escalate the attack on the rest of the public workers who will be bearing the brunt of this concession bargaining on public workers pension and healthcare retiree benefits.

Photo of SFLC Executive Secretary Tim Paulson with Mayor Ed Lee and SF Chamber of Commerce rep at kick off rally for Prop C