More ‘Rights’ For State Employees

Katy Grimes: Since public employees have so few workplace protections and are so under-paid, Democratic Assemblyman Roger Dickinson has authored legislation to give the unionized state workers more protections from workplace discipline, and priority on state government work over private sector workers.

It’s as if a Junior High School Student Body President is running the state’s Democratic party agenda –  “No School Wednesdays!”  “No homework!”  “Extra Credit Points for Everyone!” “No one can get fired!”

“The average state or local government worker in California makes nearly $70,000 per year,” acording to Union Watch, and “the average state or local government worker in California, if they work 30 years, will retire with a pension that averages $66,864 per year.”

Now Dickinson, a handy tool for the state’s unions, is proposing more goodies, more protections, and more state job guarantees, which he calls “rights.” But these rights are only granted to public employee union members.

Collective bargaining is not a right. The freedom of association is guaranteed and protected under the First Amendment of the Constitution.  Contrast that right  with the special powers granted to unions through collective bargaining.

Despite that California’s government workers are the highest-paid in the nation, and are grossly over-protected, Dickinson wants more. The SEIU wants more. State employees want more.

In the real world, as dictated and determined by labor attorneys, private sector employers must base decisions about employees on work performance. But in state government, performance is irrelevant; protecting the employee from accountability is the priority.

Perhaps the most interesting morsel in AB 1655 is at the end of the bill:

SEC. 2. Section 19635 of the Government Code is amended to read: 19635. No adverse action shall be valid against any state employee for any cause for discipline based on any civil service law of this state, unless notice of the adverse action is served within three years and the investigation is completed within one year after the cause for discipline, upon which the notice is based, first arose. The next sentence was struck out: Adverse action based on fraud, embezzlement, or the falsification of records shall be valid, if notice of the adverse action is served within three years after the discovery of the fraud, embezzlement, or falsification. 

The existing protections afforded state employees are unholy, and the primary reason the state has a twisted culture of life-long entitlements for unproductive employees in nowhere jobs, with benefits befitting kings.

The Sacramento Bee summed-up a short list of the delicious new state worker entitlements:

• Gives unionized state employees priority over outside contractors and excluded state workers to fill permanent, overtime and on-call positions.
• 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.

With control of the state Legislature, Democratic lawmakers are strutting around fanning their tail feathers. Arrogant, defiant, anti-business, and destructive legislation such as AB 1655, is just a taste of what is ahead.

FEB. 14, 2012