But in key ways, the dynamics appear different. In Los Angeles and Oakland, the public and the local media were clearly sympathetic. Teachers had not had significant raises in years, and with the cost of housing going up arguably have lost purchasing power in recent years.

In Sacramento, however, the argument that the local school district simply can’t afford raises because of the huge long-term increase in pension costs and loss in state funding because of declining enrollment has resonated far more than similar warnings did in Los Angeles and Oakland. Coverage in regular and social media has repeatedly emphasized three points:

• The Sacramento City Teachers Association secured an 11 percent raise for most members in September 2017 after threatening a strike. The Sacramento County Office of Education warned at the time that without significant cuts, the district faced fiscal disaster. But the local teachers union has rejected calls to reduce the cost of health benefits that the state Fiscal Crisis & Management Assistance Team (FCMAT) says are the most generous in the Sacramento region.

• The warning from school officials that even without having to provide new raises, the district faces a $35 million hole in a nearly $400 million annual budget and is on track to run out of money in November. At that point, under state law, the district could seek an emergency loan from the state Legislature, but on the condition that it accept an appointed administrator to make key financial decisions going forward, taking away most of the school board’s and Superintendent Jorge Aguilar’s powers. The primary goal of those decisions would be ensuring the district pays back the state loan.

• The fact that the four other employee unions in Sacramento City Unified have sided with Aguilar’s warning that a raise could seal state control of the school district for a decade or more, as has happened in other California districts that have been unable to pay their bills. They don’t buy the teachers union claim that the district has failed to honor the contract it signed in 2017, thus making a strike necessary even though state law says such a strike would be illegal since the teachers are still under contract.

Writing Monday, Sacramento Bee columnist Marcos Breton warned the teachers union that it risked disaster not just for the district and its 42,000 students but for a city that has built up civic momentum in recent years under Mayor Darrell Steinberg.

“Sacramento’s efforts to sell itself as a place for companies to invest would be damaged because a major selling point is good schools,” Breton wrote. “How many investment opportunities would be lost if Sacramento became known as the city whose schools were bankrupt?”

Aguilar arrived in 2017 at the district and is given good marks in most circles for his determination to avoid financial disaster. But a FCMAT audit released in December pointed out a vast array of problems in Sacramento City’s management that dated back many years. It cited incompetence and poor communications by the district’s business team and a failure to properly analyze budget data that indicated the headaches to come.

Union leaders say these management failings are not their responsibility and should not be held against their push for better pay.

The union’s hope that a strike authorization vote would lead to new concessions hasn’t happened so far. A union statement said the strike was coming “at a date likely in the next month.”

More than 90 percent of the 23,000 workers at 23 CSU campuses represented by the California Faculty Association campuses have voted in favor of striking unless they receive three years of annual pay raises of 5 percent, not the 2 percent annual raises offered by the state. A rally last week in Long Beach called by the CFA was attended by more than 1,000 people, Reuters reported. The wire service’s story illustrated a seemingly united CSU faculty:

“People are suffering and hurting financially,” said Theresa Montaño, a vice president of the California Teachers Association. “Faculty members can’t pay off their debt, raise a family or buy a home.”

 

During the march, many protesters said that if faculty members don’t get the salary increase, they are ready to walk off the job. …

 

Jennifer Eagan, a president for CFA, said it’s “unfair to ask professors keep sacrificing year after year without a significant pay increase.”

Faculty seek help from union-friendly state agency

The CFA further escalated its fight with the state government on Thursday by filing an unfair labor practices allegation with the state Public Employment Relations Board. This description is from the CFA’s website:

The charge is based on language in HEERA [the Higher Education Employer-Employee Relations Act] which requires that the CSU and CFA reach an agreement on salary before the university sends a budget request to the Legislature and governor.

 

In fact, in both 2015-16 and 2016-17 the CSU made Support Budget requests that included their plan to implement a 2 percent faculty salary increase for each year. By making a budget request prior to reaching agreement with CFA on what would be needed to offer an adequate salary pool and by arguing that they have “allocated $65.5 million for a 2 percent compensation pool for all employees,” and limiting discussion of salary to that predetermined pool, the CSU has “violated its duty to meet and confer with CFA in good faith.”

 

In his remarks to the Board of Trustees on Wednesday November 18 Kevin Wehr highlighted the problem. “What you fail to understand is that deciding what you think is fair compensation for your employees before the bargaining process even begins is not bargaining in good faith,” Wehr said. “Indeed Section 3572b HEERA of recognizes that fact and says that once we reach an agreement ‘an appropriate request for financing or budgetary funding for all state-funded employees … shall be forwarded … to the Legislature and the Governor.’ You have put the cart before the horse.”

PERB has consistently ruled in favor of local government unions challenging “bad faith” decisions by governments on changes in compensation. This time, however, the ultimate target isn’t the cities of San Jose or San Diego or the Los Angeles Unified School District — it’s Gov. Jerry Brown, who cleaned house at PERB in 2011 and removed leaders chosen by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, who had fought with the California Nurses Association for years.