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Date Posted: 07:44:09 06/21/07 Thu
Guards union targets personnel chief
CCPOA opposes Gilb's nomination, blaming him for failed talks.
By Andy Furillo - Bee Capitol Bureau
Published 12:00 am PDT Monday, June 18, 2007
Amid stalled negotiations over its expired contract, the state correctional officers union has taken its hardball labor tactics to a new level -- it's taking on the leader of the other side.
The move came at a state Senate Rules Committee confirmation hearing earlier this month when California Correctional Peace Officers Association President Mike Jimenez told the panel, "I do rise in opposition" to the appointment of David Gilb as director of the Department of Personnel Administration.
Jimenez blamed Gilb for the failure of the state to negotiate a new contract with the CCPOA. He chided Gilb for attending only one of the 20 negotiating sessions the union has had with the state over the past year and complained that the nominee prematurely sought a declaration of impasse in the contract talks. The state Public Employee Relations Board made the declaration May 17 and ordered the negotiations submitted to mediation.
"They've been dishonorable and dishonest with us in all of their dealings," Jimenez said of Gilb in his testimony at the June 4 confirmation hearing.
CCPOA spokesman Ryan Sherman said last week that Jimenez's opposition was not "so much about trying to take (Gilb) out." Instead, Sherman said, the union president, who could not be reached for comment Friday, was "highlighting the problems we're having" in the contract talks.
"If he'd do his job and meet with us and speak, and negotiate fairly and appropriately, we wouldn't have a problem," Sherman said of Gilb. "It's not that we want to get him bounced out of his job. We want him to do his job."
Gilb declined through a spokeswoman to be interviewed. He said in his testimony at the confirmation hearing that the state has offered a fair contract to the union. In documents filed with the labor relations board, the DPA charged that the union and Jimenez have blasted state negotiators with profanity-laden diatribes, filed "obstructionist" information requests and ultimately shut down bargaining altogether.
"We are interested in getting an agreement and getting the negotiations in a structured format that allows dialogue to occur," Gilb said at the hearing. "Dialogue has not occurred."
Gilb, with a 30-year career in labor relations, including the past 16 in management positions at the DPA, was named by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger last year to direct the agency. The Senate has until July 1 to confirm him. The Rules Committee vote on his confirmation was put over until Wednesday.
DPA spokeswoman Lynelle Jolley said she is not aware of any other unions trying to hold up the confirmation of the agency chief amid contract talks. It is a tactic that drew an angry response from Schwarzenegger spokesman Adam Mendelsohn.
"We are in the midst of difficult negotiations," Mendelsohn said. "It is inappropriate for anyone to try to use the confirmation hearing for the lead negotiator as leverage. ... Contract negotiations should never be politicized in a legislative hearing."
At the Rules Committee hearing, state Senate President Pro Tem Don Perata, D-Oakland, said that "personally, I'm ready to confirm you." Perata held up the vote, however, to give Gilb more time to "bring the people back to the table" to try to negotiate a contract. The first mediation session between the two sides is scheduled for Thursday, the day after the vote on Gilb's nomination.
Perata called the failure of the state to work out a deal with the prison officers "probably the biggest and most pressing issue" in the state. Obtaining labor peace, Perata said, is crucial to the success of the $7.9 billion prison construction and rehabilitation package recently enacted by Schwarzenegger and the Legislature.
"All this stuff's out there, but it's got to be made workable," Perata said. "This contract is the linchpin, whether we like it or not."
The state's contract with the union, which represents 31,000 line correctional officers, expired last July. The state has since come back with a proposal that would grant rank-and-file officers an 18 percent pay raise over four years. It would elevate the top-step officer's salary from the current $73,700 a year to $87,700, plus benefits.
State officials maintain that the offer would keep the correctional officers $666 below the California Highway Patrol's monthly pay, the key ingredient to the expired labor agreement.
The CCPOA, however, says its members would lose ground to the CHP on assorted pay differentials for things like uniform allowances.
The union also is fighting a variety of proposals by the state that would reassert management rights over staffing, post-agreement work rule changes and other issues. The two sides also disagree over the state's proposal to stop counting sick leave as hours worked toward overtime.
At the confirmation hearing, Gilb said that in recent years, he had "successfully led to conclusion ... in a very, very charged environment" negotiations on 19 state labor contracts. As for the correctional officers, Gilb said, "We want an agreement." He added that "the negotiations have been, I'm sorry to say, I think very, very hard."
Public employee union leaders representing Highway Patrol officers and state engineers, psychiatric technicians and firefighters all testified in support of Gilb's nomination.
"Dave Gilb is a very wise choice for the administration," Jon Hamm, the chief executive officer of the California Association of Highway Patrolmen, said in an interview last week. Hamm characterized the CCPOA's opposition to the appointment and the rough questioning Gilb received at his hearing as "a shame."
At the hearing, Sen. Roy Ashburn, R-Bakersfield, pounded Gilb with questions suggesting that the nominee did not respond fully to CCPOA correspondence in the talks and that he did not involve himself personally enough to obtain an agreement. Ashburn did not return a phone call for comment Friday.
"I think it was dangerously close to a committee trying to negotiate one unit's contract," Hamm said.
Sherman, the CCPOA spokesman, made no apologies for the union taking on Gilb in the confirmation process.
"This is the first public forum where we've had a chance to air some of our concerns that have been generated from the negotiations," Sherman said. "
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