Guess who runs California? Officially, it's the governor and the political class, i.e. the legislature. But it's actually the public sector unions. I guess that's what happens when they organize the vote drive and get the folks out to vote. Here is the story:
Gov. Gavin Newsom (D-CA) is incapable of getting his employees to show up to the office more than two days a week. This is an indictment of his leadership and reveals a flaw that should be fatal to his presidential aspirations. It is also an indictment of the California Democratic Party, which has shown itself to be a wholly owned subsidiary of powerful government unions.
This March, just weeks before the state’s Legislative Analyst’s Office projected current and “persistent” deficits of between $10 billion and $20 billion a year, Newsom issued an executive order directing all agency heads to update telework policies to require staff to be in their offices four days a week rather than two days, as is now the case. Agency heads were given three months to get this done, with an implementation deadline of July 1.
California’s government unions, SEIU Local 1000 most prominent among them, vowed to block Newsom’s order, and many elected Democrats in Sacramento joined the fight on the unions’ side. Several government employee unions filed grievances with the state, while others sued. The unions spent more than $30,000 on billboards that were posted in Sacramento attacking Newsom for supposedly creating traffic jams by forcing workers to go to their place of work.
Sure enough, Newsom buckled under this pressure and capitulated. He delayed the return to work by a year, giving unions more time to flex their political muscles and prepare for another fight.
Government unions are big business in California. Combined, the California Teachers Association, California Federation of Teachers, California School Employees Association, American Federation of State and Municipal Employees, SEIU 1000, and other public safety unions have more than a million members in the state, paying more than a billion dollars a year in dues.
Between 15% and 25% of this money is spent maximizing the unions’ political power, including direct donations to Democratic Party campaigns, ballot measures, political staff, lobbyists in Sacramento, and “issue advocacy.” That comes to $150 million of union dues spent every year influencing government policy.
No other special interest groups in the state come close to spending that kind of money and acquiring such influence -- not Silicon Valley, not Hollywood, not the tourism industry. The government employee unions are a unified political machine. Not even the Democratic Party of California comes close to spending that kind of money to wield power.
No other group has that much influence? Who knew that such was the outcome of a one-party state dominated by public sector unions? They’re in charge and Gavin knows it.
The larger issue is that it makes the governor look weak. At least, President Reagan fired the guys at the airport tower. It reminded me of something I heard back then when a friend from Europe was so impressed that a democratically elected president would fire union members. Reagan “has big ones” said he, and it wasn't a reference to his shoe size.
So Gavin continues picking fights over ICE and sanctuary cities. But the image of a weak leader, or the man who can't get his state workers to show up at the office, prevails.
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Image: AT via Magic Studio