January 19, 2009
Message from Local 127 President Joan Raymond
DOING OUR PART TO HELP SAVE VITAL CITY SERVICES
The San Diego city government -- like other public agencies, businesses and families across the region -- is facing new financial challenges with the downturn in the economy. But unlike many others who are just now suffering, financial problems at City Hall are nothing new, nor are the sacrifices that employees have made to weather the fiscal troubles.
To save the city $22 million on its future annual payments to the retirement system, workers agreed last year to one of the skimpiest pension plans in the state for all newly hired employees. No city employees receive credit toward social security for their work. All employee face increased workloads with every round of layoffs and have frequently forgone pay raises. San Diego city employees typically pay more toward their retirement and earn less pay than their counterparts in other public agencies.
Those concessions are mocked by sensationalists, but they have a powerful impact on the livelihoods of these workers, as they would be for any San Diego family.
Compounded by the national economic crisis, city budget cuts appear to be heading toward more shaky ground that will touch more San Diegans than just our employees.
We have consistently argued that San Diego is a low-tax, low-revenue city with rates that are out of step with other cities in the county and the state. However, it will take leadership from all corners of the civic dialogue to lift those realities beyond the ideologically opposed and into serious discussion.
Instead, with the encouragement of Councilman Tony Young, Local 127 presented our ideas for savings to the Jan. 30 meeting of the Budget and Finance Committee, in hope of minimizing the anticipated $50 million deficit for 2009-10 on city services. In the short time we have had to do a budget analysis, we identified $15 Million in savings in phase one of our budget project. We did not address revenues in this stage of the project.
First and foremost, we believe that the city should look at its workforce with an eye toward the employees who are performing the actual services residents enjoy: fire protection, street sweeping, removing trash, filling potholes, law enforcement, maintaining parks, operating recreation centers and libraries, and so on.
By eliminating some of the layers of management and supervision that tower above these front-line workers, we can expand the “span of control” of managers while still delivering services to residents. For example, in the Streets Division, a heavy equipment operator reports to a supervisor, who reports to a superintendent, who reports to a deputy director, who reports to the department director, who reports to the deputy chief operating officer of public works, who reports to the chief operating officer, who ultimately reports to the mayor. That’s a lot of overhead.
Add to the fact that the city has successful self-directed crews: working foremen who are out in the field directing their coworkers rather than sitting in an office. This begs the question as to why there are so many supervisory positions in the city when a significant portion of their work is delegated to front-line personnel.
Additionally, the city’s managers have often expanded their administrative support while simultaneously cutting public service positions. Today, the city’s budget is rife with “assistant to …” (insert level of management here). Many such positions came into existence in the last three years during the current fiscal crisis.
The overall problem of mismanagement points to other areas where cuts to staff have been pennywise but pound-foolish. The Fire Department is losing out on $2 million because it doesn’t have the staff to track down cost recovery payments from other public agencies that are lent firefighters and equipment for major fires as well as businesses who owe for fire inspections of their facilities.
If we are to preserve services while finding savings, some innovations are needed. Several companies and municipalities are now experimenting with a four-day, 10-hour-a-day work week. There are many functions that the city performs where this should also be considered. We estimate that $500,000 would be saved annually on fuel alone if blue-collar workers went to this schedule. Think of the other benefits that are possible for the city’s energy usage and the local environment.
In one last example, the city should really consider the equality of its benefit packages between managers and other employees. There are about 700 to 750 managers who receive $3,000 more in health care allowance than the rest of the workforce. Equalizing this to the level received by non-managerial employees could save the city more than $2 million while also undoing a discriminatory benefit that grants more allowance to those highest-paid employees, who are also more likely to afford health care premiums.
These are a few examples we have publicized..Our blue collar employees will continue to be a part of the solution in balancing our budgets. We hope that others in the community will look to see what they can do to restore city government that makes San Diego a city we’re proud to live in: businesses, citizens, the Chargers, the Padres and redevelopment agencies.
Dr. King’s Final Hours: Defending the Rights of Sanitation Workers
Most of us know the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis in 1968.
However, many do not know that Dr. King died fighting for rights of workers to organize unions in a landmark battle during the 1960s.
It was a struggle that welded the civil rights movement, the religious community and the labor movement.
Most San Diegans are also unaware there’s a significant connection between their City Sanitation Drivers and the Memphis sanitation workers whose rights Dr. King was defending at the time of his murder.
The Memphis and San Diego garbage-truck drivers are all members of AFSCME.
Let’s go back to Memphis, 1968. Dr. King delivered the historic “I’ve Been to the Mountaintop” speech to an overflow church crowd of sanitation workers and supporters.
The sanitation workers had suffered years of discrimination and mistreatment, breaking their backs for starvation wages. They wanted a union contract.
“We were being treated as if we were boys instead of men,” recalled Alvin Taylor, an original member of Memphis Local 1733
When two workers were crushed to death after a garbage truck short-circuited, the workers walked off the job.
Memphis Mayor Henry Loeb declared their strike illegal and brought in scabs. Hunger was at the door. The city would not budge. Urgent calls were made to Dr. King.
He cancelled a trip to Africa and rushed to Memphis to lead a peaceful march, telling a spellbound crowd: “You are demanding that this city will respect the dignity of labor!
“So often we overlook the worth and significance of those who are not in professional jobs, of those who are not in the so-called big jobs.
“But…whenever you are engaged in work that serves humanity and is for the building of humanity, it has dignity and it has worth!”
“I AM A MAN” was the simple message on the marchers’ signs.
The National Guard, police, tanks, bayonets, mace and dogs were turned on marchers.
On the night of April 4, Dr. King was on the balcony of his motel preparing for another march when struck down by the sniper’s bullet.
The day before his funeral in Atlanta, Coretta Scott King took her husband’s place to lead the strikers again.
Finally, they won a union contract, with Dr. King paying the ultimate price.
Dr. King believed unions were the best anti-poverty program for the working poor.
Today, his words ring louder than ever in this time of economic meltdown and joblessness.
“We know that it isn’t enough to integrate lunch counters,” Dr. King told a crowd at Mason Temple just days before his death.
“What does it profit a man to be able to eat at an integrated lunch counter if he doesn’t earn enough money to buy a hamburger and a cup of coffee?”
Today, the San Diego Sanitation Drivers carry on Dr. King’s legacy by fighting for a fair contract, dignity and respect for all workers.
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