{"id":244291,"date":"2011-05-13T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2011-05-13T07:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sdnews.com\/financial-reforms-that-wont-save-a-dime-target-labor-unions\/"},"modified":"2011-05-13T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2011-05-13T07:00:00","slug":"financial-reforms-that-wont-save-a-dime-target-labor-unions","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/financial-reforms-that-wont-save-a-dime-target-labor-unions\/","title":{"rendered":"Financial reforms that ‘won’t save a dime’ target labor unions"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Financial<\/a>
Local labor official Michael Zucchet. (Courtesy of Michael Pawlenty)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

By Ashley Gaman | <\/strong>Reportero SDUN<\/p>\n

Public sector unions and progressive agendas are under attack by budgetary reforms in San Diego, according to local labor officials who spoke at a recent San Diego Democratic Club (SDDC) discussion panel.<\/p>\n

Much of the discussion revolved around conservative politicians allegedly using the need for financial reform within state and city budgets as an excuse to direct public frustration at labor unions nationwide. There are currently more than 700 pending state bills across the country that target union activities such as collective bargaining rights and union fees.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe right wing of the Republican party and their allies in business and media began to craft a narrative that is trying to redirect the rage of the American people toward the American workforce itself, in particular unionized workers who serve in the public sector,\u201d said Carla Kirkwood, program chair for SDDC. Panelists agreed that unions are under attack.<\/p>\n

\u201cI never imagined that there would be such a coordinated attack throughout the United States against organized labor,\u201d said Lorena Gonzalez, secretary-treasurer of the San Diego and Imperial County labor councils.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s not right to take away the right of any worker to join together in a union and to collectively bargain for a better life, and that\u2019s basically what they\u2019re trying to do,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

According to Michael Zucchet, general manager of the city\u2019s largest union, San Diego Municipal Employees
\nAssociation, the Republican Party is attacking the basic structure of labor unions and, by extension, the Democratic Party. He says they are \u201ccouching it as financial reforms and pension reforms when what it really is is an attack on unions.\u201d<\/p>\n

The panelists agreed that one of the toughest fronts of the attack is pension reform of city employees, who don\u2019t benefit from social security and have not received salary raises since 2005.<\/p>\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think this is about balancing the budget; this is clearly about taking away the rights of working, middle class San Diegans,\u201d said Gonzalez.<\/p>\n

These are not six-figured, rich city employees who are being affected, but rather hard-working individuals who provide invaluable services to the public while scraping by at home, said Eric Banks, president of Service Employees International Union Local 221.<\/p>\n

He reiterated the point with an account of an unnamed city employee who recently started living out of her car with her family. Other city employees are working two to three jobs just to scrape by.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you\u2019re talking about attacking public sector employees, you\u2019re talking about attacking the very fabric of the social safety-net system and attacking core values that we care about as Democrats,\u201d Banks said.<\/p>\n

According to Gonzalez, the attacks on unions are threatening to all progressive agendas. For example, she said that, \u201cIn states where you don\u2019t have the same protections we might enjoy here in California, the only way LGBT workers have rights are under collective bargaining agreements. When you start to erode that right, it erodes the rights of all workers but especially those who don\u2019t have protection outside of a collective bargaining contract.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s all done with this idea of balancing the budget. What they won\u2019t tell you is it won\u2019t save a dime for the city of San Diego,\u201d Gonzalez said.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Ashley Gaman | SDUN Reporter Public sector unions and progressive agendas are under attack by budgetary reforms in San Diego, according to local labor officials who spoke at a recent San Diego Democratic Club (SDDC) discussion panel. Much of the discussion revolved around conservative politicians allegedly using the need for financial reform within state […]<\/p>","protected":false},"author":726,"featured_media":244292,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"11555","_seopress_titles_title":"Financial reforms that 'won't save a dime' target labor unions","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[11551,11555],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-244291","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-uptown-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/244291","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/726"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=244291"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/244291\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/244292"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=244291"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=244291"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/test.sdnews.com\/es\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=244291"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}