Further battles in the war to destroy the middle class. We are in a race to the bottom.

[county worker]

Having destroyed the unions, reducing salaries, and taken away benefits for private sector employees, the push is on to do the same to public sector employees.

One of the weapons used is to divide the working class and pit us against each other. I am sure you have heard and will continue to hear that government workers are paid too much and have too many benefits. That argument aims to have you compare what you are paid with what someone in government is paid for comparable work. If you take the bait you will join the chorus to reduce the public sector salaries and get rid of public sector benefits.

It is true in many cases that public sector workers are paid better and have better benefits than private sector employees doing the same kind of work. The reason that is, is because public sector employees belong to unions in most cases. I am a county government worker and belong to SEIU. We still bargain with the county for a wage and benefit contract.

If we lose our union membership as the right would like to happen we would lose our salaries and benefits and then not only would private sector employees be forced out of the middle class but so would we.

Rather than fight among ourselves we should join together and bring back unions and better wages and benefits for all. We need the card check law to be passed and not a watered down version to get a bipartisan bill. The right has no interest in the working class maintaining a decent standard of living.

The following is an email we got yesterday. Our salaries and benefits and our names will be on line and the only reason for that is to get people to join in the effort to take them away from us.

It is your right to know as the court ruled but what is done with that information is up to you. Will you force us to join in the race to the bottom or will you join us in a better standard of living for yourselves too? It's your choice.



Here is the email:


The purpose of this email is to advise all County employees in advance, that later this week, and on an ongoing basis, the County will be providing salary and other compensation information requested through the Public Records Act. In addition, as a result of a 2007 Supreme Court ruling, when individual employee names and their associated salary/compensation are requested, we will be furnishing that information as well.

The most recent request is from the Contra Costa Times, which is requesting:



Employee names
Job titles
Employee departments
Base salary for 2009
Gross overtime pay for 2009
Other payments that contribute to base pay for 2009
Gross 2009 pay before any deductions


The Contra Costa Times will be adding this information to an online data base that it has been maintaining for several years. It is anticipated that it will request this information on an annual basis.



In the past, public employers did not typically reveal employee names when responding to such requests; however; as previously mentioned, the 2007 California Supreme Court ruling has changed this. The Court made it clear that public employees can have no expectation of privacy as to their individual identified salaries, except for undercover police officers, and that failure to disclose the information can result in lawsuits.



Therefore, the County has no recourse but to furnish the requested information. Until such a time as we can identify undercover law enforcement, we will list all law enforcement positions, with the exception of the Sheriff, as “undisclosed,” as well as DA Investigators and Probation Officers. This report will also be posted on the County’s internet site and will be updated annually.





We thought it was important to advise all employees of the necessity to furnish the information in advance. If you have any questions, please call CEO/Human Resources

[Newsjock]

1. Newspapers everywhere are doing this

And they ought to be ashamed of themselves for doing so. The information has always been public, but when Joe Freeper had to trundle down to the courthouse and page through microfilm to find it, that was far different from anyone now being able to find it instantly online.

Newspapers aren't doing this to be "good citizens"; they, too, are trying to pit us against each other -- and emasculate their own neutered employee unions in the process. It's disgusting, and unions in some towns have launched boycotts against the newspapers that do this.

California State Workers Protest Salary Database Publication
http://www.govtech.com/gt/275170