PUBLIC EMPLOYEE UNIONS

After 16 years on the outside looking in during the Deukmejian and Wilson administrations, state employee unions relished the gubernatorial victory of labor-friendly Gray Davis. But even before his inauguration, Davis got into hot water with unions when he agreed to take a controversial pay hike, while his budget offered state employees little more than a token raise. Still, many in and out of Sacramento were stunned when the state’s largest employee union, the California State Employees Assn. (CSEA), authorized a strike vote. Initiated by the 87,000-member civil-service division, the threat aimed to pressure Davis to agree to the union’s demand for an immediate 12% to 15% pay bump.

Historically, the labor fraternity regards such in-your-face gestures as calls to solidarity. But it became apparent early on that, despite their numbers, the renegade civil servants had placed themselves dangerously far out on a limb. Other bargaining units, representing maintenance workers and safety employees, began cutting short-term contract deals, with raises running about 4%. Even more pointedly, the civil-service division’s strike vote was later rescinded, amid much internal acrimony, by CSEA’s statewide executive board.

Last week, the CSEA upstarts blinked. Negotiators for the vast majority of civil-service workers accepted the same kind of short-term deal that other units had been inking. Although the percentage increase--5.5%--was higher than that provided for the other bargaining units, dollarwise, the difference was less significant, since the 4% contracts run a month longer than the CSEA deals. Why did the civil servants’ dalliance with bargaining brinkmanship sputter?

They hadn’t read the new rule book: “How to Negotiate With Your Friends.”

Union leaders are correct when they hail Davis’ election as the dawn of a new era in the relationship between California’s political leadership and the roughly 200,000 permanent employees that make state government run. But that new era requires a different set of tactics. Negotiating with a friend places far more constraints on negotiators than a knock-down-drag-out war, and those fetters compel all parties to draw on qualities often absent in a more conventional labor-management dynamic: trust and pragmatism.

From the unions’ perspective, pragmatism should be a no-brainer. Davis won the governorship by 20 points. A victory that overwhelming enables him to credibly claim that no one interest group or pledge of support was the deciding factor. Conversely, it makes it impossible for any one interest group to bully the governor into action by threatening to withhold support in the future. If every state worker in California had voted for GOP candidate Dan Lungren instead of Davis, Davis still would have won easily.

Even if the election had been closer, there would be a compelling reason for pragmatism, particularly for the civil servants represented by CSEA. No matter how labor-friendly he might have been in the campaign, Davis is still a politician, and a shrewd one at that. He is knowing enough to recognize that, from a political standpoint, some state employee unions are more equal than others, especially those unions whose members wear badges. Whether or not it is fair, or even justified, pay raises for law enforcement will always be easier to sell.

If all this isn’t sufficient incentive for unions to cooperate with the new administration, there is a harsher reality to consider: Davis has a long memory. Most non-CSEA union leaders believed the CSEA strike threats crossed the line and could ultimately come back to haunt the union in future contract talks. “I wouldn’t want to be on Gray Davis’ bad side for the next four years,” said one state labor negotiator.

As evidenced by its decision to sign an interim agreement, even the rambunctious leadership within CSEA was able to recognize the wisdom of pragmatism. A more difficult quality to master is trust. It is hard to overstate the toxicity of the relationship that existed between former Gov. Pete Wilson and every single unionized state employee who didn’t wear a badge. Denying these employees a pay increase was Wilson’s personal jihad. It would be unrealistic to expect anyone who endured those difficult years to merrily buttonhook into a “don’t worry, be happy” mode.

Still, to regain the purchasing power lost during the Wilson years requires a leap of faith. Davis took a number of steps to establish good faith with the state’s unions. He unilaterally swept aside all the contract concessions, or “take-aways,” Wilson had demanded, including the former governor’s controversial merit-based pay system. Davis also ordered state business cards bearing the emblem, or “bug,” of the union representing state printers. If nothing else, such displays of good faith should earn Davis the benefit of the doubt in the early going, particularly when budget revenue projections did not live up to expectations.

Trust is not just a feel-good strategy. In a political setting, good faith buys you the time needed to fashion long-term agreements that are salable. Sure, there are lots of people who think state workers deserve a raise. Even labor-phobic Republicans are coming around to the idea that four years in the salary wilderness is punishment enough for the crime of not being a cop. But selling the kind of pay raise that would fully make up for lost ground requires a long-term approach. Though its legislative numbers are reduced, the two-thirds vote requirement means the GOP can still bollix up the budget. A huge pay raise for state workers, no matter how justified, would be an irresistible anecdote for Republicans’ antigovernment parables. Avoiding that thicket requires just the kind of tactical retrenchment demonstrated by short-term agreements.

Does this compel the unions to be the governor’s lap dogs? Certainly not. Many in labor say Davis’ early problems helped them keep their members alert and staunched any tendencies toward complacency.

But what trust truly means is that it’s time to turn the page on the bitterness of the Wilson years and give us a chance to see what it’s like to have a work force that actually gets along with its boss.