Prison Guards’ Contract Amendments Under Fire

The Schwarzenegger administration on Monday defended a recent prison guard contract amendment that has come under fire from a federal judge, the state attorney general and lawmakers.

“There is a great deal of fiction surrounding this agreement,” said David Gilb, chief negotiator for the Department of Personnel Administration, as he faced tough questioning from a committee of state senators.

Gilb said the state had no leverage when it entered into renegotiations of a controversial contract with the prison guards, but managed to extract $108 million in pay concessions over the next two years. “This is real money,” he said. “In order to [get it], we had to give things in return.”

But several senators said the state was too generous with the 31,000-member California Correctional Peace Officers Assn.

At issue Monday were recently negotiated amendments to the union’s labor contract approved two years ago. The changes are getting far more attention than the union pact itself, which sailed through the Legislature and gave the union a 37% raise over the life of the contract expiring June 30, 2006. The amendments are expected to be voted upon by the Legislature later this summer.

Sen. Tom McClintock (R-Thousand Oaks) said the administration gave away important tools for managing the state’s runaway prison budget. For example, one provision would make it tougher to lay off employees when the prison population falls. “The prison system is out of control,” he said.

Sen. Jackie Speier (D-Hillsborough) said one provision strips away additional authority from prison administrators, by allowing most supervisory positions to be filled by seniority.

The loss of management control was a central criticism of U.S. District Court Judge Thelton Henderson, who threatened last week to place the $6-billion prison system under a receiver.

Atty. Gen. Bill Lockyer, like Henderson, criticized a provision that would allow the union to obtain video of assaults and other prison incidents for public relations purposes.

The attorney general’s office proposed alternative language that it said would not jeopardize investigations or invade the privacy of wards and inmates.

It also would give the guards no more access to these materials than anyone using the state Public Records Act.

“Under this language, we would never see any videotapes,” said union President Mike Jiminez. “Our intent is to show what is going on in prisons.”