Gov. Schwarzenegger's attack on California public employees could have serious consequences for
the rest of the nation

In the 1978 Academy Award winning film “Annie Hall,” Woody Allen dismissed California as a state whose only lasting contribution to American society was “right turn on red.” The line was funny, memorable—and dead wrong. The year 1978 also saw the introduction of another California idea to the national landscape— Proposition 13, which set an arbitrary cap on property taxes and ushered in more than a quarter century of “taxpayer revolts” and “auto-cuts” in government receipts in other states and municipalities.

It was Proposition 13 that helped inspire Colorado’s so-called Taxpayer Bill of Rights (TABOR) law in 1992, which restricts government spending through arbitrary formulas and has led to Colorado government services that are $1.6 billion below 2001 levels. Thirteen states considered TABOR laws in 2004, and many are expected to revisit them this year. Wisconsin is one such state and Art Foeste, a member of the AFT Public Employees program and policy council, calls these chokehold approaches to government funding the offspring of Proposition 13. Whenever such laws take root, “groups just boilerplate them up and push them out” to other states, he says.

Private school vouchers and “paycheck protection” schemes to starve unions out of the political arena also received a boost from high-profile ballot battles in California in the 1990s. And that fact should send shivers down the spines of AFT members nationwide once they get a glance at the legislative agenda that Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger has hatched up for his state.

If Schwarzenegger has his way, California will turn its back on guaranteed pensions for teachers and public employees—and, in so doing, throw its considerable weight behind efforts to privatize Social Security and similar attacks on public employee pensions in at least five other states. If Schwarzenegger has his way, California will scuttle a voter-passed guarantee of an adequate funding “floor” for schools and community colleges, thus draining the system of $36 billion over the next 15 years. That’s a loss of $15,500 for every classroom in the state. If Schwarzenegger has his way, the state will tear up existing collective bargaining agreements, lock teachers into probationary status for 10 years and embark on a fuzzy plan to impose a merit-pay plan that, while short on specifics, is supposed to make sure that “teacher employment be tied to performance, not to just showing up,” the governor told Californians in his State of the State address.

The governor’s agenda also would give K-14 districts and colleges the green light to privatize noninstructional services—without showing that taxpayers would save money under such a move or that employees would be paid fairly, as the current law requires. And a final piece of the agenda—one designed specifically to silence public employees who stand up against these rollbacks—would set crippling limits on how they can participate in the political dialogue through their unions.

Why are so many of the governor’s proposals focused on public employees? “These are the special interests. Special interests don’t like me in Sacramento because I kick their butt,” Schwarzenegger recently explained at one public appearance when challenged by nurses who showed up to protest the governor and his policies, including his refusal to implement a law requiring safe nurse-patient ratios in hospitals.

But conspicuously absent from the governor’s attacks against special interests have been some of his biggest contributors and policy supporters, including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, archconservative think tanks such as the Cato Institute, and Americans for Tax Reform. Although Schwarzenegger will face a tough battle in a special session of the Legislature—where bills containing many of these initiatives now rest—he’s well armed if lawmakers in Sacramento refuse to go along: Schwarzenegger raised more than $23 million in campaign contributions last year and hopes to more than double that amount in 2005 to promote his positions on a ballot initiative in a possible special election, the Los Angeles Times reports.

Many eyes will be on California, which is shaping up as a “tipping point” in an increasingly hostile post-election environment for public employees around the nation. In January, newly inaugurated Republican governors in Indiana and Missouri repealed collective bargaining rights for state employees, negating or threatening current contracts for more than 30,000 workers in those states. That momentum could build if attacks succeed in California, and AFT members should take heed: If Schwarzenegger and his supporters have their way in California, “they’ll be back.”

—Mike Rose