Posts tagged California Professional Firefighters
Special Feature: How Public Employee Unions Built California’s Most Powerful Political Machine
July 13, 2026 // In California, public employee unions are often among the most influential organizations helping determine who becomes governor, mayor, county supervisor or school board trustee. They endorse candidates. They contribute millions of dollars to campaigns and independent expenditures. They provide campaign volunteers, voter outreach, mail programs, and political infrastructure that many candidates could not easily replace. By the time contract negotiations begin, the relationship between labor and management has often existed for months or years. That does not mean elected officials simply surrender to union demands. Many negotiate in good faith and work hard to protect taxpayers while fairly compensating public employees. But in government, the officials responsible for approving compensation packages are frequently supported by the same organizations representing the employees who will benefit from those agreements.
How California’s Firefighter Union Could Get Guaranteed Raises, Forever
July 5, 2023 // “Firefighters are already among the best-paid government workers in the state,” said Will Swaim, president of California Policy Center, an advocacy group that is critical of California public employee unions. “No one else in California gets that deal,” he said. Michael Genest, the former finance director under Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, also called promises of future raised “irresponsible.” “Governors and legislators always regret having made such promises when our budget goes out of balance,” he wrote in an email. “The wise move is to make decisions about the allocation of state revenues each year and even then to be careful not to spend more on anything than is prudent.”
CALIFORNIA’S GOVERNMENT UNIONS CONTINUE STEADY DECLINE
October 10, 2022 // “This decline is most remarkable because it comes despite that massive hiring boom,” said Jackson Reese, Vice President of California Policy Center and director of CPC’s Janus project. “Every time a worker resigns union membership, her union loses close to $1,000 in dues per year. And, of course, that means $1,000 annually goes into the employee’s pocket.” Reese, who led CPC’s documents review, said his team calculates that the membership losses produced a decline in annual union dues income of just under $337 million. “That’s money the unions no longer have to finance campaigns, engage in political activism or lobby government officials — and that’s a key purpose of our work here,” Reese said.
CALIFORNIA UNION WATCH 2022 QUARTER 1 REVIEW
April 11, 2022 // The California Union Watch Twitter account (@CalUnionWatch) has been tracking government union contributions over the first quarter of this year (January 1, 2022 through March 31, 2022). Here are the five biggest union contributors from this year so far. We will be only focusing on state-level elections.