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SACRAMENTO - With tempers fraying in the summer of 2001, negotiations over a new labor contract between the powerful prison guard union and the state were bogging down.
Union officials wanted Robert Losik, the Davis administration's chief negotiator removed from the closed-door bargaining sessions. By early September, veteran negotiator Losik resigned his position, telling his bosses he couldn't deliver a signed contract.
On Thursday, Losik publicly revealed the circumstances surrounding his departure at a day-long oversight hearing scrutinizing the contract, saying that his relationship with the union had deteriorated.
The testimony of Losik and others for the first time provided an inside glimpse at the talks on the controversial contract, which has ballooned in cost since an agreement was ratified by the Legislature in early 2002.
While Losik emphasized it was a personal decision, Sen. Jackie Speier, D-San Mateo, who co-chaired the hearing, contended he was pressured to leave. The union, a major campaign donor to former Gov. Gray Davis, "made no bones about the fact that they didn't want to work with" Losik, she said after the hearing.
Speier suggested that "any time" the California Correctional Peace Officers Association "says they don't want to work with someone there's going to be a change in the negotiator."
Union officials, denying they have that kind of clout, acknowledged their desire to remove Losik, but played down their role in his decision. "I probably screamed and hollered," said Mike Jimenez, president of the CCPOA, testifying that he talked to the Department of Personnel Administration, lawmakers and Davis administration officials. He cited Losik's loss of credibility and "negative interaction" with the union.
The Department of Personnel Administration initially estimated that by the contract's final year in fiscal 2006-07 it would cost $190.5 million, but the Department of Finance now says the projected cost in that year will hit around $600 million.
The higher figure is due in part to staff vacancies and mushrooming overtime costs in the Department of Corrections, which houses 161,000 inmates and is the nation's largest prison system. A San Jose Mercury News analysis has showed that 391 officers earn more than $100,000 in the force, which has more than 20,000 officers.
Losik's successor, Linda Buzzini, finally reached an agreement with the union in December of 2001. But she testified Thursday that bargaining was hampered by the change in government negotiators.
Buzzini also disclosed that she came within hours of reaching a two-year agreement with the union without any base pay raises, which was the aim of the Davis administration. But at the last minute, she said, one of the union bargaining team members went on the Web site for the California Highway Patrol Officers Association and discovered it had won a five-year deal with pay hikes.
Prison guard salaries, which start around $33,000 a year, are linked to the CHP's pay formula, which in turn is tied to the salaries of five other local law enforcement agencies, including the San Francisco and Oakland police departments.
Speier called this provision "a blank check," adding "we were just going to pay our officers whatever the salaries were negotiated by other jurisdictions."
Given the state's huge budget deficit, Speier urged that the contract be reopened. She produced an opinion from the legislative counsel's office which indicates the contract can be renegotiated if the Legislature "does not provide sufficient funding" for it.
Lance Corcoran, executive vice president of the union, blasted the suggestion, saying it would undermine the state collective bargaining process. "For every bargaining unit in the state of California, it means don't negotiate contracts anymore because they're not worth the paper they are written on," he said during a break in the hearing.
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