POLICE AND FIRE ARE UNIONS ROLLING

IT'S too early, of course, to completely tally the winners and losers in a
legislative session that's only half finished.

Nevertheless, it's already certain that labor unions will count 1999 as a
banner year in the Capitol. More specifically, public employee unions are
racking up big gains, and those covering police officers and fire fighters
may be the biggest winners.

The latter have dual clout in the political arena, as unions and as
representatives of two occupations that command high respect among voters.
They have become two of the Capitol's most powerful special-interest groups
by adeptly exploiting their public prestige.

Simply put, the game is this: politicians who promise to support the police
and fire unions' legislative goals, which almost always have to do with
money, are rewarded with endorsements. The politicians then use those
endorsements to portray themselves as being tough on crime during campaigns.

In its most extreme, or cynical, form, liberals who oppose tough-on-crime
laws can win police union endorsements because of their support for
bread-and-butter issues such as pension enhancements, while Iock-'em-up
conservatives are, denied backing because they oppose the unions' agendas.

Since union-friendly Democrats made big gains in last year's elections,
1999 is shaping up as payback time, with hundreds of union-backed bills
moving through the Legislature and toward a governor who also enjoyed
strong public worker union backing.

Gov. Gray Davis made raises for state workers an early priority. And when
revised revenue figures indicated that the state had an extra $4.3 billion,
Davis set some of the money aside for more raises and another chunk to end
private janitorial contracts in state buildings and hire unionized civil
service janitors. Most significantly, however, he committed $355 million to
construct new prisons.

Prison construction is an extremely high priority for the California
Correctional Peace Officers Association, which may be the state's single
most influential union. The prison guards' union, which had often sided
with Republicans in the past, backed Davis with millions of dollars. Among
Capitol insiders, the set-aside for new prisons is viewed as a direct
payback - especially in light of the yearslong blockade of new prisons by
Democratic legislative leaders.

Other police and fire unions, meanwhile, are pressing an aggressive - and
so far successful- agenda that would enhance their standing and put more
money in their members' pockets.

One, now pending in the Senate and carried by Senate President Pro Tem John
Burton, would accomplish the safety unions' long-sought goal of imposing
binding arbitration when salary talks reach impasse. Another Senate bill,
meanwhile, would directly increase police and firefighter pensions by
raising the cap from 73 percent of salary to 90 percent. Local governments
officials are trying to generate opposition to the measures, saying they
will cost local taxpayers untold hundreds of millions of dollars.

Dozens of other police and fire union-sponsored bills of lesser weight also
are making their way through the Legislature. One that cleared the Assembly
last week, for example, would allow the Board of Dental Examiners to
sharply expand the number of its investigators who are designated as "peace
officers, "with full arrest and gun-carrying powers and enhanced pension
benefits. There are lots of dangerous dentists out there, one presumes - or
maybe just a growth-minded union.