A REWARD FOR THE PRISON GUARDS' UNION?

Gov. Pete Wilson and Don Novey, president of the California Correctional
Peace Officers
Association, are too shrewd and too careful to ever leave behind any
trail of improper conduct.

But the one-year, 12 percent pay raise Wilson gave Novey's union last
week sure has the earmarks of one of the sleaziest quid pro quos the
state Capitol has seen in years. The correctional officers' union has
long been a major financial backer of Wilson. When he badly needed a
huge sum of cash to finance his final week of TV ads in his 1990 race
for governor against Dianne Feinstein, CCPOA was there with a
half-million dollars.

The union has given him other money along the way, up to $1.5 million,
as well as help financing other candidates the governor wanted to win.

No one would ever be so crass or inept as to link campaign
contributions with a pay raise so enormous that it leaves no other
money on the table for hundreds of thousands of other state workers
who have gone without a raise for nearly four years.

Such explicit linkage would be illegal.

But there has been enough wink-wink, nudge-nudge activity here to
employ a troupe of mimes.

You might think the message Wilson wants other state workers to
receive is that the way to such a whopping pay raise is twofold:
First, pay huge sums to the governor's campaign committees; and
second, then be the subject of explosive legislative hearings into
serious allegations that your members at Corcoran State Prison beat
and arranged rapes of inmates, set up gladiator-style fights among
inmates, shot and killed inmates and then imposed a code of silence to
impede investigating authorities.

Novey is smart.

He butters his bread on both sides.

His union has also lavishly backed Democrats. Which explains why it is
no surprise that the bill approving this outrageous pay raise sailed
through both houses of the Legislature last week. Democratic leaders
may well be counting on the CCPOA's wad to help finance their
legislative elections in the fall. But it is Wilson who stiffed all
the other unions.

"The question has to come up: Do you have to pay Wilson to get an
agreement?" said Dennis Trujillo, spokesman for three state employee
groups representing attorneys, scientists and engineers. "Do you give
Wilson $1.5 million in order to get $175 million in this agreement?

The administration says it got 'pay for performance' and civil service
reform. But the groups without an agreement say they have not been
offered this. It isn't pay for performance. It's smoke and mirrors."
Rick Tullis, a deputy state attorney general and 25-year civil
litigator with the state, added: "Wilson has an almost pathological
dislike of public employees.

We don't even know why he hates us so much, but he despises us. He
wants us to change all the civil service rules.

We can't do that. And it's all a sham anyway, because he gave a 12
percent raise to the prison guards and didn't get any reform."

After seven years on the job, correctional officers now get $3,834 a
month, $46,000 a year before the raise, without overtime.

And there's lot of overtime.

The Department of Corrections has grown so fast in recent years that
some guards make sergeant within three years, in which case their pay
goes up another 10 percent.

To qualify for the job, they need a high school diploma and six weeks'
training.

And until a recent change in policy, it used to be they were even
allowed one felony. By contrast, a first-year assistant professor at
the University of California, who needs a Ph.D. from a prestigious
university and brilliant recommendations, makes $41,200. That's for
one of the most sought-after jobs in the academic world. David Gilb,

chief negotiator for the Department of Personnel Affairs, conceded
that 7 percent of the raise for prison guards is not subject to
Wilson's "pay for performance" standards. But 5 percent is, he said.

For that 5 percent, there is an "expansion of the work week,"
including one hour a week additional training and one hour a week for
"pre-watch work activities," which Gilb said was more than just
walking from the car to the job and back, as critics alleged. "CCPOA
was willing to bargain with us and give us reasonable
counterproposals," Gilb said. "The other unions were not." Among the
tradeoffs in bargaining, he said, was that CCPOA was willing to allow
random drug testing and limits on overtime reduced from 96 hours a
month to 80 hours a month, which some guards in some facilities were
working.

In other words, some guards have
been earning $3,348 a month in overtime in addition to their $3,834 a
month regular pay. Over a year, that would exceed $86,000.
"I have never seen anything that has made people angrier," Tullis said
of the 12 percent pay raise. "This is about as bald as I've ever seen,"
agreed John Hein, chief lobbyist for the California Teachers
Association, which is not affected by these pay raises, but which is a
longtime Wilson adversary. "This one really stretches credulity."

JACOBS can be reached via e-mail at jjacobs@sacbee.com

Copyright 1998 Union-Tribune Publishing Co.

Checked-by: Rich O'Grady