PRISON OFFICERS GET RAISE; OTHER WORKERS STYMIED

SAN LUIS OBISPO -- State workers are smarting after negotiators for
California's correctional officers agreed to a one-year, 12 percent raise,
an increase that comes as other employee unions remain at loggerheads with
Gov. Pete Wilson.

What hurts isn't the pay hike package that still needs ratification by the
California Correctional Peace Officers Association, according to union
officials, but that the agreement came one day after Wilson vetoed
increases for other state workers.

"The contract the governor has given to the correctional officers is
something that he never offered us in any shape or form," said Drew
Mendelson, a spokesman in the California State Employees Association's
Sacramento headquarters.

Prison officers, like most other state workers, have gone without a pay
raise since 1995.

The CSEA represents 87,000 workers in nine of the state's 21 bargaining units.

Under the deal, according to the Associated Press, the state would increase
contributions to the pension plan of the state's 28,000 correctional
officers by 2 percent.

The agreement was reached Saturday, one day after the Republican governor
vetoed funds for a 9 percent raise for other state employees from the state
budget. Top pay for correctional officers would rise from $3,850 to $4,235
per month.

Five percent of the raise would be retroactive to July 1, and the other
half would take effect Oct. 1. Officers will work an extra eight hours a
month, from 160 hours to 168, for the additional 5 percent increase. The
extra hours will compensate officers for the time it takes them to walk to
and from their stations each day, and for an additional 52 hours of
mandatory training annually.

Joe Creath, president of the association's chapter at the California Men's
Colony, scoffed at calling the agreement a 12 percent raise.

"I'd rather not work the extra two hours a week," he said.

The agreement must be approved by the Legislature and by members of the
California Correctional Peace Officers Association.

News of the agreement comes only days after the state Legislature wrapped
up hearings into alleged inmate abuse at Corcoran State Prison.

The CSEA's Mendelson said it appears Wilson is rewarding the correctional
officers association for years of political support. The union has given
$667,000 in campaign contributions directly to the governor.

Wilson's spokesman, Sean Walsh, told the Sacramento Bee the correctional
officers "deserve the raise ... because they have the toughest beat in
California."

He called it "outrageous" to suggest that the correctional officers'
union's sizable campaign contributions to Wilson influenced the agreement.

Walsh, according to the Bee, accused leaders of state worker unions of not
bargaining in good faith.

"That's outrageous," said Jay Salter, an official in the union representing
state hospital psychiatric technicians.

But even Salter and other union officials who believe the agreement is
political payback said the correctional officers deserve the raise.

"A 12 percent pay increase for state correctional officers is probably
about the right amount," Salter said. "It's appropriate for the dangerous
work these guys are doing."

But Salter, who lives in Atascadero, said psychiatric technicians are
working in an equally dangerous environment, but aren't being compensated
on an equal footing.

"We certainly deserve an equivalent pay increase."

Salter said the governor's office is unwilling to bend on demands for civil
service reforms that would curtail protections for state workers.

Norm Stone, a local CSEA representative who works as a supervising cook at
CMC, said he doesn't "begrudge any (bargaining) unit getting what they can
get for (its) membership."

He said members of other unions who work at CMC generally aren't resentful
of the correctional officers association's relative power in Sacramento.

"There is a little animosity," he said. "But when we're inside, we're on
the same team. These other issues are fodder for conversation."

(c) San Luis Obispo County Telegram-Tribune

Checked-by: Mike Gogulski