CA State Employees Assn

2010 CalPERS Board Member Election & Candidate Forum

On September 7, 2010, from 6:00 p.m. - 7:30 p.m., the Sacramento Central Labor Council and PERSWatch.net will host a “CalPERS Candidates’ Forum,” moderated by the League of Women Voters of Sacramento County. The forum will be held in the CalSTRS Boardroom at 100 Waterfront Place in West Sacramento, next to the pyramid. This is your opportunity to meet and question the candidates. Email James McRitchie or for more information.

A video of the forum will be archived on the CalPERS website. We are delighted to be cosponsoring this event and are delighted that all candidates, even those who have no opposition, have agreed to participate. This is your opportunity to meet the candidates and to ask them all those tough questions. No reservations are required, just show up.

The problem isn't that public employees have decent pensions; it's that private sector workers don't

Letter to the Editor, Sacramento Bee, July 16, 2010

Re "State, private workers at odds" (Letters, July 14): The assertion by David Crane, special adviser to Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger for jobs and economic growth, is that a battle for scarce resources between public and private sector workers is somehow responsible for putting non-government workers in a financial bind.

That's not only ludicrous, but irresponsibly divisive.

Local 1000 members protest in El Centro

From the Imperial Valley Press: "More than 50 local state employees picketed outside the Department of Motor Vehicle office in El Centro on Tuesday over the temporary push by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s administration to impose the federal minimum wage on all state workers."

CSUEU member on the threat of minimum wage

From the Bakersfield Californian: "I think it's a real shame that state workers have to deal with this," said Ray Finnell, Bakersfield chapter president of the California State University Employees Union. "The budget is not their making. It's the legislators and the governor who make the budget. State workers suffer for their shortcomings."

Cutting the pay of state workers is not the solution

LA Times opinion says, "Reducing the pay of state workers to the federal hourly minimum wage of $7.25 until a state budget is adopted will help close California's $19.1-billion budget shortfall. Except that it won't."