LAST MONTH THE conservative, downtown business-advocacy group the Committee on Jobs announced a poll of San Francisco voters. The poll asked about voters' support for requiring city workers to make contributions to their pensions from their paychecks, restricting comp time, capping vacation, using merit over seniority (which often leads to cronyism), and contracting out public sector work (a.k.a. privatization).

Should we care about another political poll? You betcha. It's part of a national and statewide Republican effort to starve the public sector, dismantle social programs, and take away workers' rights and protections. The poll is the committee's first step toward finding a way to make all of this more palatable to San Franciscans.

Moreover, the committee recently boasted (in an internal memo that was leaked to the press) that local government turns to it for guidance on the budget, city jobs, department structure, and taxes. And the committee is planning to put an initiative limiting public sector employment and benefits on the November ballot.

The Committee on Jobs will argue that the city faces a $110 million budget deficit, and that the private sector can provide the same level of service as the public sector. And that, since the workers are paid less and have fewer benefits, the costs are lower in the short term. Political blogger Chris Nolan, who often comments on S.F. politics, suggested that social service advocates may join the committee in arguing for civil service reform. For example, Nolan noted that longtime progressive nonprofit executive director Randy Shaw has already publicly argued for "progressive civil service reform." San Francisco's public employees are on the defensive, from the left and right.

The Service Employees International Union Local 790 represents 10,000 city employees, most of the frontline city workers in our hospitals, clinics, Muni stations, and literally every department in our city. We have been part of a progressive coalition that has offered real budget solutions, not just rhetoric, that would preserve essential services for everyone, and not just in our programs. Our members want, and know our city can do, better. We can build a more just and humane city without privatizing and taking away workers' rights.

Moreover, privatization doesn't work. While it may lower costs in the short run, it undermines long-term goals of increasing wages and benefits for workers, not only in the public sector but in the private sector as well. Since low-wage workers often lack health and retirement benefits, the city ends up paying these costs later, in health care, when the workers go to San Francisco General Hospital and, in elder care, when they wind up at Laguna Honda Hospital or receive other social services to meet their basic needs on a fixed income well below the self-sufficiency standard in San Francisco.

Over the course of the 20th century, government intervention and union representation of workers led to a growing middle class. Over the course of the past three decades, though, we have witnessed reduced government intervention, declining union membership, and a shrinking middle class – and all under the guise of "reform." On the local level, City Controller Ed Harrington commented on the role of the public sector in creating and perhaps maintaining a middle class (go to adrielhampton.blogspot.com/2004_12_21_adrielhampton_archive.html).

The SEIU, led by Andy Stern, is fighting back on all fronts. Stern proposes dramatically restructuring labor, organizing new workers in red states, and organizing Wal-Mart workers. Democrats seem to be paying attention to the problem too: Howard Dean was elected Democratic National Committee chair last weekend.

It's time for us to create our own vision for the left, our own infrastructure, our own message machine, instead of just fighting theirs. And that starts with making sure San Francisco protects its public sector employees and demands adequate wages and benefits for all of its workers. When labor does well, other economic and social justice movements do well too. And soon we can say again with confidence that San Francisco is a labor town.

Robert Haaland is an organizer with Service Employees International Union Local 790. E-mail him or go to www.seiu790.org.