Direct from Ballard's email to me:

Haaland’s flier is indeed mostly lies. In the flier, Haaland spells Mayor Newsom’s name correctly, but that’s one of the last bits of accurate information you’ll find there.

When writing about the layoffs, why don’t you publish the facts instead of relying on the utterly unreliable Haaland? Here they are.

We originally balanced the budget around the assumption of the SEIU tentative agreement. When the agreement was voted down, we were forced to propose further reductions to balance the budget. These reductions included the layoffs scheduled to take place on November 15. The position eliminations and conversions added to balance the budget following rejection of the tentative agreement totaled $11.5 million, including:

§ Certified Nursing Assistants
· 2.8 million is the savings in the final budget from conversions of CNAs ($3.3 million in savings was included in the Mayor’s budget but $500,000 was later added back by the Board of Supervisors to restore some of these positions).
· The annualized savings will be $4.5 million.
· DPH has issued 289 layoff notices to CNAs.
· All CNAs receiving layoff notices will receive an offer to retain employment with the City in a new job class.
· We pay our CNAs 48% more in total compensation (including benefits) than other comparable public agencies. Even after converting these positions to the Patient Care Assistant class, we will still be paying 18% more to our PCAs than other public agencies do to their CNAs. Regarding private agencies, we pay at least 31% more than them, but it’s difficult to make the comparison since their benefits are generally not as rich (e.g., retirement).
· It should also be noted that the first tentative agreement with SEIU, which its membership voted down, included a provision to implement the conversion of CNAs on an attrition basis. That could have been the model the city used for CNA conversions going forward had the union agreed to that deal, instead of converting the positions outright.

§Clerical Positions
· $4.9 million is the savings in the final budget from clerical position eliminations and conversions to other job classes at DPH.
· The annualized savings will be $7.7 million.
· 188 layoff notices have been issued effective November 15.
· Of these 188, 123 will be converted into other clerical positions and employees will have the opportunity to retain City employment.
· The remaining 65 are positions that will be eliminated.
· The Board did not make any add-backs for clerical positions.
· According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the mean national wage for word processors and typists is $43,510. Our 1424s are paid $49,764 and our 1426s are paid $54,574 (these are the positions that are being converted to lower classes at DPH).

In total, to restore all layoffs of CNAs and clerical positions at DPH alone would cost $7.7 million in the current year, and $12.4 million next year. Of the 546 layoff notices issued that will be effective in November, 412 positions will be converted to other job classes.

When faced with the tradeoff between eliminating positions outright and doing things that would allow employees to keep their jobs, we made a concerted effort to help people keep their jobs. We believed this was also the preference of the SEIU leadership and rank and file.

All of the 546 layoffs were included in the budget deliberated and approved by the Board. The City discussed these plans extensively at the time at Board of Supervisors budget hearings and multiple Health Commission meetings.

Although it was not made explicit with SEIU at the bargaining table that there would be additional CNA conversions or clerical layoffs forthcoming, it was made clear that the SEIU agreement, that was later ratified, would not prevent any future layoffs. During subsequent budget hearings, these layoffs scheduled for November 15th became the subject of clear policy debates and tradeoffs during the budget process.

The Board of Supervisors restored $40 million in spending. Instead of restoring CNAs and clerical positions, the Board opted to prioritize restoring other services including the Jail Health Prop J worth $6 million, ($12 million annualized); multiple security Prop J’s worth $6.8 million ($13.6 million annualized); and janitorial services Prop J worth $2.6 million ($5.2 million annualized). Many of these Prop J proposals would not have resulted in a layoff but would have allowed employees to keep their jobs performing other city functions, such as public health nurses performing other services within DPH rather than providing jail health services.

So: According to Ballard, the workers are already overpaid, and nothing is Newsom's fault. Some of the allegedly overpaid workers can now get new jobs at lower pay. Peachy.

Here’s another interesting statistic from the union, which shows that nearly all of the people getting laid off are women of color.

DEMOGRAPHIC ANALYSIS September, 2009
1428 Unit Clerk
2302 Nursing Assistant
2303 Patient Care Assistant

Total employees in above classifications – 744

ETHNICITY

26 (4%) Caucasian
718 (96%) African-American, Asian, Pacific Islander, Filipino, Hispanic
-
744 Total

GENDER

159 (21%) Male
585 (79%) Female

744 Total

Why is that relevant? Well, for one thing San Francisco has, since the mid 1980s, been a leader in what used to be called the “comparable worth” movement
which is based on the fact that jobs traditionally held by women have always been undervalued in the United States employment marketplace. The skills needed to be a janitor aren’t any greater than the skills needed to be a secretary, but until the 1980s, even in the city of San Francisco, janitors, mostly men, always made more money than secretaries, mostly women.

So the city made a conscious effort to upgrade the pay of jobs like the ones that are now being lost (and the ones that Ballard says are so high-paid -- although none of them make close to half of his own salary, and one could certainly argue the value of nurses assistants vs. press flaks).

The cuts, in other words, have come from the bottom, not the top, and from jobs held by women, and that’s part of what SEIU is pissed about.

And the fact remains that Newsom promised the union that he would work toward a revenue measure, and then didn’t follow through. What he needed to do was convince the three supervisors he had personally appointed -- Sean Elsbernd, Carmen Chu and Michela Alioto -- that they should allow a November vote on revenue measures. If they’d gone along, the board would have been unanimous in agreeing to hold that election, and a revenue measure could have passed with a simple majority. Without the mayor’s three allies, thanks to oddities in state law, any tax measure would have needed a two-third vote.

And if the mayor can’t even convince three people who owe their jobs to him to allow the public to vote on something, how the hell is he going to deal with the state Legislature?

We all know what really happened here: Newsom is running for governor, and he doesn’t want to be known as a mayor who raised taxes. So he promised the union that he would do something that he was never going to do.

That’s what it all boils down to, and that’s why it’s fun to see Local 1021 call him on it -- and why it’s instructive to see how fragile the mayor is when he’s pushed. Mr Mayor, sir: It’s not going to get any easier if you make it to higher office.