Public Employee Unions: On the Defensive?
Four big California public employee unions — including firefighters and highway patrol officers — would roll back their pensions under a deal struck this week with the governor. The compromise comes at a time when public sector unions are increasingly under pressure to make sacrifices to help state and local governments balance their budgets.
Host: Dave Iverson
Guests:
- Daniel J.B. Mitchell, professor emeritus at UCLA’s Anderson Graduate School of Management and former director of the UCLA Institute for Research on Labor and Employment
- John Myers, KQED’s Sacramento bureau chief
- Steve Greenhut, author of “Plunder: How Public Employee Unions Are Raiding Treasuries, Controlling Our Lives and Bankrupting the Nation” and director of the Journalism Center of the Pacific Research Institute, a conservative think tank
- Terry Brennand, senior government relations advocate for Service Employees International Union (SEIU) California, which represents 700,000 public and private sector workers in the state
