Comments@THE GUSS REPORT-In about a month, the United States Supreme Court is expected to rule on a case out of Illinois,Janus v. AFSCME, that could crush the influence that public sector unions have on Los Angeles politicians and their peers across California and the U.S. But don’t look to the recently unionized LA Times on how that ruling might impact you on a day-to-day basis.
Drop in on any local government meeting and you will see them come to a screeching halt when high-ranking union officials show up, because everyone in the room knows that it is their money (or more accurately, the money that public sector employees are forced to give to them) that runs the given town. The incestuous fawningby local politicians toward those union leaders affirms that.
The SCOTUS case is broadly about whether the 1st Amendment rights of those public sector employees are torn away when they are forced to pay fees to the unions as a condition of having their government job, even when they may disagree with the union’s political activities.
On a more micro level, the issue is whether unions’ political activities can be compartmentalized away from their original and primary purpose of collective bargaining and fighting for workplace safety. The Supreme Court appears to be ready to decide that the two cannot be untangled, which may be a fatal blow for public sector unions everywhere because its members could benefit from its activities without having to pay for them. And if the unions are providing benefits and protections for those public sector employees, but are not getting paid for doing so, their influence on local officials will slip and or disappear altogether.
A year ago, I was first to report – accurately – on such union power when local and national firefighter unions influenced Mayor Eric Garcetti to put a high-ranking LAFD official named John Vidovich in what amounts to a City Hall timeout-until-retirement after he exposed blatant corruption and waste that Los Angeles District Attorney Jackie Lacey – who has long been chummy with union influencers – has been too timid to tackle, pardon the alliteration.
The LA Times, whose recently unionized staff originally wrote an inaccurate and incomplete story about Vidovich, has since assigned other reporters, namely Dakota Smith and Kerry Cavanaugh, to get updates on his resulting $5 million lawsuit against the city, with little success.
I recently asked LAFD Chief Ralph M. Terrazas about the Vidovich case, and he simply replied that “John Vidovich was a good friend of mine…he is a good friend of mine.”
The SCOTUS is expected to rule in favor of public sector employees who object to being forced to pay union fees, even if they benefit from some or many union activities, because the tie-breaking vote will be cast by recently appointed conservative Justice Neil M. Gorsuch.
The consequence of that vote, if it turns out that way, will have an immense influence on how business is done in Los Angeles governments, and whether and how union influence of our elected officials may slip away.
The Times’ reporters, whose union is obviously non-public, have been loud and proud on their social media accounts about their recent organizing, yet have been awfully quiet in their by-lines about how the SCOTUS ruling might impact all of us on a daily basis. We know that the Timescan report accurately. But will they and when?
(Daniel Guss, MBA, is a member of the Los Angeles Press Club, and has contributed to CityWatch, KFI AM-640, Huffington Post, Los Angeles Times, Los Angeles Daily News, Los Angeles Magazine, Movieline Magazine, Emmy Magazine, Los Angeles Business Journal and elsewhere. Follow him on Twitter @TheGussReport. Verifiable tips and story ideas can be sent to him at [email protected]. His opinions are his own and do not necessarily reflect the views of CityWatch.) Edited for CityWatch by Linda Abrams.
