Fighting Tooth and Nail, Unions Overstep

Their scorched-earth campaign against a city pension overhaul is unlikely to gain unions much public support
By: Jonathan Weber

Michael Moritz, one of Silicon Valley’s most successful venture capitalists, keeps a low profile. An early backer of Yahoo and Google, Moritz avoids the press, though he was himself once a journalist. You never see him at industry conferences. While he has given money to President Obama and a few other politicians of both parties, he has no discernible political ambitions.

But he does apparently feel strongly about the need to change the public employee pension system in San Francisco — and his recent decision to contribute $245,000 to that cause has provoked a furious counterattack by public employee unions. Deriding Moritz as a “billionaire speculator,” a group of unions organized a noisy protest last week in front of his San Francisco home.

The demonstration followed the unions’ vituperative denunciation of an accountant named Craig Weber, who made the mistake of endorsing a pension overhaul while serving on a civil grand jury investigating the issue. Though Weber (no relation) had cleared his action with the grand jury’s presiding judge and the city attorney, union leaders have demanded a criminal investigation.

On one level, all of this simply underscores a political reality here: you cross the unions at your peril. (Moritz evidently missed the memo; after last week’s hoo-ha, he’s refusing to discuss the issue.)

But there is another political reality at play: public resentment of government employees’ job security and fat benefits at a time when many workers are suffering.

And that raises another question: Are union leaders shooting themselves in the foot?

Playing the class-war card against someone like Moritz is a questionable tactic. Sure, he’s very rich, but he got that way doing exactly what makes the local economy tick — investing in innovative companies that grow to create good jobs and wealth. In any case, none of the city workers I interviewed at last week’s protest had any idea who Moritz was.

The assault on Weber also seems over the top, given that there is no evidence he is anything other than a concerned citizen volunteering his time to wrestle with a difficult policy issue.

The unions contend that the voter initiative, known as Proposition B and spearheaded by the San Francisco public defender, Jeff Adachi, is really about slashing health benefits. City workers have already agreed to give-backs, union leaders note. Yet Proposition B, besides forcing bigger employee contributions to the pension plan, mandates large increases in their contributions for dependent health care premiums.

Bob Muscat, a local union leader who is heading the anti-Proposition B campaign, is unapologetic about the tactics. “There is nothing sincere in what they are saying or doing,” Muscat said, “so it does get very personal.” His anger at Adachi, who he believes is merely trying to advance his political career, is unconcealed.

While Proposition B will clearly save the city a lot of money, its specific long-term impacts depend on the investment performance of the pension funds, actuarial calculations and the cost of health care. Adachi says benefits, if not reined in, will lead to even more cuts in services and ultimately bankrupt the city. The unions disagree, and cite health care premium increases of as much as $350 a month.

Yet the fact remains that San Francisco city workers are among the best paid anywhere. The average salary is $93,000. Workers can retire at 55 in some cases, 62 in others, with pensions of up to 75 percent to 90 percent of their salaries.

This is not lost on voters, so it seems an inopportune time for the unions to go to war. Transit workers have already set themselves up for defeat this fall, when voters will most likely revoke a charter provision guaranteeing their high pay.

If the city unions were to make a more measured case against Proposition B, they might win more support. The health care rollbacks could garner sympathy. The unions could also show more clearly how they are sharing the pain.

But the scorched-earth approach of trying to intimidate the opposition into silence looks politically risky, and perhaps even desperate. “When you’re in court and you don’t have a good case, you attack your opponent,” Adachi said.

Surely San Francisco voters would be better served by an honest and civilized debate.

This article also appears in the Bay Area edition of The New York Times.