u/moralprolapse

Different RAISE board members are supporting different, competing slates.

A couple of disclaimers:

1. The use of “raise” in both slates’ emails is confusing, but I am sure people on both sides feel some ownership of the movement. So it’s understandable.

2. I have no doubts that all the members on both slates are sincere, and believe they are doing what is in the best interests of members.

3. But there is obviously some disagreement over at least form, if not substance and strategy, that precipitated this split.

4. The slate emails do not help in trying to discern what those differences are. The messaging all touches on the same expected points.

So, PLEASE, and in the least mudslinging way possible, understanding we all ultimately have the same goals, can someone (or several people) with an inside view please tell us how these slates differ in proposed approaches for both the on-going fight against RTO and bargaining strategy for the 2028 contract session.

Please don’t leave us to choose based on how moved we are by the campaign emails.

If it comes down to personality conflicts or temperament, or something else less strategy driven like that, I am sure people can find a diplomatic way to explain that. But please tell us, and don’t leave us blowing in the wind.

Thank you all!

So I am reading through 14 CCR Section 1298 et seq., and trying to find an updated version of the regs that pertain to the new Zone 0. I can’t seem to find the amended regs, so that’s another side issue.

My main question, though, is about Zone 1 requirements. It looks like, as regards foliage, the actual reg only makes mention of, “keep[ing] all branches a minimum of ten feet (10 ft.) away from chimney and stovepipe outlets.”

It also provides that, “[t]he Department of Forestry and Fire Protection's "Property Inspection Guide… provides additional guidance on vegetation treatment within Zone 1 and Zone 2, but is not mandatory and is not intended as a substitute for these regulations.”

My question is about the rule in the CalFIRE guidance that tree canopies in Zone 1 be at least 10 feet apart. Because I would like to plant a row of dwarf fruit trees along the side of my house, parallel to the house, about 20 feet away from the house itself. I want to space them 10 feet apart so I can fit 5 instead of 2. It’s a 50’ length, and the trees have 8-10 ft wide canopies when mature, which means I’d need to space them 20’ apart to follow the guidance.

So per the actual reg it looks like 10’ spacing would be fine. But per the guidance, they would be too close together. Am I reading that right, that that particular guidance about the canopies is not mandatory?

Now that I am a represented state employee, I bristle when I hear or read it. It, of course, sounds negative. It sounds nefarious, or like something that needs to be corrected.

You never read CalHR referred to as the “powerful state Human Resources department.”

So I encourage people to push back on that when you read/hear it, in article comments or conversation.

What do they mean by “powerful”? Do they ultimately mean “functional”? Is a union that tries to bargain in good faith for raises and better benefits, or advocates for its workers against irrational policies like RTO, a “powerful” union?

That’s just union shit. That’s exactly what a union is supposed to do. It’s exactly why children aren’t in coal mines and we have a five day instead of a six or seven day work week.

CalHR is doing HR shit, and our unions are doing union shit. One side has gotten almost everything they wanted out of contract negotiations for the last 15+ years. The other side has not. One side is doing their bargaining in good faith. One side is not.

So they should either stop using “powerful” as an adjective for these situations, or they should use it accurately to describe the side which has historically had the “power.”

Every contract season, this sub gets super aggressive and agitated, and rightfully so. I’m not insulting that. I agree.

But then the shit contract gets put to a vote, and it passes with an overwhelming majority in favor. It really reveals how much of an echo chamber this sub is. Most of the membership is just not engaged. Not even a little bit. Not even for a second.

And that doesn’t just go for SEIU. It goes for CASE too. CAPS is seemingly the only state employee union in recent memory with enough stones and enough engagement to actually vote down a contract.

For everyone who wants a strike, how do you break that cycle? How do you get the overall membership to vote down the contract offer that is coming inevitably?

I don’t know how wide the readership is, but it would be nice to have something in print. I would want it to touch on a few main points.

1. We understand people don’t particularly empathize with or even like state workers. We think that is misguided, but we can set that aside for now. We don’t need to change anyone’s mind on that to make the point.
2. Regardless of any such feelings, the objective data shows RTO is bad for CA taxpayers, the environment, other commuters, and will not fix downtown Sacramento.

Hurting us may feel good to some; and it is sadly still effective politics. But that vague feeling that hurting us is good is not worth supporting policies that materially hurt you.

3.

1. We don’t need to speculate on

possibly more nefarious motivations for Newsom’s

1. order to know that it is not what he says it is, based on objective audit and telework dashboard data. The policy is objectively bad for all Californians.

3. At best, sometime Governor Newsom is projecting. He currently teleworks from Marin. He spends his time podcasting and making national campaign ads. He must think that if he doesn’t work from home, that no one does. We never stopped working for state residents, as the objective metrics show, even if he has.

He also must think the standard is different for him as governor than us as employee. And he is right. It is different. He has a house in Sacramento fully paid for by taxpayers, that he can stay in with his entire family, and the financial resources such that gas, parking, and lunch costs are never going to be a concern for him.

5. He has no principles beyond his own ambition. He is not pro-labor, pro-environment, and he has bragged about being DOGE before DOGE. He would be Trump 2.0. And beyond that, convincing a national electorate, or even a plurality of Democratic primary voters, that a San Francisco Democrat is the best choice for President is about as helpless of a task as asking private citizens to feel sorry for state workers. He is selling out his state for nothing.

Please call his office and say no to RTO!

https://www.cityofsacramento.gov/content/dam/portal/city-government/policies-procedures/RemoteWorkPolicy.pdf

I hate these politicians so much.

Existing law…
14201.
Every state agency shall review its work operations to determine where in its organization telecommuting can be of practical benefit to the agency. On or before July 1, 1995, each agency shall develop and implement a telecommuting plan as part of its telecommuting program in work areas where telecommuting is identified as being both practical and beneficial to the organization.
** **
** **
The bill amends that section to read…
14201.
 (a) Each state agency shall develop and implement a telework plan as part of its teleworking program in work areas where teleworking is identified as being both practical and beneficial to the organization.
(b) Where a state agency’s unique operational needs and programmatic mission require employees to report to a workplace, the agency shall provide a detailed, written justification to the department and to the agency’s employees.

So the bill adds subsection (b). The agencies already appear to be ignoring the existing law, or at least interpreting it to mean whatever they want.

What does the bill change? So, say an agency provides a “detailed, written justification” that consists of the exact same justifications the EO is using now… collaboration, etc.

What happens then? I don’t see anything in the bill where anyone can say “that’s not a good enough reason.”

Also who is “identify[ing]” if telework is of benefit to the agency? Because that language is in there now.

I hope I am missing something.

The CASE Updates hype up AB 1729, which is a good approach, but it is not enough. Even if it passes, it will almost certainly be vetoed, and the legislature almost certainly won’t override a veto for the first time since 1980.

The fact that none of the blasts any of the unions are putting out talk at all about what to do in the overwhelmingly likely case the bill either dies or gets vetoed suggests to me that it is more about the optics of looking like the unions are doing something as opposed to actually getting something done.

Please attack this via PERB and the LAO as well. I am really hoping that a couple of months from now, the CASE board won’t be pointing at 1729 and saying, “see; we did everything we could.”

Please keep us updated on the fight, and thank you for the work you do.

One of the more frustrating aspects of RTO is the disingenuousness of it. CalHR and DGS were unable to provide any numbers on fiscal impact last year when they were being hammered in the hearings. They refuse to treat fiscal impact as a real concern, because, frankly, they can’t. If they put real, honest $ figures on it, it will sink it as a winning political issue for the governor with the public.

I’m wondering about another vector of attack. Is there a way to lobby LAO to insist they need real numbers for the cost of implementation of this major policy change before they can, in turn, provide advice to the legislature on budget proposals for the new fiscal year?

I’m certain the last several years of budgets didn’t ignore the savings from telework when they were trying desperately to balance the budget. So current budget models contemplate the new reduced cost as the baseline. RTO is a NEW, and unquestionably expensive cost.

This isn’t a bill, but for anyone here who has worked on bill analyses for their departments, imagine refusing to provide a fiscal impact section… on a bill that would undoubtedly cost 10s of millions to implement… and just expecting to get sign offs up the chain. It wouldn’t happen. Why is this different?

I thought I went all out. I bought the most recent edition of the California Master Gardener Handbook and read up on cold hardy varieties for my climate zone. I built loamy mounds, leaning into sandy loam, because of my shallow soil, mulched them well, painted the trucks with diluted latex paint because the summers get hot here as well.

And I bought one each of what the Handbook (which is talked about like the Bible for gardening in CA) said were type A and B most ideal for my area.

I planted them both immediately after last frost. They are both now putting out lots of new growth and appear to be doing great!

I got a GEM and a Stewart. The one thing I didn’t do was Google the varieties to cross check what ‘the Bible’ said their types were. Now Google is telling me my GEM is an A, not a B like the Handbook says 🤨. Stewart is also an A.

No one else in my neighborhood has avocado trees 😫.

I occasionally watch YouTube videos of judges dealing with these pro pers, and the responses range from smirking and chuckling at it, to getting angry and yelling at each individual point raised.

I keep waiting for a judge to say something like, “Mr. x, having been doing this for a long time, and in an effort to save us all some time… it sounds like you have bought into what is popularly know as “sovereign citizenship.” I am letting you know it is all nonsense and none of it is going to work for you. I definitely have jurisdiction over you, this is not an admiralty court, you are not a corporation. You are you. The UCC has nothing to do with what we are doing here, and there are no magic words you can say that are going to cause someone to come arrest me or otherwise delay these proceedings. You would do well to take the real, actual law and procedure of these proceedings seriously, because I can assure you I do. So that being said, how do you wish to proceed?”

Why do they never cut to the chase like that?

Edit: To all the people appropriately raising due process concerns, fair enough. But I didn’t ask why the judge wouldn’t refuse to hear those arguments. I asked why he doesn’t tell them up front that they are specious. Add to my hypothetical diatribe, “…that being said, you have a right to make any argument you wish…”