The vote in favor of David Gilb to head the Department of Personnel Administration came less than 24 hours before the state's first mediation session with the California Correctional Peace Officers Association, the union whose 31,000 members have been working without a contract for nearly a year.
"It's important to get on with the business of getting this agreement done, and yes, it is a relief," Gilb said, about the Rules Committee vote, "because we have very, very important business to take care of."
CCPOA President Mike Jimenez lashed out at Gilb at his June 4 confirmation hearing, challenging his honesty and integrity in the stalled contract negotiations. Jimenez said Wednesday's vote did nothing to soften the union's impression of the head of the state's human resources department. Gilb's confirmation is expected to easily be approved by the full Senate.
"I can tell you Mr. Gilb has no credibility with anyone, anywhere within CCPOA," Jimenez said.
The state has offered the union a four-year deal that contains an 18 percent pay raise and will increase the top-step, line officer's salary to $87,700, plus benefits. But the union says a number of other items, such as uniform allowances, will leave its members short of agreements the state already has made with the California Association of Highway Patrolmen. The CCPOA also is strongly opposed to a series of proposals made by the state to reassert management control in prison operations.
In May, the state Public Employee Relations Board -- at the request of the state personnel department -- declared an impasse in the negotiations and submitted them to mediation.
Despite CCPOA's opposition, representatives of several other public employee labor organizations spoke out on Gilb's behalf at his hearing earlier this month. On Wednesday, officials from the Union of American Physicians and Dentists attended the vote and spoke glowingly afterward about Gilb.
"We're delighted to see him confirmed," said the union's executive director, Gary Robinson. "We think he's doing a terrific job."
The hearing room was packed Wednesday with supporters of Gilb, many of them current and former employees of the personnel department, who broke into applause at the completion of the 5-0 vote. Gilb told the panel that since the June 4 hearing, he has been in contact with mediation officials to pave the way to the first meeting scheduled for today. Sen. Gil Cedillo, D-Los Angeles, mildly chided Gilb at Wednesday's session for not speaking with Jimenez in the interim. The acting personnel chief said he expects there will be plenty of time for that once mediation takes hold.
"We are pretty much committed to this process," Gilb said. "I think there is going to be enough time to have face-to-face discussion with CCPOA and Mr. Jimenez as this gets forward. We're here and we're deadlocked because we have difficulty in talking with each other. I think we need this process to speed us along to an agreement."
Gilb told reporters outside the hearing room that he did not think Jimenez's blasts from the June 4 hearing, in which the union president called the personnel department and its director "dishonorable and dishonest," will poison the possibility of the state reaching a contract with the CCPOA.
"Certainly the union is entitled to come in and express their views," Gilb said. "I think it underscored the very, very difficult nature of these negotiations and why mediation is appropriate to try and bring us together."
Jimenez suggested the union will maintain a tough posture when the mediation sessions get under way.
"It's going to be a fight, every step of the way, on every issue that we can," he said. "We're not going to make (prison officers) less safe. We're not going to make the working rules any easier for managers to abuse our members. We're not going in that direction. We fought too long and too hard to get here."
(NOTE: ACSS Executive Officer Mitch Semer supported confirmation of Dave Gilb in testimony during Gilb's first hearing two weeks ago.)
By Andy Furillo, The Sacramento Bee
June 21, 2007