Cothran

Ethics, Anyone?
It's very rare to see a political constituency openly break the law in the full light of day, offer total nonsense as an excuse, and suffer no legal consequences whatsoever.

For more than a decade, labor unions have broken a law that requires them to disclose their City Hall lobbying activities to the public. On one level, the way they have escaped even the mildest criticism, not to mention legal punishment, generates almost as much admiration as it does contempt.

Watching them thumb their noses at the lobbying law is like watching a guy walk into a bank in broad daylight with no gun and no mask -- and successfully walk out with millions of dollars, as throngs of police officers look the other way.

Part of you just stands back and admires the audacity of it all.
The metaphorical bank robbers in this scenario are city employee unions, including the Transport Workers Union (Municipal Railway workers) the Service Employees International Union Locals 790 and 250 (the bulk of city workers, from health care to secretarial), International and Professional and Technical Engineers Local 21 (accountants, architects, tax assessors, and the like), the Police Officers Association, and the Firefighters Local 798 (self-explanatory).

With a frequency so regular they could claim squatters' rights, these unions lobby City Hall.

Members of the Board of Supervisors, the mayor, and his department heads, as well as aides to all three of these categories of officialdom, are constantly badgered, cajoled, threatened, stroked, petted, and otherwise contacted, phoned, written to, faxed, e-mailed, and shouted to from across the street by union officials -- all with an eye toward controlling the administration of government and the creation, amendment, or destruction of city law.

City Attorney Louise Renne and Ethics Commission Director Ginny Vida have opined expertly that the current lobbyist registration and disclosure ordinance extends to unions -- though the unions, against all reason, say it does not.

And I'll assert what seems readily evident to the naked eye: Most if not all city employee unions meet the threshold level (25 contacts with any of the above-mentioned officials in two consecutive months by a paid union employee) that qualifies them as official lobbyists under San Francisco law.

Meeting that mark means that union employees lobbying City Hall should be telling the public who they met with, what issues they discussed, and how much they were paid to influence city policy.

The disclosure of this information -- disclosure required by law -- is meant to keep the electorate informed about how city policy is set, who is setting it, and for what reason. This effort toward openness presumably makes for a better-informed electorate and a healthier democracy.

This openness also apparently runs counter to labor's agenda.
Though they whine about it, downtown business lobbyists comply with the law, and it is easy for the press and the public to decipher their mark on city government. On the other side of the labor/capital divide is only darkness and mystery. No sun shines there.

The unions are breaking the law, purposefully and with a high degree of arrogance.

The mayor knows it. The supervisors know it. Even the media know it. F.J. Gallagher recently wrote it this way in the San Francisco Independent: "You can't swing a dead cat around City Hall without hitting one or two union officials."

Labor's lobbying role at City Hall is no secret.
Yet no one is doing a damn thing to make them obey lobbyist reporting laws. Certainly not the Ethics Commission or the city attorney, even though both are charged with enforcing the lobbyist ordinance.

For the union lobbying situation to make sense to you, you have to understand an ugly fact about San Francisco politics: Perhaps even more here than in Washington, D.C., laws are enforced, and noble principles upheld, only when they magically match up with the self-interest of the enforcers and upholders.

This dependence of the good upon the politically profitable is especially true when it comes to the enforcement and upholding of good government laws and the principles upon which they rest.

Our public officials are all for good government, as long as no member of the elite is gored over his or her ethics. And please (I'm on my knees begging) don't be confused: Unions are without question members in good standing of the political elite of San Francisco. These are not the days of Harry Bridges and Tom Mooney any longer. Both men, and others like them, fought and suffered tremendously for the rights of labor. But they won and won big and made sure their progeny would suffer no more.

So I'll say it just once more: Unions are part of San Francisco's establishment, just as much as crusty old Warren Hellman and his presupposing corporate boardroom bubbas at the San Francisco Committee on Jobs.

At the risk of confusing the issue with nonsense, I will lay out the union argument as to why they aren't lobbyists (even though they lobby all the time) and why they should not be required to spell out their City Hall arm-twisting for the public (even though such disclosure would greatly improve public understanding of city government). I will try not to sneer or laugh; I will, however, refute.