Mutual animosity
Employees can also demand a transfer even if the prison at which they are working is critically short of officers.Īnd whenever a warden changes the way a prison is run, the union can file a grievance challenging the decision as a violation of the contract. One example: Seventy percent of the jobs in the prisons are now assigned by seniority, allowing the officers to decide where they want to work even if the warden wants someone else in that post. Schwarzenegger is trying to reverse those gains and concentrate more control, and accountability, in his appointed managers. Little by little over the years, the officers have won concessions that have made life difficult for the wardens who are supposed to be in charge of the lockups. For one thing, it would allow an existing salary gap between correctional officers and members of the California Highway Patrol to grow wider.īut an even bigger issue than money is control over the operation of the prisons. The union, however, says that the deal is not good enough. A veteran officer would top out with a base salary of more than $85,000 a year.
Mutual animosity plus#
It’s not as if Schwarzenegger is getting stingy: He offered the officers 5 percent annual raises for three years, plus benefit boosts that would mean a total increase of 20 percent over the life of the contract.Ī fully trained beginning officer who now makes about $60,600 a year would be getting $70,221, plus enhancements for physical fitness, language fluency and working in hard-to-fill jobs.