{"id":38821,"date":"2025-01-15T13:33:54","date_gmt":"2025-01-15T21:33:54","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/?p=38821"},"modified":"2025-01-15T13:33:54","modified_gmt":"2025-01-15T21:33:54","slug":"union-mayor-breed-broke-the-law-in-putting-proposition-f-on-the-ballot","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/2025\/01\/15\/union-mayor-breed-broke-the-law-in-putting-proposition-f-on-the-ballot\/","title":{"rendered":"Union: Mayor Breed broke the law in putting Proposition F on the ballot"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"A by\u00a0JOE ESKENAZI<\/a><\/strong> FEBRUARY 20, 2024, 4:01 PM (MissionLocal.org)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"Jennifer
Members of SEIU 1021 temporarily shut down a section of Market Street on Feb. 17, 2021.Photo by Juan Carlos Lara<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

An attorney representing the Service Employees International Union No. 1021 today sent the city attorney a letter claiming Mayor London Breed violated the law in placing Proposition F on the ballot, and urged it be removed from the March 5 ballot. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In her three-page letter<\/a>, attorney Kerianne Steele said that the mayor placed her pet measure on the ballot in violation of the Meyers-Milias-Brown Act<\/a>, which mandates employers to \u201cmeet and confer\u201d with their unionized workforce regarding matters such as \u201cwages, hours and other terms and conditions of employment.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The SEIU 1021 is San Francisco\u2019s largest public-sector union, representing some 16,000 city workers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Proposition F would require people who receive cash benefits from the County Adult Assistance Program (CAAP) to undergo drug screening. If they are determined to be using illegal drugs, they would be mandated to undergo drug treatment if they wish to keep their benefits and\/or housing. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Steele argues that the city \u201chad a duty to provide prior notice and opportunity to bargain over its decision to place Proposition F on the ballot,\u201d as it will have a \u201cforeseeable significant and adverse effect on SEIU Local 1021-represented employees\u2019 working conditions \u2026 \u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The City Attorney\u2019s Office confirmed it is in receipt of Steele\u2019s letter, but it has not yet formulated a response to it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

In that letter, Steele notes that there are presently 46 openings in city-run drug treatment centers. Since the city estimates that perhaps a full one-third of the roughly 5,200 people receiving cash assistance have drug problems, the capacity to treat them is not presently there. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Unionized workers at the Human Services Agency are already overworked and understaffed, the attorney writes, and Proposition F would create a vast new workload and a number of new procedures. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Marquitta Collins, a 10-year employee at HSA and a union shop steward, says that she worries for her and her colleagues\u2019 safety when they\u2019re made to enforce the tenets of Proposition F. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"October<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe are already faced with a staffing shortage, and are not able to process benefits as we are required. Workers are already faced with a hostile environment,\u201d she says. \u201cAnytime you come between someone and their money, you are dealing with a hostile situation \u2014 whether or not they are on drugs.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\n

\u201cAnytime you come between someone and their money, you are dealing with a hostile situation \u2014 whether or not they are on drugs.\u201d HSA EMPLOYEE MARQUITTA COLLINS<\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n

Collins notes that there are, presently, no treatment programs available and not even enough workers to process the Medi-Cal benefits for aid recipients who want to be in treatment \u2014 let alone people who do not seek treatment and are compelled into it. There are no earmarks in Proposition F for additional dollars with which to fund an expansion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The HSA worker says the security situation and protocol for screening aid recipients \u2014 and potentially cutting them off \u2014 has not been revealed to the workers. HSA employees, Collins notes, already<\/em> fear being waylaid by disgruntled clientele: \u201cWe have workers who do not go out to lunch at 1235 Mission, because of security concerns.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The SEIU\u2019s call for Proposition F to be removed from the March ballot is a non-starter; the Department of Elections confirms that the deadline to remove a measure placed on the ballot by the mayor was in November 2023. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

As of last week, nearly 21,000 ballots had already been returned to the elections department. This is on par with the number received at this point during the March 2020 election, and turnout in that contest eventually reached 61 percent. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

With Proposition F unable to be severed from the March ballot \u2014 and widely expected to win \u2014 the union would be forced to demand, post-facto, that the city meet and confer to negotiate its enforceability. If stymied there, further legal action would be necessary. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

This was what recently occurred in the North Bay, in a case that Steele cites in her letter. In 2020, nearly 65 percent of Sonoma voters approved Measure P<\/a>, which altered the county\u2019s Law Enforcement Review Board.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Law-enforcement unions objected, and took legal action regarding Measure P. And, last year, the Public Employees Relations Board sided with the unionized workforce<\/a>, ruling that \u201cthe County failed to give the [unions] notice and an opportunity to meet and confer over certain Measure P amendments before placing the measure on the November 2020 ballot.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The state body \u201cordered the County to cease and desist from such conduct in the future and to post a notice of its violations.\u201d It declined to \u201corder restoration for the status quo\u201d only because the unions and county had subsequently met and conferred and resolved the issues that the state body affirmed \u201ccould not be adopted or implemented without bargaining.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The union, in its letter to San Francisco\u2019s city attorney, implies that the same would happen here. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe City\u2019s need for unencumbered decision making in managing its operations does not outweigh the benefit to employer-employee relations of bargaining over the terms of Proposition F,\u201d Steele writes. \u201cThe City should have provided SEIU Local 1021 prior notice and opportunity to bargain before it placed this proposition on the ballot.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In a statement to Mission Local, Steele added that SEIU workers \u201creserve their right to initiate legal proceedings and engage in collective worker actions to protest the City\u2019s persistent unfair labor practices. Any legal or job actions would be undertaken on behalf of workers and the most vulnerable residents of our city.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Support the Mission Local team<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\"A<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

We’re a small, independent, nonprofit newsroom<\/strong> that works hard to bring you news you can’t get elsewhere.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

JOE ESKENAZI<\/a><\/h2>\n\n\n\n

getbackjoejoe@gmail.com<\/a><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Managing Editor\/Columnist. Joe was born in San Francisco, raised in the Bay Area, and attended U.C. Berkeley. He never left.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYour humble narrator\u201d was a writer and columnist for SF Weekly from 2007 to 2015, and a senior editor at San Francisco Magazine from 2015 to 2017. You may also have read his work in the Guardian (U.S. and U.K.); San Francisco Public Press; San Francisco Chronicle; San Francisco Examiner; Dallas Morning News; and elsewhere.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He resides in the Excelsior with his wife and three (!) kids, 4.3 miles from his birthplace and 5,474 from hers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Northern California branch of the Society of Professional Journalists named Eskenazi the 2019 Journalist of the Year.More by Joe Eskenazi<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

by\u00a0JOE ESKENAZI FEBRUARY 20, 2024, 4:01 PM (MissionLocal.org) An attorney representing the Service Employees International Union No. 1021 today sent the city attorney a letter claiming Mayor London Breed violated the law in placing Proposition F on the ballot, and urged it be removed from the March 5 ballot.  In… Continue reading → <\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38821"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38821"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38821\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":38822,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38821\/revisions\/38822"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38821"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38821"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/occupysf.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38821"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}