Mayors to the rescue

CALIFORNIA’S Bay Area, one of the most left-wing parts of the United States, is not the first place you might expect to see a backlash against organised labour. But there is no better way to irritate a San Franciscan than to take away his public transport. On October 18th workers at the Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) system began their second strike of the year, for four days forcing tens of thousands of commuters to suffer the indignities of sitting on a bus or shivering on a ferry. One poll found that 77% of locals, including 72% of Democrats, opposed the walkout.

The strike had more to do with the rules governing arcane matters like overtime and pay stubs than with wages or benefits. But many Bay Area locals have been surprised to learn during the course of the row that BART’s well-paid workers contribute nothing to their pensions. (Under a new contract, this will change.)

The generosity of public pensions troubles progressives elsewhere in the state, too. Last week the Democratic mayors of four Californian cities (and one Republican) unveiled a reform they hope to place on the ballot next year. If voters approve the Pension Reform Act of 2014, public employers will be able to change the pension arrangements of employees for future work (benefits already earned will not be touched). Federal law empowers private employers to do this, but the “Californian rule” of case law, which several other states have copied, means that once a public worker signs a contract his or her pension arrangements are guaranteed for life.

The effort is led by Chuck Reed, mayor of San Jose, another Bay Area liberal bastion. Mr Reed has become a standard-bearer for pension reform in California after winning 69% support for a measure he placed before his city’s voters last year. That reform, which gave city workers a choice between higher contributions or lower benefits, is snarled up in the courts: a situation Mr Reed hopes his measure will enable other municipalities to avoid.

The mayor makes a straightforward progressive argument. Pensions are eating into government budgets, and residents are losing out: more than one-fifth of San Jose’s general fund goes to retirement costs. In a state where Republicans wield as much power as a dead lemur, this is how debates over fiscal responsibility are won, and some polling suggests the argument will find receptive ears.

But it will also face determined opposition. The measure must first attract over 800,000 signatures to reach the ballot. Assuming it gets that far, California’s deep-pocketed public-employee unions will dig in to stop it becoming law. And if it does pass, says Steven Maviglio of Californians for Retirement Security, a lobby group, “You can bet that folks will use any means necessary to make sure it’s not implemented.” Unions think a modest statewide pension reform, applying only to new recruits, that passed last year is change enough.

Mr Reed will need some wealthy backers of his own; as he acknowledges, “You can’t do this with bake sales.” But the politics will be challenging, too. It is notable that the reform effort is led by mayors; Democrats in the state legislature, many with strong union links, are less exposed to the consequences of ballooning pension costs and some will oppose reform. (None of the local representatives surveyed by the San Francisco Chronicle said he or she backed a ban on future BART strikes.) Dan Schnur at the University of Southern California notes that ballot measures in California that attract serious opposition rarely pass: last year unions handily saw off a Republican-backed proposal that would have reduced their ability to raise funds.

If the reformers win in California the reverberations will be felt elsewhere. California-style tussles over prospective pension rights, says Josh Rauh at Stanford University, are one of the three battlegrounds for state and local governments facing pension shortfalls, along with the cost-of-living adjustments applied to pension benefits and the effect of municipal bankruptcies on pensioners. Many of the leading reformers are Democrats. Not, perhaps, what they entered politics for, but a worthy progressive battle nonetheless.