Two of the city’s largest public sector unions are vowing to fight “every one” of the layoffs proposed by Mayor Daniel Lurie earlier this week, saying Lurie’s touted San Francisco recovery is contingent on city workers.
“If we don’t have things like clean streets, strong hospitals, and effective transit, we don’t have a recovery,” said Bianca Polvina, president of IFPTE Local 21, which represents thousands of city workers.
The mayor “kind of speaks out of both sides of his mouth,” said Jennifer Esteen, a former vice president at SEIU 1021, which has 16,000 members in city government. “He says, ‘We want to get people off the street, and we want them to get clean and sober from drugs.’ But at the same time, he’s cutting funding to the programs that do exactly that.”
The city gave 127 employees layoff notices on Monday. Lurie said these layoffs, which include nurses at Laguna Honda Hospital and staff at the city’s Office of Workforce and Economic Development, are necessary for balancing San Francisco’s budget, which is facing a two-year deficit of $650 million.
An even larger deficit is projected in the years after.
“We have a choice: Take action now or be forced to do twice as much in the coming years,” Lurie said. The layoffs are “a painful but necessary continuation of the work we’ve been doing since last year to manage taxpayer dollars responsibly and deliver the best possible services for San Franciscans.”
These cuts, Lurie added, “sets up our city for a broad and durable economic recovery.”
But budget woes do not justify the layoffs, said Polovina. “San Francisco is one of the richest cities in the world. When we talk about cutting essential services, cutting jobs, this is a choice, it is not a necessity.”
Polovina said IFPTE Local 21 is preparing to fight “every one” of the layoffs, a sentiment echoed by Esteen.
“Nobody should lose their job,” Esteen said.
The mayor plans to cut $400 million this year, with about $100 million of that coming from layoffs, and a freeze on hiring for certain positions — about 500 jobs total.
In the coming days and months, the unions plan to lobby supervisors, share stories about workers affected by the cuts, speak with voters, and hold rallies.
In the short term, the unions have asked the city to spend some of its “rainy-day fund” reserves to stave off layoffs. This is theoretically possible, but would likely require a veto-proof majority of the Board of Supervisors — an unlikely scenario, given the mayor’s many allies on the Board.
In the long term, unions are hoping to raise more funds for city jobs though Proposition D, a tax measure they placed onto the June ballot. If it passes, a special tax will be levied on companies whose CEOs earn 100 times more than the company’s median employee.
The mayor has opposed Prop. D on the grounds that it could cause companies to leave the city, or never set up shop here in the first place, due to a perception that San Francisco is unfriendly to business.
The unions think a local business tax hike is only fair because President Donald Trump’s “Big Beautiful Bill” gave businesses a federal tax cut. Plus, that same bill is part of the reason why the city has such a large deficit in the first place; Trump’s cuts to federal programs like Medicaid are hitting the city hard.
The unions expect Prop. D to pass. Despite Lurie’s close relationship with the current board, eight of the city’s 11 supervisors support it. And a January poll conducted by the Prop. D campaign found that 59 percent of likely voters in the city support it.
“All these corporations can afford to pay their fair share,” Esteen said. “And they need to do it so that we don’t lose our public services in San Francisco.”
Interesting. I’m opposed to Prop. D. However, I support city workers. Something has to give, and Prop. D, is Prop. D. So, I need to vote against Prop. D or tell city workers get a new job. The good news: I never get what I want. 😉