With 225 eligible voters at the nine papers, which include the Oakland Tribune and the Contra Costa Times, fewer than half, 104, voted for the guild, with 92 opposed.

“Most telling: the guild boasted that two-thirds of eligible employees had signed cards; yet, in the final tally … not even a majority of eligible employees [favored the guild],” a statement by a group of newsroom employees named, Why Union-Free, stated on their Web site.

Contra Costa Times Economy writer, George Avalos, and others, have formed an anti-guild website explaining the downside of unionized newspapers. According to Editor and Publisher, “The anti-union group, headed by Contra Costa Times staffers George Avalos and Ann Tatko-Peterson, has been opposing the guild effort, claiming it will not help most workers. It’s Web site is www.whyunionfree.com.

The latest estimate is lower than the $2.57 billion calculated two years ago. The reduction results primarily from the use of new actuarial assumptions, and secondarily, from recent board of supervisors’ action to modify the health care benefits for unrepresented county employees.

The liability is still staggering, because the board of supervisors has yet to make any meaningful changes to the generous health care benefit plans available to county employees and retirees covered by union contracts, despite three opportunities to do so in the past several months.

The county’s predicament did not develop overnight. It has been nurtured for decades by past boards that repeatedly agreed to increasingly expensive health care benefits in a labor-friendly environment, without any consideration of future costs. But in light of today’s clear understanding of the crushing impact that the obligation will have on the county’s ability to provide services, it is worrisome to see the current board appears to be continuing this trend.

Most of the county’s 39 union contracts expire in September of 2008. In the past several months, three new labor contracts have been approved. None includes changes to health care benefit plans that would begin to seriously address the county’s imminent financial crisis. This does not bode well for the outcome of future negotiations unless the supervisors take as realistic and tough a position with labor unions as it has with the County’s unrepresented employees.

If the Board of Supervisors either collectively, or any of its members individually, squander this opportunity to substantially improve the county’s financial situation in the name of political expediency or labor peace, out-of-control retiree health care costs will surely and painfully impact the county’s ability to deliver basic services to its more than one million citizens.

The complete report is available on the Contra Costa County Grand Jury web site: www.cc-courts.org/grandjury

In particular AFSCME cited the CCCLC’s blockhead support for Irma Anderson’s mayoral campaign for Richmond city council; for Maria Alegria and against the Pinole Recall, and support for an Indian Casino in Richmond.

In the case of Mayor Alegria, the citizens of Pinole formed a grass roots organization to unseat a politician who took advantage of her official position to act in a manner that was detrimental to the best interests of her constituents… Organized labor had no business involving itself in a campaign that will give unions a black eye in Pinole as well as other East Bay Communities. Thanks to the actions of the CCCLC it will be a long time before organized labor will be respected in Pinole.

After chastising the CCCLC for its support for Irma Anderson and its push for Indian gaming in Richmond, Rodriguez concludes:

The proof that Local 444’s views on these issues are consistent with local public opinion can be found in the defeat of both Irma Anderson and Maria Alegria…The members of Local 444 are putting the CCCLC on notice that should the Council continue to pursue such anti-union, anti-citizen, anti-democratic positions we will be forced to withdraw from the Council and will activly encourage other Locals to do so as well.

We do not support the philosophy of “she may be a crook but she’s our crook.” Why should citizens honor Labor if Labor doesn’t honor them.

Since 2004 to June 2007, the IAAF has contributed $6,000 to councilmember and former Mayor Maria Alegria who is up for recall. This does not count monies from the union spent on her behalf in the reporting period from July thru end of this year that will be posted January 8.

This ad is just a small part of Alegria’s $40,000 smear attack on the good folks of Pinole. Selling Pinole taxpayers down the river to public employee unions who know she can help craft a hefty pay increase for them if she survives the recall, sadly, is part of the deal in Contra Costa County.

And Alegria, in her own hit piece mailer, has the nerve to call Pinole Recall supporters, “thugs.”

Amazing.