If there’s a “union rule” that limits a public employer’s ability to lay off employees for lack of work or lack of funds, it is there because it was given to them by feckless politicians who probably took a lot of union money for their election. That’s the insiduous part of public employee bargaining; if the union doesn’t like what the management is doing, it can just go out and buy new management. In Democrat controlled, union states, that would be all but two or three of the union states, the public and the taxpayers are NEVER at the bargaining table; the union is bargaining with people that it bought and paid for. Even the grievance/arbitration process is just a charade to launder money to the union and then back to the Democrats.

A lot of the union abuses you write of are not unique to CA or even to unionized public employees, but rather are creatures of federal law. Until 1986, public employees were not covered by the federal Fair Labor Standards Act and its overtime and minimum wage provisions. In ’86, in a graphic example of how bad facts make bad law, the USSC handed down Garcia v. San Antonio which had the effect of making all public employees subject to the FLSA and there has been a run on state and local treasuries ever since. Slick Willie Clinton’s DOL and DOJ were more than happy to help employees, especially unionized employees, pick their employer’s pocket, often as you say on the basis of the employees naked assertion that they’d worked. A lot of it was done by Democrat governments who were happy to sign off on DOL consent orders funnelling millions to unions and employees, of course with the understanding that a sizeable chunk of that money was to find its way back to the Party and the polticians who made it possible. The FLSA is a 1938 law that is so vague that you only know you’re violating its finer points when the ALJ or the court tells you that you did, so you’re always working without a net in applying it. It really doesn’t at all fit the modern white collar workforce nor does it fit 24/7 operations like police and fire very well. You don’t want to think about what wildland firefighters are being paid, for example. As to the COs, the California Correctional Peace Officers Association is probably the most powerful single public employee union in the Country and at times they’ve simply owned CA. I sat with Swartzenegger’s head of labor relations for the corrections department as he lamented over drinks having to go appear before a Finance Committee, the chief aide for which was the head of CCPOA off on leave from his corrections job and his union office so he could work for the CA legislature. Any unionized state including mine can do corruption pretty well but that one was almost beyond belief. In any event, they don’t get paid to walk from their cars in the parking lot but rather from the first secured gate and it isn’t unique to CA; it stems from the federal Portal to Portal Act which was actually intended to help miners and such who often had very long lift or train rides to the mine face, and their pay only began at the face. So, once they walk inside the gate, they are engaged to the employer and it must count as time worked if it takes more than 7 minutes, IIRC, from the time they are engaged or clock in to the time they reach their designated work station. The same law applies to any employee public or private, but only in the public sector and the unionized private sector do you have a union hovering around to rigorously enforce it and only in the Democrat controlled public sector do you have politicians willing even eager to pay it without a fight. Just Google FLSA and you’ll be inundated with law firms just ever so happy to help you pick your employer’s pocket. There is good potential for relief for the core functions of governments, those that are clearly not involved in commerce, to get out from under Garcia and in the early days there was some success in the federal districts and a circuit or two. That all stopped with Clinton and nobody took it on that I know of during the Bush Administration. That was probably because most of the damage had already been done during Clinton and there wasn’t much left to fight about other than the very radical move to get out from under federal authority altogether, which act would bring down the wrath of the unions and the DOJ/DOL, even though DOJ/DOL were nominally under Republican control. Unfortunately, GWB did like most Republicans and only applied a thin veneer of Republican appointees and left the agencies largely in control of the Democrats.