Unions Divided Over Prop 40

The John Phillips Show

This episode of The John Phillips Show dives into the political firestorm surrounding Proposition 40, a proposed one-time 5% wealth tax on California

Key takeaways

• Proposition 40 would impose a one-time 5% tax on billionaires with $1B+ in assets, primarily funding SEIU UHW's healthcare and pension needs.
• Major labor unions like teachers, firefighters, and Planned Parenthood affiliates are opposing the measure due to lack of direct benefit.

Main topics

• Proposition 40: The billionaire wealth tax
• Division among California labor unions

Notable quotes

"If this thing passes, and remember, it is a one-time 5% wealth confiscation tax... how much you want to bet if this thing passes in 2028, Cecily and the teachers' unions are going to put forth their own wealth tax?"

Conclusion

The episode underscores deep fractures within California's labor movement over Prop 40, revealing how financial self-interest

Transcript preview

Speaker 5 (0:01) Speaking up in all Speaker 6 (0:02) caps. Speaker 6 (0:04) For those that done the red caps, it's the John Phillips show. And we continue at two Oh five in the afternoon on the John Phillips show, Mr. Randy wags and Culver city, Speaker 1 (0:18) Johnny. I almost forgot that we were coming back. I was busy. So when on the video stream, we don't have commercials yet, but I'm like trying to fill stuff. That's not just the slide show with the music. So I put in a best of segment and I was enjoying listening to it. Speaker 1 (0:35) I'm not a narcissist, but we do a better show than almost anybody. Just saying. Speaker 6 (0:43) If you want to watch us perform the show live, go to johnnydontlike.com and click that like button. It helps spread the show far and wide. So thank you to all of you who have clicked it already. If you haven't done so, please give it a click. It really helps us out a lot. Speaker 1 (0:58) And we're at over 6,400 subscribers. Every time that you get a friend of yours to subscribe to the channel, I do a happy dance. Speaker 6 (1:08) 800-222-5222 is the telephone number. 1-800-222-5222. Well, in addition to a governor's race going on on the November ballot and a big mayor's race in the city of Los Angeles, we also have a number of propositions that will be appearing on your ballot, including one that is dividing organized labor. Speaker 1 (1:33) And that is the billionaire tax. The wealth confiscation tax that has been put forth by the SEIU Healthcare Union. The other unions in California that hold a lot of power, that hold a lot of sway, they're not happy about it because they're not getting a cut. You might think if you haven't been paying too much attention, if this tax passes, it just goes into the general fund. No, no, no, no, no. The majority of the money goes to the health care union that put it on the ballot. And the majority of that money goes to fill their blown pension fund. Great. Speaker 1 (2:11) Let's see who's fighting over the scraps here. Here is a report from ABC7 in the Bay. Speaker 8 (2:18) For years, labor's had a major influence on California politics. This election cycle, nothing has divided unions more than Proposition 40, the wealth tax or billionaire's tax, if you prefer. Yeah, and ABC7 Eyewitness News political reporter Monica Madden takes us inside the fight. Speaker 1 (2:34) Newsom, Becerra, and Hilton are all voting no. Speaker 1 (2:38) There's a team up I didn't imagine. It's the new Avengers. Speaker 4 (2:43) In the fight over a proposed billionaire tax, majorly... Boy, Speaker 1 (2:47) even the quotes from Becerra are so Becerra. On the screen, it shows what Becerra apparently said to Time magazine about the wealth tax, and he called it a sketchy policy. Scrub it. Speaker 6 (3:01) Well, I wonder if he and Ricardo Lara are friends. Speaker 1 (3:06) Haven't used this one in a while. I'm Speaker 6 (3:08) very kind of sketch. Speaker 1 (3:09) That jackass is termed out. Speaker 4 (3:12) Labor groups in California are divided. Speaker 1 (3:14) Teachers, firefighters, and Planned Parenthood affiliates of California are also voting no. Speaker 5 (3:19) Because Speaker 1 (3:20) they're not getting any of that money. Speaker 6 (3:22) And that's a curveball for a lot of people. Because usually the unions haven't seen a tax they don't like. Speaker 1 (3:29) They like them when they're getting the money from it. And that's why... If this thing passes, and remember, it is a one-time 5 % don't-know-how-you-calculate-it wealth confiscation tax from the 200 or so billionaires in the state for health care, which is an ongoing problem, but we need one-time funding. That doesn't make any sense. But how much you want to bet if this thing passes in 2028, Cecily and the teachers' unions are going to put forth their own wealth tax to get the schools some more monies? Speaker 6 (4:00) Get them! It's almost guaranteed, assuming it holds up in court. Speaker 1 (4:06) There is a good chance that this thing will get challenged the day it passes, if it passes. The Speaker 4 (4:13) measure would impose a one-time 5 % wealth tax on residents with at least $1 billion in assets. Speaker 1 (4:19) And by the way, this was a topic we talked about extensively on this week's podcast with John Morgan of Morgan & Morgan. And he talks about some of the psychology behind this and what he thinks about this bill that... is already chasing out Speaker 5 (4:32) billionaires in the state. And John Speaker 6 (4:34) Morgan can speak to this with some authority because he is not only a billionaire, he's a billionaire with a billion dollars in fluid cash in the bank. Speaker 4 (4:46) Labor powerhouse SEIU UHW is spearheading the measure, pitching it as the only way to offset major federal health care cuts. We Speaker 8 (4:55) do have an honest to God pending health care catastrophe in California. I Speaker 4 (5:00) recently caught up with its president. You Speaker 1 (5:02) know what's going to happen? This guy's going to get so much money from that wealth tax that he's going to fix that lazy eye. Speaker 6 (5:09) Well, what he's going to do is he's going to say, OK, well, now we have the pensions. in a good place. But now what we need to do is make sure that we have money for the people who are currently working. So now we need to go after millionaires, which is anyone who owns a home in Van Nuys. No Speaker 1 (5:27) matter how dumpy it is, there is a dumpy home in my neighborhood that just got put up for sale for $1.12 million. And I'm in the dumpy, boring, hot San Fernando Valley. And it's like a three bedroom. Speaker 4 (5:42) Reagan, about the campaign. How would you characterize some of the split that we're seeing amongst labor? First Speaker 8 (5:49) of all, I don't think labor is split. We're seeing, you know, just some kind of backroom, typical inside baseball among political elites. Speaker 4 (5:59) I Speaker 1 (6:00) think the takeaway from all of this is that the unions across the board, whether you want to talk about the health care union, even the police unions, they all have way too much influence in Sacramento. Speaker 6 (6:10) And when you're talking about the teachers union specifically, you're talking about what might arguably be the most powerful union in the state that's opposed to this. Speaker 1 (6:21) Well, they are the most powerful union. They kept your kids out of school longer than anywhere else. Speaker 4 (6:26) And I want you to be. all the way. Say they're consequences with the no it quote bad for our budge and bad for our future f Speaker 3 (6:40) years going out about ano or so labor's ability to around to get what they table, but really pushing legislature, it's gone up Speaker 4 (6:54) with labor's significant role in California politics. This is Speaker 1 (6:58) why, by the way, so many Sacramento politicians and Sacramento staffers like Dana Williamson are so drunk all the time, because they're getting bought and paid for fancy dinners and fancy drinks from all the unions, from all the utilities. Everyone's up for sale there. And I'm sure they go for the good stuff. How much Johnny Walker Blue do you think is consumed in Sacramento? Speaker 6 (7:22) Have you ever been up there during the week? I have not. Oh, it's a very interesting thing. And I'm sure Washington, D.C. is just like it. But you go there and what they have in all the restaurants, because the restaurants in Sacramento all have private rooms. The hotels obviously have private rooms that you can rent. And there are, I don't know. a dozen receptions going on at night for different groups. So you'll have the Walnut Growers Association there, and you'll have the Cal State Professors Union up there having an event, and you'll have the Peach Growing Association, and they all have their own open bars, and they all have their own food. And if you're a member of the legislature, You're probably renting a room from someone, maybe a hotel room, maybe an Airbnb, maybe some rich member owns a house and you're renting a room from them. So it's not like you cook at night when you're in Sacramento. You go out and you eat. So what a lot of them do is they just bounce from reception to reception and it's like you go to a wedding every night where you just eat the hors d'oeuvres that they have. And you go to the Chinese restaurant to get the Chinese hors d'oeuvres. You go to the steakhouse to get the steak hors d'oeuvres. You go to the Mexican place to get the Mexican hors d'oeuvres. And by the time you go to bed, you're blown a .2 and you've eaten 3,000 calories. Speaker 1 (8:57) Well, and you remember when Wendy Carrillo got her DUI after an event and she crashed into two parked cars? She claimed it was because she didn't eat anything at the cocktail party. Well, Speaker 6 (9:10) maybe she was cutting back. Speaker 4 (9:13) Observers say it's unclear how the split might impact voters in November. An initiative Speaker 3 (9:19) politics always make for strange bedfellows. And Speaker 4 (9:21) this battle is challenging the notion of labor as a single political force. Speaker 3 (9:26) Labor is a huge, powerful block in Sacramento, and it's not really blue or red. It's just powerful. Speaker 4 (9:34) Monica Madden, ABC7 Eyewitness News. So Speaker 1 (9:38) that's the latest on the fight for Prop 40, the wealth confiscation tax that you'll be able to vote on in less than a month. Ballots are going out in just four weeks. And Speaker 6 (9:47) the professor is wrong. Labor is overwhelmingly blue. They overwhelmingly support Democratic candidates and Democratic causes. The split in this particular case is not ideological, however. The split is because... They didn't share the spoils on this one. The SEIU, and specifically one branch of the SEIU, is keeping all of the spoils, and they cut everyone else out of the deal. That's why you're seeing the split within the overwhelmingly Democratic public employee unions. Speaker 1 (10:20) They want their cut. Speaker 8 (10:22) Make that money! Speaker 5 (10:24) I'm this London breed. So definitely go no on 40. Speaker 6 (10:29) All right. One initiative that does not have the Democrat split is Proposition 39. Speaker 1 (10:36) Prop 39 is the Voter ID Initiative. Let me