Governor to Ask Voters to OK Inmate Work Plan : Initiative: Rebuffed by the Legislature, Deukmejian says he will seek a ballot issue to make prisoners help pay for their upkeep.

SACRAMENTO —  Carrying out a warning issued almost two years ago, Gov. George Deukmejian said Saturday that he will take to the voters his embattled proposal to make prison inmates help pay for their upkeep by working.

Frustrated by the successes of organized labor to block his plan in the Democratic-dominated Legislature, the Republican governor said he will propose an initiative for the November ballot next year and lead the campaign to approve it.

Alluding to favorable public opinion polls, Deukmejian declared in his regular weekly broadcast that the “overwhelming majority of Californians support the idea that inmates should have to work to help pay for their keep.”

As expected, organized labor, which has stymied prison labor plans for the last several years and for decades effortlessly killed similar attempts, announced it will fight the proposal at the polls as “a tragedy,” not only for working people but private employers with union contracts as well.

“It would be a captive, controlled labor force for the benefit of cheap employers,” said John F. Henning, veteran chief of the California Labor Federation, AFL-CIO. Henning lobbied hard against the governor’s proposal in the Legislature.

For more than a century, the state Constitution has prohibited the state from contracting with private businesses for convict labor, a provision fiercely defended by labor. In part, union leaders fear displacement of their members by low-paid prisoners without customary job protections and benefits.

In March, 1988, Deukmejian warned that if the Legislature defeated his plan to dramatically expand existing prisoner work programs, he would consider putting the issue before the voters in an initiative. That proposal went nowhere and the governor issued a second warning as he offered it again last January.

Labor again bottled it up in a Democratic-controlled Assembly committee, even though the proposed constitutional amendment had been rewritten by Assemblymen William P. Baker (R-Danville) and Terry B. Friedman (D-Los Angeles) in an attempt to win labor’s support. Henning deplored the changes as “cosmetic.”

The legislative proposal, reflecting compromises reached by Baker, one of the Legislature’s most conservative Republicans, and Friedman, one of its most liberal Democrats, is eligible for further action in January but is given little chance of approval.

Deukmejian did not detail the contents of his proposed initiative, but press secretary Kevin Brett said it would be the same as the legislation he unveiled last January with one notable exception: It would expressly prohibit use of convict workers as strikebreakers.

In the past, Deukmejian has spoken of inmates performing such manual tasks as sorting through city garbage for material that can be recycled.

Other provisions would require that prisoners who worked for businesses at prison sites pay 15% of their earnings as restitution to their victims. Another 20% would be paid for room and board; 40% would be earmarked for personal savings and support of their own families, who often receive welfare, and 25% would be allowed for spending behind bars.

“By allowing inmates to learn marketable skills that they can use when they re-enter society, this initiative will not only help rehabilitate prisoners,” Deukmejian said, “but will protect the future safety of all citizens by decreasing the chance of these individuals returning to a life of crime.”

Friedman said he was “disappointed” that Deukmejian had decided to sponsor an initiative that failed to contain the protections he and Baker had worked out for “law-abiding workers. I think this initiative is a step backwards from that.”

Baker said he believes that California union members, whom he described as taxpayers and crime victims themselves, would support the initiative.

But Henning said he was distressed that the initiative likely would contain a provision requiring an employer to pay prisoners wages comparable to those paid to non-inmate employees performing similar work.

Henning insisted that the state would contract with non-union employers who paid current workers only the minimum wage. He said this would put private industry competitors with union contracts at a disadvantage because these pacts require higher wages, health care plans, paid vacations and other benefits.

“It’s a direct threat to employers who pay union contracts because they cannot compete,” Henning said.

Press secretary Brett said the initiative campaign would be run by Deukmejian’s political action committee, Citizens for Common Sense, and be supported by law enforcement and prison guard organizations. To qualify for the ballot, the measure must receive the signatures of at least 595,000 voters.

Henning conceded that putting the proposal on the November ballot would tax organized labor’s substantial financial resources when critical legislative seats will be at stake. Candidates of the winning party will be in charge of reapportioning political districts that will be in place for the next decade.

Labor traditionally supports Democratic legislative candidates, backing that could be significantly reduced if labor faces a concurrent “hostile” initiative. “We can’t think of doing anything other than facing up to a fight like this,” Henning said.