Local 1000 members demonstrate at Sacramento Bee; demand names be taken off salary database

Local 1000 members were joined by state workers from other unions Wednesday at a demonstration against the Sacramento Bee’s decision to make a database with workers names, salaries, job classifications and worksites available online.

“It directly effects the safety of some of our members,” said Albert Troyer, a lithographic plate maker from the State Office of Publishing. “Some people have restraining orders and others have been hiding out from their ex’s for years—to put this type of database on the web effects their safety and the public safety.”

More than 125 members participated in the event.  Some demonstrators joined in the march after finishing work at their offices throughout the Sacramento area.  Local 1000 members, protesting directly in front of the newspaper’s front doors, demanded their names be taken off the database for privacy issues.

Susan, a CalTrans manager, says she doesn’t remember signing away her privacy when she became a state worker.

“I was sickened when I saw what was on there,” she said. “I felt like I can be tracked down by people I worked with and I feel like I’m vulnerable.”

Local 1000 president Jim Hard, CSEA President Dave Hart and a contingent of Local 1000 members met with the Bee’s editorial staff during the demonstration.  Following the meeting, Hard told demonstrators that the Bee was not receptive to removing names, even when a state workers’ safety is an issue.

“They won’t guarantee the name will be removed from the database,” Hard said following the meeting. “I’m disgusted by the paper’s crass commercialism and callous disregard for our members’ safety.”

Hard says he will continue to work to improve the members’ privacy, even if it means seeking out legislation to stop what the Bee is doing.

“Our union is in favor of access of information to the public and I don’t have an issue with the salaries being available on this database,” he said. “But the names of our members being on the database—what is the news value in that?”