Gavin Newsom’s extreme record of giveaways to – Latest News
A pal lately advised me he was impressed that Gov. Gavin Newsom was standing up to California’s public worker unions by requiring state staff to return to the workplace not less than 4 days a week.
But if he thought that meant Newsom had usually been robust on California’s highly effective unions, I advised him there was a lot more to the story — and he was about to get a lesson in seven years of union favors he wouldn’t neglect.
Start with the California Teachers Association.
Soon after taking workplace, Newsom signed AB 1505 and AB 1507, strengthening conventional college districts’ energy over constitution colleges.
A pal lately advised me he was impressed that Gov. Gavin Newsom was standing up to California’s public worker unions by requiring state staff to return to the workplace not less than 4 days a week. Anadolu through Getty Images
Assemblymember Mike Gipson speaks at a press convention to announce a historic UC unionization effort with SEIU Doctors United at Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center on Tuesday, July 28, 2026, in Los Angeles, California. (2026 Getty Images) Getty Images for SEIU Doctors United
CTA referred to as it a “historic win after 27 years.”
Then got here COVID.
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As colleges across the nation reopened, California’s lecturers unions continued demanding extraordinary circumstances earlier than returning to school rooms. Newsom spent months unwilling to severely confront them whereas California kids remained home.
By the time Newsom and the unions got here to phrases, California was among the many final states within the nation to totally reopen its public colleges.
Fast ahead to at the moment.
As colleges across the nation reopened, California’s lecturers unions continued demanding extraordinary circumstances earlier than returning to school rooms. Newsom spent months unwilling to severely confront them whereas California kids remained home. MediaNews Group through Getty Images
Beginning subsequent yr, the new federal Education Freedom Tax Credit will present taxpayers up to a $1,700 federal tax credit for contributions to scholarship organizations. States should decide in.
As of this month, 29 states have elected to take part.
California isn’t one of them — a win for the CTA, which opposes directing scholarship {dollars} towards private-school options to unionized public colleges.
Newsom nonetheless can decide us in. I wouldn’t maintain my breath.
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Then there are the state staff themselves.
In 2023, Newsom negotiated contracts masking most of California’s rank-and-file workforce estimated to price taxpayers almost $5 billion over three years.
Roughly 100,000 SEIU Local 1000 staff obtained 3% basic raises in 2023, 2024 and 2025, together with quite a few particular wage changes and extra advantages.
When California’s funds issues pressured Newsom back to the bargaining desk in 2025, SEIU nonetheless protected that ultimate raise. Workers accepted a momentary payroll discount in exchange for extra depart, whereas Newsom suspended their retiree health-care contributions and quickly paused his return-to-office coverage via July 1 of this yr.
California isn’t one of them — a win for the CTA, which opposes directing scholarship {dollars} towards private-school options to unionized public colleges. REUTERS
Newsom additionally signed the Public Employee Health Protection Act, requiring authorities employers to proceed offering health insurance coverage to public staff and their households whereas these staff are on an approved strike.
So authorities staff can stop working as a result of they’re placing in opposition to the federal government — and taxpayers keep paying for his or her health insurance coverage.
Newsom hasn’t simply rewarded current union members. He has expanded organized labor’s attain.
He gave roughly 40,000 household child-care suppliers collective-bargaining rights with the state, expanded farmworker organizing, and final yr created a path for more than 800,000 California rideshare drivers to manage and collectively discount.
His generosity towards organized labor doesn’t stop with public staff.
Remember AB 5?
Newsom signed the disastrous 2019 assault on unbiased contracting that tried to push monumental numbers of Californians into conventional employer-employee relationships — precisely the workforce model organized labor prefers.
The backlash was fast. Sacramento carved exemption after exemption into the law, and voters handed Proposition 22.
Governor Gavin Newsom speaks during a press occasion to welcome back college students to a new college yr on the Schafer Park Elementary School in Hayward, California, on Wednesday, August 19, 2026. The occasion highlighted transformational training reforms. (2026 Anadolu) Anadolu through Getty Images
Newsom additionally signed main SEIU priorities establishing a $20 fast-food minimal wage and placing healthcare staff on a path towards $25 an hour.
This isn’t a governor who often occurred to signal one thing unions favored.
This is a record.
And the unions themselves keep rating.
In 2022, the California Labor Federation gave Newsom an 88% score on its legislative priorities. In 2025, it celebrated a “banner year” after Newsom signed all however one of its key precedence payments.
Of course, I advised my pal, all of this issues even more as a result of California is within the center of a very actual affordability disaster.
Richer authorities contracts and expanded public worker advantages don’t come from nowhere.
They land on taxpayers — the identical taxpayers already staring down the nation’s highest gasoline costs, some of the steepest home insurance coverage will increase within the nation and a price of dwelling that retains pushing people out of the state fully.
Maria Nicholas, president of the Associated Administrators of LA/Teamsters, speaks during a press convention asserting UTLA, SEIU and AALA strike authorization in opposition to Los Angeles Unified School District on the L.A. County Federation of Labor in Los Angeles on Wednesday, April 1, 2026. Nicholas stated it is going to be the primary time in AALA’s 45-year historical past that they could strike. (MediaNews Group RM) MediaNews Group through Getty Images
Higher mandated labor prices work the identical approach within the personal sector.
When Sacramento raises the wage flooring for an whole industry or palms a new class of staff collective-bargaining leverage, these prices don’t vanish — they show up within the price of a burger, a rideshare, a hospital go to.
Californians pay both approach: as soon as as taxpayers, as soon as as customers. And they’re paying each payments at precisely the second they’ll least afford both one.
What issues is the direction of the record.
One combat doesn’t erase seven years of historical past.
After I completed, my pal paused.
“Oh wow,” he stated. “I guess Newsom sucks after all.”
Jon Fleischman, a longtime strategist in California politics, writes at SoDoesItMatter.com
