Earlier this month, Governor Jerry Brown of California orchestrated an emergency agreement with the federal government that will restore $1.6 billion in public transit grants that had previously been revoked due to a dispute over Brown’s 2012 pension reform. The deal will make California transit workers temporarily exempt from Brown’s sweeping pension “reform.”
For months, the US Department of Labor (DOL) and the Brown administration had been in negotiations over the legality of the governor’s 2012 pension plan. The DOL, in tandem with transit unions in California, argued that the pension plan spearheaded by Brown was illegal for certain workers because it did not involve bargaining between the state and unions.