But neither side’s statement reflects the reality of Lurie’s first budget. In fact, his elimination of about 1,400 overwhelmingly vacant positions, including roughly 100 layoffs that the mayor’s office characterizes as “temporary positions or [those] filled by individuals known to be retiring,” represents a near total victory for labor — and a missed opportunity for the mayor. 

Not only is Lurie sacking few actual people relative to the bloated size of the city workforce (33,000 and counting), but he isn’t even cutting most of the unfilled positions. As of two weeks ago, the city had 2,300 vacancies, according to the Department of Human Resources. Only in San Francisco government would the elimination of jobs not currently filled by human beings be considered “painful” or “difficult.” 

This moment represents Lurie’s first major failure as mayor. The fact is, there was no better time for him to spend his political capital to win significant concessions from labor, which is responsible for a large portion of the city’s out-of-control budget. Not only is he popular and enjoying the support of a moderate-majority Board of Supervisors, he justifiably could have blamed a round of tough cuts on his predecessor, London Breed, who gave labor a raise during an election year and repeatedly used accounting gimmicks to balance her budgets.

Instead, Lurie cut just enough to buy peace with the unions. And yet, a closer examination of his budget shows that the cuts are even less drastic than both he and labor are making them out to be. For the coming fiscal year, the mayor proposes cutting just 470 “net funded positions,” the city’s term for the financial cost of each job. That represents only a 1.4% decrease from the previous year. In the following fiscal year, he proposes to cut a grand total of four of these positions. 

Despite being largely spared from the kind of job cuts required to plug a deficit that is forecast to exceed $1 billion by the end of the decade, labor howled with outrage. Even more galling, they have continued making the specious argument that the city’s fiscal failures are Big Tech’s fault. The unions are pointing the finger at Airbnb, which they insist isn’t paying its “fair share” in taxes because it has filed a $120 million lawsuit against the city to recover taxes it believes were wrongly assessed. But labor is clearly barking up the wrong tree here: Whether Airbnb — not to mention Uber, Lyft, General Motors, and other companies locked in business-tax disputes with the city — owes more or less in back taxes is a question settled by the courts, not by politicians. 

Making these companies into bogeymen in an effort to grow contracts constitutes labor at its most cynical and self-serving. But the Big Tech distractions shouldn’t confuse the rest of us. Labor got what it wanted this budget cycle.

(A funny side note about another vital constituency that Lurie caved to: In March, I pointed out that the Board of Supervisors hadn’t complied with a request by Breed, then reinforced by Lurie, to cut 15% of its budget. A board staffer complained at the time that the board’s budget had been stagnant for years and that it needed an increase to pay for a new legislative IT system. Proving once again that Lurie knows how to play politics, the mayor gave the legislators, who must approve his budget, what they asked for. While much of the city is in belt-tightening mode, the board’s budget will grow by 10.5%, to $2.5 million, “primarily due to a one-time technology cost increase,” the mayor’s budget said.)