California State Workers Caught in Austerity Drive Negotiated by the Ruling Parties and the Union
Submitted by Pantaloons on Mon, 2008-08-04 17:30
This could well presage similar attacks on state sector workers all over the US.
The State of California is undergoing yet another budget crisis. This time the governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger, is threatening huge concessions and job cuts. John Chiang, Democratic Party state controller, has refused to enact the pay cut. The SEIU Local 1000, which represents some 95,000 of the 200,000 state workers affected by this current budget crisis, is filing a law suit claiming that the cuts in pay aren’t legal. The unions are not opposing the job cuts, which have been decreased from the proposed 20,000 down to 10,000 workers cut. Ultimately, this budget standoff in California heralds much more severe attacks on workers among some of the largest and most important employers in the US - state governments. The SEIU members shown in the picture below have their blue and white signs. For the Schwarzenator and the California government this is a worst case scenario bargaining ploy designed to get workers to swallow wages, benefits and hiring concessions that while not being quite as severe in the end as slashing everyone’s wage down to the legal minimum ($6.55us), will be enacted with help from the union, which will support the concessions. If the governator’s gambit works, this could be a pattern by which state governments increasingly force concessions out of their workforce with the aid of the unions who will act as if the contracts they sign are great victories that have spared their workers the worst of the planned austerity measures.
Pantaloons
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*note
*note
There was a picture I had that went with this, it is nowhere to be found now. So please ignore that part about "the picture below". Namely it was a picture of a typical US labor union demo with canned slogans and the preprinted signs with approved slogans written on them. Given that most US states are bankrupt or on the edge of bankruptcy, it is likely that this sort of thing will be seen elsewhere in the US. California has a fiscal year that starts in July, in the middle of summer. Most states start their fiscal cycles at other times of year, like the winter and the spring. So the crisis spreads to state sector employment.
many thanks for your report,
many thanks for your report, Pantaloons.
get us informed by furthers developments.
Origins?
Origins?
Sorry not to have picked up on this crisis in the 16th biggest economy in the world (if I remember the figure correctly). Is the origin of this budget crisis the same as the general fiancail crisis in that the state of California has now issued so many bonds based on deficit financing that it cannot issue any more? Thus an outright attack on the living standards of those who do the work is essential. Have workers , on the basis of past experience seen through the SEIU (who will play Schwarzenegger's game and then claim some spurious victory for the defeat?
California could not only be a model for other US states but the vanguard of what will happen much further afield.
Thanks for the posting Pantaloons