Posted on 08/13/2009 7:50:01 AM PDT by SmithL
California's government is in a state of civil war. The battlegrounds: courtrooms from San Francisco to Sacramento. The fight: furloughs.
Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's administration spent $228,000 on furlough litigation as part of an eight-month contract that ended in June with Kronick, Moskovitz, Tiedemann & Girard, a Sacramento-based law firm.
"These legal costs wouldn't be so high if people weren't fighting the furloughs," said Lynelle Jolley, spokeswoman for Schwarzenegger's Department of Personnel Administration.
"That's ludicrous," said Yvonne Walker, president of Service Employees International Union Local 1000, which represents about 95,000 state workers. "What audacity, to blame the very people they're hurting with these furloughs."
Local 1000 has been a party in several furlough lawsuits. Its in-house lawyers have handled the litigation, so the union doesn't have a breakdown of its furlough lawsuit costs.
SEIU and several other state worker unions together and separately have launched at least a dozen furlough lawsuits in San Francisco, Alameda and Sacramento courts. All contend that Schwarzenegger's furloughs are either illegal pay cuts or are misapplied.
The current three-day furloughs reduce the pay of about 215,000 state workers by about 14 percent, so the lawsuits have millions of dollars at stake.
The governor won the first round in January when a Sacramento judge affirmed his furlough power. The unions have appealed.
On offense, the governor recently filed a lawsuit to keep the state engineers' union from seeking arbitration to settle whether furloughs breach their contract.
(Excerpt) Read more at sacbee.com ...
There is going to be the time that the furloughs will turn into job losses. The money just ain’t there and they can’t keep going into debt.
SEIU represents 95,000 state workers!!! UNBELIEVABLE!! No wonder Hussein has no problem finding so many 6’4”, 270lb thugs in the SEIU membership!
The question for the courts now is whether one party to a contract - the emergency now having been resolved - can unilaterally change the terms of the contract.
I was furloughed last week for one week.
It’s better than the alternative.
These idiots are going to force the alternative.
Yeah, I’d rather take a few days off per month, versus looking for work.
At the very least, one can use the furlough time to look for a part time job to fill the gap, figure out how to cut back, or, look for another job.
Unions got Penna. to shelve the idea of furloughs by threatening to sue. We are getting dangerously close to the Judicial branch seizing power of the purse.
Call their bluff. Withdraw the furloughs and start laying people off.
Call their bluff. Withdraw the furloughs and start laying people off
Call their bluff start firing ,not laying off.
These work furloughs are nothing compared to the pension debacle that is around the corner.
If Calif is anything like other states that have unfunded pension obligations, furloughs will be least of the worries that are coming.
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