Schwarzennegger Wants To Slash Wages For California State Workers By Five Percent

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.laborradio.org/node/12736

Submitted by Doug Cunningham on January 12, 2010 - 2:49pm
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California Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger has a new proposal for bridging a budget gap on the backs of workers. Jesse Russell reports:

When a state implements unpaid furloughs it is essentially a way to cut employee wages without actually calling it a pay cut. California was one of the first states to use unpaid furloughs when municipalities started figuring out how to deal with budget gaps. Now, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger might be calling a duck a duck – on Friday he said he recommended the wages of 200,000 state workers be slashed by five percent while at the same time asking for increased payments to their pension funds. Most workers have been taking three unpaid days off each month, but in July those days off could be switched out with permanent pay cuts. The plan still requires approval from the legislature. His plan also sees large cuts to education, healthcare, transportation projects, and environmental initiatives. California is facing a growing deficit of $19.9 billion.

[FreakinDJ]

1. Will management take a 5% cut

looks like they want to get the pay cuts in under the wire before the economy improves.

I'm seeing huge projects just about to start and yet the companies are calling their employees in to take a paycut. Literally as truck load after truck load of pileings are coming through the gate, the workers are being summond to the office

[zbdent]

2. Didn't Bush essentially call that a tax increase?