from your earlier post...
Then Davis took over. The most recent data available from the California LAO shows that the state employee headcount increased from 271,254.1 in Year 1 B.D. to 323,602.8 in Davis Year 4 (2001-02). The Web site doesn't have the figures for 2002-03. Year-by-year, here is how the totals look:
1997-98: 271,254.1
1998-99: 282,859.7
1999-00: 296,076.1
2000-01: 311,238.9
2001-02: 323,602.8
...i had no idea he had added so many on the state's payroll...
certainly counter-trend to the general movement of the broader economy....so it looks the state seems to have been unique in creating new jobs during a recession <vvbg>..... i'm not aware of any other state during that time period that wasn't either engaging in a hiring freeze or layoffs
i just found this article from last may...i think it's interesting that the state employees union were watching how the airlines labor negotiations panned out (with an obvious eye to a federal bailout)
the intransigent attitude reflected here in the face of a fiscal crisis is amazing...
i can see why it would take a nonpolitician to cut the cord on these people
The Sacramento Bee
By Gary Delsohn
May 11, 2003
State employees balk at pay cuts as layoffs loom
When things got so bad recently at American and United airlines that their very futures were threatened, tens of thousands of union employees at each company voted to absorb deep cuts in pay and benefits so the carriers could keep flying.
Don't expect state workers to follow suit just because California is trying to close a nearly $35 billion budget deficit.
Even though hundreds, if not thousands, of government employees may soon start receiving "surplus status" notices that are a prelude to layoffs, their union leaders continue to insist that wage concessions are not on the table.
They've watched the airline negotiations with interest, knowing they'll be facing increased pressure to follow suit. But they also don't believe the state has made its case yet.
"By the time the unions went to their members and asked them to make those concessions," Mike Jimenez, head of the California Correctional Peace Officers Association, said of airline employees, "Management had demonstrated a commitment to making cuts in their own ranks to keep the airlines afloat."
"With the Department of Corrections and the Youth Authority, we don't have that same effect," he said. "They're still acting like they've got a printing press for money in the back room. If it's important to the warden or important to the director, it still happens. They haven't cut anything."
Gov. Gray Davis' administration has been threatening layoffs of state employees for months now. Agencies recently were given a deadline of April 22 to detail how they could cut personnel costs by 10 percent. Those proposals have been kept confidential, but some details have leaked out, such as one suggestion to abolish supervision for paroled felons and another to cut all 13 investment fraud investigators at the state Department of Corporations.
At the California Highway Patrol, sources said administrators there told Davis that 800 positions -- half of them uniformed officers assigned to patrol throughout the state -- would be cut to meet the 10 percent goal.
Administration officials have said they're hoping they can negotiate with state labor unions to achieve most of the $855 million in payroll cuts Davis said are needed for the fiscal year that starts July 1.
But if early rhetoric from union leaders is any indication, negotiating pay cuts along the lines of what the unions did at the two airlines is not in the offing.
At American Airlines, employees agreed to accept pay cuts of up to 23 percent to keep the company solvent. United's employees agreed to see their wages drop 13 percent.
Despite months of grim news about the budget deficit in California, there seems to be no similar sense of urgency on the part of state employee unions.
"It's pretty hard to compare the private sector with the public sector," said Perry Kenny, head of the California State Employees Association, the state's biggest employee union. "They're (the airlines) able to get money from the federal government to help bail them out over time.
"It's a different world with state employees. State employees don't make the same kind of money airline employees make. These are career jobs our people have. We're part of the infrastructure of the state.
"And we can't give back enough money to remedy this problem. We can't forgo the kind of money or benefits to even put a dent in this $35 billion deficit."
In the case of the bargaining unit that represents CHP officers, union officials say they want to help the state solve its fiscal crisis but that CHP officers have already sacrificed enough.
When they signed their five-year contract in 2001, they agreed to get no raises for two years, said Jon Hamm, head of the CHP union.
"In exchange for agreeing to zero," Hamm said, "we said we wanted a guarantee of raises in the out years of the agreement. Now that we're finally there, it's not right for our members to be expected to again give up getting a pay raise.
"It's easy to say state workers should not get a pay raise because of the budget crisis, but there's a whole history to this thing. We've already sacrificed."
Marty Morgenstern, head personnel officer for the Davis administration, said he's optimistic the unions will show flexibility as the process unfolds. He again warned that layoffs would be necessary without negotiated salary savings.
"I think state workers clearly have interest in the well-being of the state," he said. "The departments have met their requirement to submit their proposals. We're meeting to decide which contingencies are more appropriate and which are less. But we still hope to recover a good part of those dollars through the bargaining process."
Morgenstern said he didn't know yet how many state workers would have to be laid off if the savings don't come through negotiations with the unions.
His Department of Personnel Administration is "pursuing a course of action that's similar" to what the airlines have done, Morgenstern said, "in that we believe the unions should agree to contractual changes given the current budget crisis.
"We believe they should respond accordingly. We think they know it's real. Layoffs are certainly a possibility."
State employees who would be laid off must receive a "surplus status" notice 120 days before possible termination, Lynelle Jolley, spokeswoman for Morgenstern's department, said last week. More than 200 such notices already have gone out since the beginning of the year, but very few of those employees actually lost their jobs, Jolley said. A few retired, and many found openings in other departments.
Over the next several weeks, though, as state finance officials come up with their revised projections for the 2003-04 budget and devote more attention to reviewing the 10 percent contingency proposals -- and as negotiations with unions begin to heat up -- the layoff picture will become clearer.
"So far, they've been unable to tell us what the net effect would be in terms of jobs saved or lost if we give up something," said Jimenez of the correctional officers union. "They've been unable to tell us where we're going to land on this thing. So far, my only perception is if we give up something, they're going to ask us to keep giving." |
