The Governator to Slash Wages Below State Minimum Wage

[lame54]

http://www.crooksandliars.com/2008/07/25/stop-arnold-sign-the-petition-to-protect-200000-state-workers/
By: Julia Rosen on Friday, July 25th, 2008 at 10:40 AM - PDT
(full disclosure: I work for the Courage Campaign)

Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger
announced last night that he will sign an Executive Order on Monday slashing the wages of over 200,000 state employees to the bare minimum.

Not California’s minimum wage of $8 per hour. The federal minimum wage of $6.55. Six dollars and fifty-five cents an hour.

Imagine trying to pay your bills on $6.55 an hour. Now imagine what will happen to thousands of vital service workers like the people who make sure that child abusers don’t teach in schools, those who take care of the developmentally disabled, laundry workers who take care of our vets, or license inspectors for foster homes, all forced to live on poverty-level wages. A nauseating irony: many state employees may need to seek aid from the very state services that employ them.

The Governor’s plan, rather than fixing California’s massive $15 billion budget deficit, will instead make our budget crisis worse while delivering a serious blow to our struggling economy. As the recession deepens, gas prices skyrocket, stores close, and home foreclosures surge, the governor’s wage cuts will force many working families over the financial edge.

This is absolutely outrageous. And the only way we can stop Arnold is by raising our voices as loud as possible in protest before 9 a.m. on Monday.

Please join thousands of people in signing the Courage Campaign’s petition to Governor Schwarzenegger. On Monday morning, I will personally deliver your signatures to the governor’s office in the State Capitol.

http://www.couragecampaign.org/page/s/stoparnold

[truebrit71]

1. Umm...I would think that would be illegal...

...you can't pay someone lower wages than the State minimum...surely?

[Cleita]

3. If you work for the State of California and I once did at one time,

the ordinary labor laws that every one else is subject to don't apply. For some reason the state is above those laws.

[SCantiGOP]

2. you do know it's temporary

The workers will get paid for the difference once the budget is passed. That doesn't make it a good policy to threaten the workers because the two branches can't work out their differences, but it's not nearly as bad as it sounds in the OP.

[Cleita]

4. I don't think it is.

When I worked for the state, they just used to hold our checks until the budget passed, sometime for a couple of months. So this option has always been there. When he is threatening pay cuts, it looks like he means it for the duration of the budget stand off with no retroactive pay.

[SCantiGOP]

9. according to NPR

yesterday, they were quite specific that all back pay would be reimbursed when the budget passed. I am in no way defending his tactic, which I think is reprehensible. It's a naked power play to force the legislature to do what he wants.

[Cleita]

11. Really, I have been on the wrong side of the paycheck on this one when I

was a state employee and no one got a check for two months. The landlord and the grocer didn't give a shit. I quite my otherwise decent job at UCLA for this reason. People who live from paycheck to paycheck can't weather this out without some drastic losses to them. Retroactive doesn't cut it when you have to pay the rent today. There are plenty of state employees who can ride out a couple of months of reduced wages, like judges, administrators and legislators. Ask them to make the sacrifice.

[lame54]

5. From the petition...

You may claim that you will pay state workers retroactively for wages lost during this budget crisis. But that won't pay their rent or prevent their home from being foreclosed upon before a state budget is eventually passed. Instead of closing the yacht tax loophole and so many other loopholes that favor the rich, you are borrowing on the backs of state workers.

[Disturbed]

7. This is a typical Rethug tactic. Screw over the Middle Class,

The Working Poor & The Poor. The Wealthy get Wealth Care.

[Warpy]

6. Let him live on that for a month

I for one would dearly love to see it. Oh, he can keep his rent free governor's mansion and his H2. However, the servants get the month off and he has to fend for himself on that income.

He'd squeal within the first three days.

We won't get a government that takes us seriously until that government has to live the way we do.

That's going to take a revolution. Let's hope we can have a peaceful one.

[Breeze54]

8. He's a state employee, living in public housing! Cut his paycheck first!

What an asshole!!

[SidneyCarton]

10. Arnie just shot himself in the foot with an AK.

On full-auto, with a full clip.

The state Controller has already said that he will not comply.

If this goes to the courts, the Judges are not affect by this, but all the clerks and staff...

This essentially invalidates every California State Employee's contract, giving 200,000 workers a open invitation to strike.

If he goes through with it, I move that we start recall election procedures, they got this Austrian asshat into office, they can get him out.