It’s not about long-term cost savings. It’s about politics and getting the California Legislature to pass a budget. The sort-term “savings” by reducing wages means just enough money to keep government services operating rather than be shut down and employees getting nothing.
It’s a bargaining tactic with the unions. The bargaining units that have agreed to new contracts (with higher pension contributions, higher retirement ages, etc) are exempt from the order to pay minimum wage.
The legislature hasn’t passed a budget on time in California since, since. Aw hell I can’t remember that far. But basically they sit there sometimes for weeks or months with one thumb in their ass, and the other in their mouth. Every so often they switch.
State employee union are huge contributors to the members of the legislature. Elected officials listen to people that give them money.
So Arnold’s plan is:
Cut the pay of the state workers to federal min. wage
Employees get pissed
Employees scream at union leadership
Union leaders scream at the fat asses that are sitting in Sacramento to get their thumbs out of their butt and pass a damn budget.
My understanding is, yes, the state employees will get back pay once the budget passes.
That may not be a concern, however. I read that because the state has not spent money on upgrading its computers, the state lacks the technological ability to implement the pay cut in the first place.
To blame this problem on the laziness (or stupidity, or corruption, or whatever your metaphor is supposed to mean) of the state legislature is really not helpful, and shows a fundamental misunderstanding of what is going on. Assuming the party mix remains about the same, electing a bunch of people who are way more energetic, smarter and more honest than the ones we have now will not do a damn thing to solve the problem. The problem is caused by the collision of a seriously structurally defective state constitution with a situation in which there are genuine and deep differences between the parties about fundamental economic issues. And these differences are not just matters of ideology, but involve the very real interests, the livelihoods, not only of the legislators but the people who elect them. Neither side can back down very far without completely betraying their constituents (never mind the lobbyists who pay them and pay for their campaigns), and the way the constitution is set up, things cannot be resolved unless one or other side, backs down a very long way indeed.
The plan you describe may well be what Arnold is trying to do, but it is unlikely to work, because it is still an example of one-sided partisanship. It is just another futile exercise in one side (in this case, the Republicans) trying to push their agenda through, in this case in the face not only of the constitutional roadblocks, but also of the duly elected majority in the legislature. It is, in effect, directed at trying to get the Democrats to back down and cave in to the Republican agenda of draconian cuts in public services through pressure from their own constituents and supporters, of whom state workers and unions form a substantial fraction. However, it seems to rely on the state workers and their union leaders (never mind the Democratic pols) being extremely stupid and short sighted. If they were indeed to succeed in pressuring the Dems to agree to a budget that is essentially what the Republicans want, the state workers might get their pay levels restored, but very soon a large proportion of them would find themselves laid off altogether. I think they (or certainly their union leaders) are pretty well aware of this, and they won’t go for it.
Even in the highly unlikely event of the plan working perfectly, nobody would be making a profit. :rolleyes: