Court agrees; Schwarzenegger reduces state workers’ pay to minimum wage
A 17-month-old ruling allowing California’s Republican Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger to order state workers’ pay reduced to minimum wage in the absence of a budget was upheld by the 3rd District Court of Appeal in Sacramento on Friday. The Governor’s Department of Personnel Administration sent minimum wage instructions to the Democratic Controller, John Chiang, triggered by the failure of the California Legislature to enact a budget by Thursday’s beginning of the new fiscal year.
The three justices, Vance Raye, Arthur Scotland, and Rick Sims agreed unanimously that State Controller Chiang cannot just refuse to comply with the law or the administration’s instruction, and that if Chiang felt that withholding pay would put the state in legal peril, he should have taken it to court. Chiang says that he will do just that, and a number of labor unions will likely also raise legal challenges.
Meanwhile, several unions have entered into contract talks with the Governor. According to the Sacramento Bee:
Check out the Bee article for all of the juicy details.
(Note added July 17, 2010: On Friday, a Sacramento judge denied Arnold Schwarzenegger’s request to immediately force State Controller John Chiang to pay state workers the minimum wage until a budget is approved. State workers will receive their full paychecks for at least the next two months. My question? Can John Chiang learn COBOL in two months? As for the state worker who lamented that, with two kids in college, he can’t live off $7.25 an hour, I would tell him to try doing it on unemployment, like so many in the private sector.)
-Bill at
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