California Brinkmanship

The California "minumum wage" standoff moves closer to the edge.
Universities "requested to co-operate" and cut wages.

Next week, probably on monday, the California governor intends to use executive authority to "request" a cut in salary for state employees to the federal minimum wage, until the California budget issue is solved

Hah.

In the meantime, as noted previously, the universities have to deal with this, and the UC President has sent out the following employee morale booster...

"An important message from President Yudof to UC employees regarding potential state pay cuts"

July 24, 2008

Colleagues:

You may have read recently that Governor Schwarzenegger is considering an
executive order that would reduce the pay of state workers to the federal
minimum wage until a state budget is approved. A number of news articles
published in the past few days report the order would call for full
salaries to be paid retroactively after budget approval. It is anticipated
that the Governor may sign the order on Monday.

The reports so far indicate a great deal of uncertainty surrounding this
issue. Based on the information we have at this point, however, and our
experience in prior years with similar budget situations, we will make
every effort to ensure that employee salaries will continue to be paid at
current levels and that all labor contracts will be honored until an
agreement is reached on a State budget. At the same time, we recognize the
severity of the budget crisis confronting the State, and as in the past, UC
will take appropriate measures to assist the Governor and the State in
addressing its fiscal situation.

We will let you know if our understanding of the University's obligations
regarding this issue changes.

Sincerely,

Mark G. Yudof
President

How does this one go again: "there is NO problem, and we're dealing with it decisively"

Appropriate measures will be taken.

Work to rule, brothers!