Posted on 07/16/2009 7:57:44 AM PDT by SmithL
Her speech last week used "fight" four times and "strike" just once, but that was enough to spark reports that Yvonne Walker, president of Service Employees International Union Local 1000, had called for a strike vote.
She didn't, but the speech did mark a new and tougher stance by the local – and a perilous turn for the state's biggest public employee union.
"This week the Local 1000 council voted unanimously to authorize concerted actions up to and including a strike, if necessary," Walker said in the speech webcast to SEIU members last Thursday.
Catch that? "Union actions up to and including a strike."
Walker made her speech the same day that this column reported Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger wants a 5 percent across-the-board pay cut on top of the thrice-monthly "Furlough Fridays" he has ordered to narrow the state's $26.3 billion budget gap.
The furloughs equal roughly a 15 percent reduction in state workers' pay and save the government's payroll about $1.3 billion over 12 months. If lawmakers don't go along with the added pay cut, the governor could add a fourth Furlough Friday.
The news racheted up angst and anger among many of California's public servants. Soon after Walker's Thursday speech, an anonymous text message circulated, encouraging a sickout on the following Wednesday.
(Excerpt) Read more at sacbee.com ...
As a California resident, I have two things to say,
1) Let them strike.
2) Let the state go bankrupt.
That’s what he thought.
Like I said, he had numbers to back up his claim. Patiently, I showed him his error and sent him on his way. He was quite dejected because he really wanted to write us a citation.
Just keep voting communist and you can stop protesting.
Where these Democratic voters gonna go, to a red state? Arnie the RINO is on the right track, bleed these overpaid, over pensioned social worker do-harmers and their unions dry. Dems are in a pickle, cut welfare bennies, school bennies or pay for their hacks, or they gonna raise the taxes on their rich base?
Well, if they are unhappy with it they could always quit.
>> How exactly can you tell if a union state employee is on strike? Drinking coffee and sitting on their butts outside the building?
Yeah, pretty much “business as usual” except that the more ambitious ones will be holding a sign that says something that they didn’t have the brains to think up.
>> or they can make California a right to work state
HAHAHA! You funny. KALIFORNIA a right to work state? Stop it! I’m cryin’ here!
(Although I shouldn’t laugh too loud... Texas is being overrun with Yankees and Kalifornians even as we speak, bringing their union mentality with them. I wonder how long before they vote right-to-work OUT in our state...)
There is little doubt among non-government employee taxpayers that the "public servants" are delusional. They have special status and can demand to set their own salaries forever with no consequences.
This may be a good time to revisit the concept of "merit" raises (lacking any merit whatsoever) and "step" raises. Guess who dreamed that up? the unions...
The State chief executive executive can just do a "Reagan Flight Controllers" on their butts and fire them all.
Anyone really think that the state workers will be missed?
Anyone think there is now a shortage of workers ready and willing to replace them?
Which may be the best solution. The new workers, a year from now, will not be threatening to strike to "catch up" to all the money that was "taken away" from them during the 2008-2009 financial meltdown...
Things may have gotten a bit too thick this time for the usual rants, threats and complaints by those poor, mistreated union types. The public ain’t gonna listen.
False. They elect representatives who bargain collectively on their behalf.
What people seem to miss on these threads is that public employees are not indentured servants. Yes, they work for us, but people who tell others where to work and how much they make are not called bosses. They're called overseers, and we have one currently in the White House we have to get rid of.
Though I'm sure everyone on this thread wouldn't mind taking an involuntary 15 percent payback made necessary by the incompetence of others, right?
And don't bother calling me a liberal. I'm a former public servant who just lost his job yesterday.
Why didn't you also write to his boss and have his totally incompetent ass fired?
You can't furlough us, we strike!
The out of line salaries aren’t the killer. They can be bargained down possibly
The outlandish pensions and bennies and double dipping are the budget busters. Only bankruptcy can open up these contracts
Fired? Better he got a raise. Everytime I see him he knows I have the advantage.
His inspection visits are down to about 15 minutes, once a year. He goes over some paper, looks at the plant from my office door and leaves.
They can’t strike. They don’t have a strike clause in their contracts.
I don't how taxpayers can deal with these parasitic growths except through constitutional amendment. Unions are redundant in modern government. The public sector provides—by law—pay, benefits and job security exceeding what would be paid in the private workplace where profit governs.
The State people should all park their cars on the freeway, blocking traffic into Sacramento. That way the guy who works for that private company downtown won’t be able to get to his job.
I hope they strike and seal their fate.
The main problem with SEIU going on strike is who is going to notice? At least when our overpaid, underworked Pennsylvania Turnpike workers went on strike a few years ago, we got flat rates (and sometimes even free passage) and the satisfaction of honking at them at the turnpike entrances.
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