Free Republic

A federal judge has blocked Gov. Paterson’s push for 100,000 state worker furloughs. Senior U.S. District Judge Lawrence E. Kahn issued the temporary restraining order late this afternoon. (Read it here.) The furloughs, which would be the first in state history, were to go into effect on Monday, but now will have to wait. Kahn scheduled a hearing on the matter for May 26. The temporary restraining order also prohibits Paterson from submitting any more emergency extenders that withhold the 4% to &% pay raises for union employees. Paterson included the furloughs in an emergency spending bill to keep government...

State workers held noontime rallies around the state to protest a plan by Gov. David A. Paterson, expected to pass the State Legislature later this evening, to furlough 100,000 government workers one day a week beginning May 17. "We deserve what we have and we're not going to give any of it back," Mary Sullivan, executive vice president of the Civil Service Employees Association, told a couple thousand state workers who turned out in a park next to the state Capitol. Chanting "No furloughs!", about 250 angry union workers gathered at noon outside Ellicott Square — Western New York headquarters...

Gov. David A. Paterson will ask the State Legislature to let him begin furloughing as many as 100,000 state workers each week until the stalled 2010 state budget is in place. The governor today also said the state's fiscal picture is at crisis proportions, and wants lawmakers to also end their three-day workweek in Albany and remain at the Capitol at least five days a week until the budget is adopted. “I’m trying not to be acrimonious,” Paterson told reporters this afternoon.

The California Supreme Court has rejected Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's request that it take up seven key furlough lawsuits now in two appellate courts and freeze more than a dozen others in trial courts around the state. The decision ends the possibility for a relatively quick resolution to about two dozen furlough lawsuits in courts around the state.The court posted the decision on its website this morning: "The application to transfer and consolidate appeals now pending in the Court of Appeal to this court is denied." Justice Joyce Kennard dissented.Schwarzenegger is embroiled in 25 active lawsuits in various stages of litigation...

We've just received word from Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's office that the 1st District Court of Appeal has issued a temporary stay in one of the three furlough cases that the governor appealed on Monday.

Attorneys representing Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger have asked an appellate court to block the order that ended "Furlough Fridays" for tens of thousands of state workers, but leaves others taking off three unpaid days each month. The governor's move came just four days before the government is scheduled to shut down again. The court will probably act quickly, legal experts said, given that informal deadline. But some state workers, who just a week ago were celebrating a furlough lawsuit win that they hoped would return regular schedules and full pay to at least some colleagues, were feeling whipsawed by the governor's...

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's request Tuesday for the California Supreme Court to take over seven key furlough lawsuits caught state employee unions off guard. Schwarzenegger wants to legally leapfrog two appellate courts now considering those cases and go straight to the state's highest legal authority, sort of like skipping the playoffs and going straight to the Super Bowl. Two of the most prominent state employee labor groups divided Wednesday over whether Schwarzenegger's request was a good idea. Service Employees Local 1000, still smarting from Schwarzenegger walking away from a concession-laden contract he negotiated with them last year, said Wednesday night that...

Sacramento, Calif. (AP) -- An Alameda County judge is ordering back pay for more than 50,000 state workers he ruled were illegally furloughed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Daley: City Managers To Take Nearly Five Weeks Off Thousands Of City Workers To Take 24 Unpaid Days In 2010 CHICAGO (CBS) ― Faced with a $550 million budget deficit, Chicago Mayor Richard M. Daley on Monday said that all non-union city workers would take nearly five working weeks of unpaid leave next year to save the city money. Daley announced plans Monday to save $114 million by requiring 3,600 non-union city workers to take 24 unpaid days off, eliminating 220 vacant jobs and cutting expenses like travel and supplies by $20 million.

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger today said he will reinstitute "furlough Fridays" for state workers and ordered a third furlough day each month through June 2010 next year. At a morning press conference, the governor also repeated his refusal to sign any piecemeal budget bills to avoid IOUS and said he will not sign bills on any other subject until he and the Legislature reach agreement on an overall budget solution. "Though the legislature failed to solve our budget problem yesterday, rest assured that solving the entire deficit remains my first and only priority, and I will not rest until we get...

Pat Whalen thought his life would go like this: Day shift as a Department of Justice analyst. Law school at night. Degree. Fulfilling state career. Secure retirement. But champion of state workers? Leading legal wrench in Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's furlough machine? He never saw it coming. "I worked for DOJ for 19 years and intended to devote my career to criminal prosecution," Whalen said. " I truly enjoyed public service." But now the 43-year-old McGeorge School of Law grad works for Ellison Wilson Advocacy LLC. The Sacramento lobbying/law firm's clients include the union that covers the state's adjudicating law judges...

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger can furlough about 15,000 state workers employed by constitutional officers and the Board of Equalization, according to a tentative ruling issued this morning by a Sacramento Superior Court judge. The ruling from Superior Court Judge Patrick Marlette, if made final, rejects arguments that because constitutional officers are independently elected they should control their own employees The ruling in a lawsuit brought by the Republican governor against State Controller John Chiang affects employees in Chiang's department and those under Attorney General Jerry Brown, Secretary of State Debra Bowen, Superintendent of Public Instruction Jack O'Connell, Treasurer Bill Lockyer, Lt....

Goodbye, "Furlough Fridays." Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's office said Thursday that after today, state offices will stay open every Friday. The announcement ends the state's policy of furloughing 238,000 employees on the first and third Friday of each month. Instead, they'll individually pick their furlough days with management approval. And the state's massive government will return to its regular schedule. The policy change comes after days of uncertainty about what the administration was going to do with furloughs. Wesley Hussey, a government professor at California State University, Sacramento, said the darkened state buildings that pressured legislators during last month's contentious budget...

The union representing nearly 95,000 state workers has reached a tentative labor deal with Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's administration that includes only one unpaid furlough day off per month instead of the two the governor had ordered.

MediaNews Group Inc., which previously asked workers at its newspapers in California to take one-week unpaid leaves, is now putting employees on furlough at its papers in at least five more states. Unpaid leaves announced or agreed to Friday apply to newspapers in Texas, New Mexico, Minnesota, Massachusetts and New Hampshire. In most cases, the furloughs are to be taken by the end of March. It also has frozen pensions and suspended its 401(k) fund match payments for managers and other non-union workers at the Denver daily. A MediaNews spokesman told the Associated Press on Friday that the company's employees...

And so the furloughs begin. In case you're confused about all the back-and-forth on the furloughs for constitutional offices, here's the deal: Employees in the offices of California's statewide electeds are working today. But Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger insists he still has the power to furlough them. Both sides are citing the same ruling from a Sacramento Superior Court judge on Thursday. Long story short: More court battles are likely to follow Wondering how to spend your furlough day? Well, the Association of California State Supervisors wants you to head to lawmakers' district offices. "It is vital that your legislators hear...

More than 200,000 state government employees were expected to stay home without pay Friday as California began its first-ever furlough, a move intended to save money during an ongoing fiscal crisis. State agencies scrambled in the days before the furloughs took effect to avoid confusion for the public, such as people trying to register vehicles or obtain professional licenses. Among the offices to be closed Friday are those of the Department of Motor Vehicles and Department of Consumer Affairs. The governor's Office of Emergency Services also would be dark as part of a cash-saving move ordered by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger....

Thousands of state workers who thought Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger couldn't furlough them found out Friday that he thinks otherwise – and that he believes the law is on his side. The latest twist in the state employee furlough saga occurred when Schwarzenegger's office called the other seven officers who are elected by statewide vote and the independent Board of Equalization. The message: The governor can and will furlough your employees starting Feb. 6. The BOE and the constitutional officers, who include Attorney General Jerry Brown, Treasurer Bill Lockyer and Controller John Chiang, have asserted that Schwarzenegger doesn't have authority over...

A Sacramento Superior Court judge has issued a tentative ruling ordering state Controller John Chiang to implement a Schwarzenegger administration plan to furlough state workers two days a month and cut their pay 10 percent. Judge Patrick Marlette issued the tentative ruling this morning, rejecting arguments by several state workers' unions that the Governor's plan to save $1.3 billion with unpaid time off was illegal and unconstitutional. . . . Marlette's ruling said the state's current budget crisis represented an emergency and the governor's order was " reasonable and necessary under the circumstances."

SAN JOSE -- About 3,300 staffers who work at 29 daily newspapers in California run by the MediaNews Group must take an unpaid, one-week furlough in February and March as a possible alternative to layoffs, the company said Wednesday. The move, announced in an e-mail to MediaNews staffers, will affect employees at the Oakland Tribune, Contra Costa Times and San Jose Mercury News, which are among the California papers controlled by Denver-based MediaNews. Charles Kamen, vice president of human resources for the chain, said MediaNews was following the lead of Gannett Co., which recently told 31,000 employees at 85 daily...