CDIR Update No. 95

January 7, 2008

California's Gov. Schwarzenegger declares war on workers

Monday, January 5, 2009

California's Gov. Schwarzenegger has launched a full-scale attack on state workers.

Two public employee unions are suing California’s Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger to stop a scheme imposing two unpaid days off per month as a cost-cutting measure. (Associated Press, Dec. 22, 2008)

The state government is slashing health services and education programs. Under Schwarzenegger’s plan, University of California, California State University and state community colleges will be forced to lay off workers and make other employees accept unpaid furlough days. (Los Angeles Times, Dec. 20, 2008)

The governor has also proposed relaxing environmental regulations and the privatization of numerous public works programs. Since most public employees are unionized, privatization will amount to an attack on all unions and workers. Schwarzenegger’s plan will hurt unions to create new sources of profits for private interests—all at the expense of workers’ rights.

Schwarzenegger also has ordered all state agencies to cut their payrolls by 10 percent, guaranteeing layoffs for thousands of workers. (Los Angeles Times, Dec. 23, 2008)

The Professional Engineers in California Government, a union that represents 13,000 engineers, surveyors and others, along with the California Association of Professional Scientists, filed a lawsuit charging that Schwarzenegger’s plan illegally adjusts union salaries without labor negotiations.

California’s largest state employee union, the Service Employees International Union, Local 1000, filed an unfair labor practice charge with the state Public Employee Relations board.

Let the rich pay for their crisis!

Workers are the backbone of all economic production. Our labor creates all social wealth, be it in the form of products, services or infrastructure, but in a capitalist economy, our needs are tossed aside so that the interests of the wealthy may be protected. These priorities are something that both capitalist parties, the Republicans and the Democrats, agree on: A Democratic counterproposal in the state legislature called for $550 million in "workforce cuts."

The state of California wants workers to pick up the tab for a fiscal crisis they did nothing to create. If the capitalists are the ones who profit during economic booms, why should workers be the ones to pay during economic crises?

The state’s budget gap of $42 billion should be closed by taxing the ultra-rich, transnational corporations such as banks and big oil, and taxes on stock market transactions.

The situation has gone from bad to worst when the governor vetoed the Democrat's budget plans. The state is planning to issue IOU's by February 2009. By using brinkmanship the governor is placing California into a state of calamity.

The LAUSD is already planning to lay-off more than 2,000 teachers, cut school lunches and other programs. Local schools and colleges will also be affected.

As they say in Asian parlance; "When the elephants fight, the grasshoppers suffers."

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