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SACRAMENTO (AP) – Californians – and their state government employees – will start feeling the pain of the state’s fiscal crisis in February when offices will be closed two days a month.
The recurring shutdown of state government is the first time budget problems have forced California officials to take such a step, according to the Department of Personnel Administration.
The Schwarzenegger administration announced the move on Jan. 9, revealing how it planned to implement the executive order the governor signed last month mandating furloughs for state workers.
State offices will close the first and third Fridays of each month starting Feb. 6. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger said the step is needed to start addressing a budget deficit projected at $42 billion through June 2010.
The two-day-a-month furloughs are expected to save $1.3 billion over that period.
Exceptions to the alternating Friday schedule will be made for prisons, hospitals, parks and some other agencies, mostly if they generate money for the state, Department of Personnel Administration spokeswoman Lynelle Jolley said. Employees at those agencies will be furloughed on a rotating schedule.
“Typically, state government is less active on the whole on Fridays,” said Aaron McLear, a spokesman for Schwarzenegger. “Secondly, by shutting down entire buildings, we will realize savings by not having facilities open. Lastly, we understand how difficult this is for state workers. Hopefully, having a three-day weekend will help soften the blow.”
McLear said the order could be amended before it takes effect if the administration finds other ways to run government offices more efficiently with less inconvenience to citizens and employees.
Workers Seek to Stop Changes
The furlough program also could be stopped before it begins.
State employee unions have sued to prevent it, saying the administration acted illegally. They argue the furloughs must be agreed to by the unions or enacted by the Legislature.
Last week, a Sacramento County Superior Court judge scheduled a hearing on the challenge for Jan. 29, a week before the first scheduled furlough day. While Judge Patrick Marlette might not rule that day, he could issue an injunction preventing Schwarzenegger’s executive order from taking effect.
“We respect that they are trying to make this easier on state workers. But the bottom line is they’re not doing us any favors,” said Jim Zamora, spokesman for Service Employees International Union Local 1000, the largest state employees’ union.
He said closing state offices twice a month will affect taxpayers—meaning longer lines at the Department of Motor Vehicles and more frustration for those seeking unemployment benefits.
“If they’re shut two days a month, that’s just more Californians who are going to be denied services, who are going to have to wait longer for services,” Zamora said.
Many prison and health care employees already work mandatory overtime to cover vacant shifts, so it is unclear how they can cover two additional open days a month, he said.
Some employees who are not on the alternating Friday schedule, including those at prisons and hospitals, will be able to save their furlough days and use them within two years after the mandatory program ends.
Schwarzenegger’s order does not affect employees of the Legislature, judiciary, university systems or constitutional offices such as treasurer, attorney general or secretary of state, who are outside the governor’s control.
The Friday closures are an effort to cut spending while ensuring that essential services are not jeopardized, said David Gilb, director of the Department of Personnel Administration.
He said the department is consulting with state labor unions, despite their lawsuits to stop the furloughs.
Three state employee unions have filed separate lawsuits, each alleging that Schwarzenegger exceeded his authority and violated the collective bargaining process when he announced the furloughs.
The unions say Schwarzenegger’s order amounts to a nearly 10 percent pay cut for the 235,000 affected state workers. California Highway Patrol officers are exempt because their union is the only one with a contract still in effect.
Contracts covering the state’s other employee groups have expired and are being negotiated.
Schwarzenegger’s lawyers are seeking to have the lawsuits challenging his furlough order dismissed on technical grounds. They say the issue should be decided by the Public Employment Relations Board, whose five members are appointed by the governor.
If the judge decides he has jurisdiction, he will consider whether the governor can act unilaterally.
The Professional Engineers in California Government are joined in their lawsuit by the California Association of Professional Scientists.
Similar lawsuits were filed by the Service Employees International Union Local 1000, and by California Attorneys, Administrative Law Judges and Hearing Officers in State Employment.
Attorneys agreed during last week’s court hearing to have the lawsuits considered jointly.
Australia ’s mining industry has pushed for the right to use strikebreakers in disputes so unions cannot cause maximum financial damage to employers under the Rudd Government ’s proposed workplace laws.
The Australian Mines and Metals Association asked for changes to the Government ’s Fair Work Bill in its submission to a Senate inquiry It says Labor has gone too far in giving extra powers to unions.
The submission, to be delivered today, also urges changes to what the AMMA says is the wholesale expansion of unions ’ right of entry to workplaces, their ability to hold up projects worth billions of dollars and for compulsory inclusion in enterprise deals.
The mining employers ’ group says preventing companies from using replacement labour during strikes, which are protected by the legislation during award negotiations leaves them at the mercy of unions.
Under the proposed laws, which face a difficult passage through the Senate, the only option for employers would be to lock out workers once they took industrial action but, according to AMMA, it could not be done pre-emptively Government workplace department officials told a Senate committee last year that using strike-breakers would be "capricious or unfair conduct" and banned under the laws.
"Employers are now prevented from taking pre-emptive action against employees and unions, yet employees and unions will control the time at which action is taken to inflict maximum harm on the employer," the AMMA submission says.
It calls for the Bill to exclude strikebreakers specifically from its definition of capricious or unfair conduct.
The AMMA says proposed union entry to inspect employees ’ records after suspected award breaches even if union members were not involved went beyond the pre-Work Choices era by failing to set adequate limits.
"Union access will not be limited only to time and wages records," it says. "It includes records of any employee (including the CEO) which may be relevant to the breach." The Government has said such access would be restricted to employees doing similar work and union officials would be fined for misusing the information.
On greenfields agreements for new worksites, AMMA says WA ’s proposed multi-billion dollar LNG developments would be among 262 minerals and energy projects potentially put in jeopardy.
Mining and construction companies object to a requirement to notify all relevant unions about enterprise bargaining for new worksites.
The AMMA says one union could bring a new billion dollar project to a halt by refusing to sign off on an agreement. The association wants the existing system under which more than one union can reached a deal.
The Government has dismissed such concerns, saying employers could get approval for a greenfields agreement from only one union.
Other amendments the AMMA wants include removing a rule for unions to be the default bargainers and keeping flexible working hours.
HELENA, Mont. (AP) The state employee labor unions say their members have ratified a proposed pay plan negotiated with the governor's office.
The plan calls for a general pay freeze for state workers.
The state will, however, increase its payment toward the cost of health insurance. And full-time employees paid under $45,000 a year would get a one-time bonus of $450. Those earning more would not receive the payment.
The agreement covers the next two years, and covers employees in the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees, the Montana Public Employees Association, and the MEA-MFT unions.
The proposal now must be approved by the Legislature.
The Prime Minister and the Opposition must step in to prevent Julia Gillard from threatening jobs at a time when the economy is almost certainly moving into recession, maintains Des Moore
HE ACTU ’s submission to the Senate inquiry into the Fair Work Bill reportedly demands wide-ranging changes, including a return to pattern bargaining.
Those changes would further increase the power of the union movement in legislation that already enhances its role, even though unions represent only about 15 per cent of the private sector workforce.
At the same time, reinforced by emerging large union wage claims and a growing realisation that the legislation is already far from balancing the interests of employers and employees, employer groups are making submissions arguing in effect that there is no justification for giving unions relatively favourable treatment The test for Employment and Workplace Relations Minister Julia Gillard, who hopes to present herself as the Dame of Fair Work, is whether she will continue to repeat previous assertions that the Government has struck the right balance between two opposing groups. And will our conservative Prime Minister emerge from the shadows and involve himself in a matter in which he has so far given Labor ’s Left relatively free rein, but which has significant implications for the national interest and the future of his Government? The Opposition will also have to decide whether it is prepared to abandon the pusillanimous attitude it has taken so far and at least oppose provisions in the legislation that will threaten employment levels at a time when the economy is almost certainly moving into recession. It also has an opportunity to challenge the nonsensical claim that the legislation bases itself on "the enduring principle of fairness" and meets "the needs of the modern age" when, in reality, it is a big step back in time to cope with circumstances that no longer exist.
The enhanced role given the union movement in the draft legislation would already involve a substantial increase in power with regard to such issues as unfair dismissals, entry into workplaces, the right to force employers to bargain on certain mailers, and even a return to compulsory arbitration in certain circumstances. But additions are apparently sought to the outrageous provisions already in the draft allowing unions to enter private workplaces and examine union as well as non-union pay records.
Similarly, the provisions allowing unions to bargain with more than one employer where low-paid (not defined) workers are involved, and for compulsory collective bargaining, are claimed to be inadequate even though they imply a return to union-employer battles of yore.
So far, very liille attention has been given to the return of the Australian Industrial Relations Commission in the guise of Fair Work Australia. But a change of appearance is unlikely to affect its one-sided approach.
FWA constitutes a significant change that threatens to take Australia back to the day when decisions on employer-employee relations paid little heed to the economic situation facing employers.
If passed as now drafted, the legislation would act as a deterrent to employment and undermine job security, just as the then highly regulated labour market did in the early 199Us, when unemployment jumped to about 11 per cent. Nor would the legislation, as claimed by Gillard but without any analytical back-up, likely stimulate any substantive increase in productivity.
To date, the Coalition has adopted the ridiculous position that the Government has a mandate for every measure proposed before the election.
But as the Coalition opposed the Government ’s workplace relations policies in the election, it should surely not limit itself to opposing measures added since. The Government should be pressed to hold an independent public inquiry into the basis for regulating employer-employee relations in a modern economy.
The basic rationale behind the extensive proposed regulation is that a serious imbalance in bargaining power exists between employers and workers. However, in modern-day economies employers operate in a competitive environment; employees normally have alternative job options; and protection is already provided to employees under the common law and in ordinary contracts and criminal legislation.
Australia has more than 800,000 businesses competing with each other and bargaining with a workforce of more than 10 million employees.
Moreover, 90 per cent of those businesses have workforces that have judged it unnecessary to seek protection through union membership.
No valid argument can be mounted that today ’s employers as a group would force wages down or impose unfair conditions. When working conditions are unacceptable to either party, each side has alternatives, albeit not necessarily their first best option.
Employees have the capacity to readily quit jobs and more than two-thirds of the nearly two million employees who left their jobs in 2005-06 did so voluntarily. Suggestions of potential extensive exploitation overlook that businesses need competent staff.
Nor is there any basis for giving unions the proposed relatively favourable treatment. During the period of reduced regulation and union activity in recent years, average hours of work and industrial disputation fell while real wages increased, which scarcely suggests employees ’ bargaining power was weakened in the less regulated labour market.
Although a small minority of work
ers employed under Australian Workplace Agreements did experience reduced working conditions, those conditions reflected awards by the AIRC. But that body created more than 4000 awards that now require modernisation. The AIRC was a poor judge of the economic and employment basis for awards and the reduced conditions under AWAs may well have been fully justified. The Government ’s proposed continued resort to awards is thus archaic in Australia ’s economy of frequently changing conditions, market forces rather than regulators should determine wages and conditions.
The attempt to assist workers through protective workplace relations legislation also reflects a fundamental misunderstanding of the respective roles of employment and social welfare policies. By contrast with circumstances faced by disadvantaged workers in earlier times, Australia ’s now extensive social security system provides a protective bulwark for those at the bottom end of the social spectrum.
Accordingly, with more than half of low-wage earners in the top half of household incomes, it is absurd for the Government to (in effect) prescribe minimum (and other) wages as a protective mechanism. These unfairly limit the job opportunities for about one million unemployed and underutilised workers with lower skills. In short, Gillard ’s thesis that the legislation would ensure fairness is fundamentally flawed.
Australia ’s existing economic and social framework, along with ordinary law, already provides protection for workers and the proposed legislation is both unnecessary and counterproductive. It is in the Government ’s own interests to rethink the whole exercise by instituting an independent inquiry into the need for regulatory legislation that can only add to unemployment levels.
Des Moore, a former deputy secretary of the Treasury, is director of the Melbourne-based Institute for Private Enterprise.
Employers have predicted a rise in unemployment and "a return to the bad old days of turf wars" over union right of entry under new workplace reforms.
As employment figures out today are expected to reveal a rise in jobless families, mining giant BHP Billiton has complained that the Fair Work laws will make it "practically impossible to exclude from the negotiations any interested union" on new sites.
The mining giant warns in a submission to parliament that it has significant concerns over right-of-union-entry rules at companies and work sites, allowing union officials to look at records.
As the Senate prepares to review the laws with a view to possible amendments, unions are pushing for even greater right of entry to work sites and a return to pattern bargaining.
Continued Page 4
From Page 1 It ’s a push that has been seized on by Workplace Minister Julia Gillard to argue that the laws are not a sop to unions, with both sides unhappy with elements of the legislation.
But the employers claim unemployment will rise if the laws are not amended.
The Australian Chamber of Commerce said yesterday it was not the time to risk productivity or companies ’ capacity to hire.
"Our assessment of the laws is that they will impact negatively on the employment market unless the laws are significantly amended. That means adding to unemployment," ACCI chief Peter Anderson said.
But a submission to the inquiry from the Government ’s Department of Education, Employment and Workplace Relations argues that the forecast rise in unemployment is "in no way attributed to workplace relations reform".
Unions yesterday confirmed they were concerned about the limits on industry-wide agreements and the restrictions on what could be agreed to in workplace agreements, including unfair dismissal rights that conferred new protections on new employees who had not yet qualified for protection.
Melbourne Institute deputy director Mark Woodend said the push to reintroduce pattern bargaining was particularly troubling.
"They ’d like the old industry arbitration system where they just rock up and get an industrywide agreement," he said. "That ’s the 1970s. They ’re not going to get it.
"Their point is that in the election the Government made all sorts of promises and pledges.
"So they believe the party owes them one. I think they believe the legislation is a bit weaker than what they told their members." Mr Woodend said: "I don ’t believe the unions ’ case is very strong. What I do know is anything akin to multiemployer bargaining is a very bad thing." NSW Business Chamber chief Kevin MacDonald said: "We are concerned that the new right-of-entry rules will bring back the bad old days of union turf wars, which cause serious harm to business and rarely bring direct benefits to employees either.
"NSW Business Chamber and ABI are also concerned that under the new right-of-entry rules, unions will be able to inspect the personal and employment details of employees who are not members of the union," he said.
"We believe that an employee ’s right not to join a union should be respected, and so we have recommended that the Government amend the proposed rules so unions can only inspect the records of the employees who have chosen the union as their representative." theaustratian.com.au
Telstra union members launched a second wave of industrial action on the weekend to push their case for an improved enterprise agreement while pressing the telco on its moves to shift to non-union agreements.
The campaign, through the Communication Electrical and Plumbing Union, banned weekend emergency duties and overtime and this week will broaden to legally protected 24-hour, 48-hour and indefinite stoppages in key divisions.
This second phase follows pre-Christmas action by CEPU members and is the most significant union move yet in what is shaping as a particularly fraught year on the industrial relations front as some 5000 EBAs across retail, banking and mining, along with car component manufacturing, expire as the economy deteriorates.
Telstra has run a hard line on union-mediated award negotiations but faces the task of replacing expiring Australian Workplace Agreements.
CEPU communications national president Len Cooper said the action was national and company-wide.
"With the pre-Christmas action, Telstra is behind in a number of projects and has a huge backlog of calls which they would have been trying to catch up with overtime and call-outs [of our members]," he said. "There ’s been no formal response from [Telstra] but the rhetoric seems to have changed a little to we ’ve always been open to discussion ’." The pre-Christmas action led to a week-long backlog and affected mainly payments systems such as Eftpos and ATMs, although prepaid internet was also affected.
Mr Cooper said Telstra had a "part A and part B" offer, the first being offered to current members and the second targeted at staff coming off AWAs or new to the company. "We know a lot of our members have been approached with these offers Telstra ’s been working on this for about 12 months. It ’s not dissimilar to strategies we ’ve seen tried elsewhere, at Fairfax, Rio Tinto, BHP," Mr Cooper said.
Telstra spokesman Martin Barr reiterated the company ’s commitment to maintaining service levels to customers during industrial action, without commenting specifically on the latest wave of the campaign.
"It should be remembered that union membership at Telstra is only 15 per cent of our employee base and, on average, only about 5 per cent of Telstra ’s call centre consultants are eligible to take action, ’~ he said. Most Telstra employees will be at work serving our customers.
We continue to talk to our employees directly and over 5000 eligible employees have registered their interest in an employee collective agreement." Mr Barr said Telstra had put forward a "fair and competitive offer which protects all current terms and conditions of enterprise agreement employees ’S. The offer guarantees 12.5 per cent pay rises over three years plus up to 7.5 per cent in performance-based bonuses.
"Telstra s employee collective agreement easily exceeds national average increases of 3.9 per cent per year and Telstra is already recognised as offering the best pay and conditions in the industry," he said.
Telstra broke off union negotiations in mid-2008 to pursue nonunion collective agreements.
Andrew Cornell
Australian Financial Reviews
THE South Canterbury Rugby Union is to lose its chief executive position after a restructuring by the board.
The decision could save the cash-strapped union up to $40,000, although the position carried a salary package well above that.
Ian Hegarty ’s job was the only one lost after an internal review and he is likely to finish work by the end of March.
The chief executive role has disappeared as the union continues its belt tightening after controversially disestablishing the groundsman position last year.
Union chairman Stephen McFarlane said finance was a key consideration as well as the union ’s longterm sustainability. F? "The board has as one of its core tasks iH~. consideration and review of the appropriate employee _________ structure required by the SCRU for the Stephen I delivery of quality rugby services to the community.
"With the disestablishment of the chief executive position, the functions of that role will be redistributed among existing positions and outsourcing options," he said.
"In terms of the timetable and the specifics of implementation of these decisions, discussions with affected staff continue which is why there has been no official announcement to date." Mr McFarlane said the outcome was understandably disappointing for Mr Hegarty who had worked hard, and with passion, for South Canterbury rugby in the past two years.
"A final date for the chief executive function to be officially disestablished is still under discussion but is likely to be in the first quarter of 2009.
"Naturally, Ian is disappointed that his employment will cease and he certainly expressed to the board that he wanted the role to be retained and to carry on in it." Mr McFarlane said Mr Hegarty had indicated his desire to ensure that the transition to the new structure was a smooth one.
Mr Hegarty was on leave because he had a lot of lieu time and annual leave accrued, Mr McFarlane said.
If the union needed Mr Hegarty for the upcoming Crusaders game, he had indicated he would be available but things for the game were running smoothly, Mr McFarlane said.
He would not be drawn, how-ever, on whether Mr Hegarty would receive any redundancy except to say "the union will be meeting all obligations in the chief executive ’s employment agree- ment".
The Herald under-stands the board ’s decision means the union is the only union in New Zealand without a chief execu-tive although the disestablishment had AcFarlane been discussed with the New Zealand Rugby Union.
The review leaves the union with 2.5 fulltime equivalent paid employees plus the club liaison officer position which is shared with Mid Canterbury.
Mr McFarlane said outsourc-ing options would be called upon as required for specialist skills such as marketing, human resources and so on.
"Remaining staff members will face changes in how their day-to-day work tasks are structured and this is currently being discussed with them." The disestablishment follows a tumultuous period in the union ’s history, with previous incum-bent Paul Treves being sacked, interim chief executive Russell Leech sacking coach Ken Wills, for which the union had to pay compensation, and a construc-tive dismissal payout to another chief executive, Wally Bell.
Stupiddington©timaruheraldconz
Timaru Herald,
Timaru Canterburry,New Zealand
