Layoffs Set For 22,000 California State Workers July 30th, 2008
[SOURCE: AP]
SACRAMENTO (AP) ― The California Department of Motor Vehicles, infamous for long lines, has cut its wait time in half to get a driver’s license.
A big part of the reason is its hiring of part-time employees. Of 9,017 DMV employees statewide, 1,345 — or 15 percent — could be gone by Friday after Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger signs an executive order to deal with the state’s fiscal crisis.
The department also has 751 contractors who could be terminated. And that won’t be good news for customers, said Amber Carlson, who would lose her $14.75-an-hour part-time job answering phones and processing paperwork at the DMV’s Sacramento headquarters.
“People aren’t going to get their licenses back as quick. There’s going to be more people on hold trying to get their questions answered,” said Carlson, 25. “He (Schwarzenegger) is trying to push people, and he’s pushing the wrong people.”
Schwarzenegger is expected to sign the executive order Thursday, the first day of the August pay period.
About 22,000 temporary, part-time and contract state workers face layoffs. That could mean fewer food safety inspections and cutbacks in the programs that stock fish in the state’s rivers and lakes, among many consequences.
The governor also is expected to order that many of the 200,000 regular state employees under his control be paid the federal minimum wage of $6.55 an hour until a state budget is passed. Lawmakers have failed to agree on a spending plan for the fiscal year that began July 1, arguing over whether they should enact tax increases or steep cuts to close a $15.2 billion deficit.
The workers receiving the federal minimum wage will be reimbursed for their full salaries once a budget deal is reached. The others will simply be out of work.
Schwarzenegger spokesman Aaron McLear said law enforcement, emergency, disaster and other critical workers would be exempt from the executive order.
The federal court-appointed receiver who runs the state prison health care system on Wednesday exempted all his state employees from the cutbacks.
Schwarzenegger’s executive order is designed in part as a way to pressure lawmakers to strike a budget deal quickly, but it also is expected to prompt immediate challenges.
Controller John Chiang, a Democrat, said he will defy Schwarzenegger and keep sending permanent employees their full checks, rather than paying them minimum wage. State employee unions promise to seek injunctions blocking the entire executive order.
Both concede the governor likely has the power to lay off the seasonal and part-time workers.
Schwarzenegger said he has little choice because the state could run out of cash without a budget. The administration projects that firing the employees, ending contracts and suspending overtime would save the state about $100 million a month.
“Being governor, I have to make sure that we pay our bills and that we have the money,” Schwarzenegger said at a news conference on Tuesday.
While many state workers can get low-interest loans until they receive back wages, Kim Croff, 44, of Carmichael, is one of those set to lose her DMV job with little savings as a cushion.
“I’m very worried. Unemployment is up, jobs are very scarce. There’s no one really hiring. The economy is really bad,” Croff said as she and Carlson protested the pending cuts during their lunch hour Wednesday. “It takes a toll on you, just worrying about it.”
Croff schedules driving test and vehicle registration appointments for $14.25 an hour. While she works 40 hours a week, she’s not considered a permanent, full-time employee and will lose her job.
Her Sacramento call center, one of five statewide, is staffed by about 85 people, about 30 of whom are part-time employees.
Jim Zamora, spokesman for Service Employees International Union, said seasonal fruit and vegetable inspectors also might be laid off — “the people who protect you from salmonella.”
“By getting rid of them at this time of year, you’re potentially creating problems for the state,” said Zamora, who represents the largest state employees’ union.
The governor’s office said it’s not clear whether food inspectors would be subject to the executive order.
Agencies are informing the administration how many of their employees are considered crucial to public safety.
State Sen. Dean Florez asked the Legislature’s legal office for an opinion about whether the governor can fire the 22,000 workers. Last week, the nonpartisan Legislative Counsel’s Office advised that Schwarzenegger cannot force the state controller to pay only minimum wage. The administration disagrees, citing a previous court order.
Caught in the middle are workers such as 23-year-old Brian Rodman of Sacramento and Andrew Walker, 19, of Elverta.
They were up to their chest waders in swirling young fish Wednesday as they helped with cleaning and feeding at the Nimbus Salmon and Steelhead Hatchery along the American River east of Sacramento. Both work part time while taking college classes in hopes of joining the state Department of Fish and Game full time.
“If we leave, everything slows down. It’s not as productive,” said Walker.
During busy times, the hatchery employs six seasonal workers to help its eight full-timers, manager Paula Hoover said. Statewide, 57 seasonal workers help 120 permanent hatchery employees.
Brad Willis, who works at the Mojave River State Fish Hatchery in Victorville, said he and other full-time employees probably would be able to keep the fish alive but not deliver them to the state’s lakes and streams.
“A lot of recreational fishermen depend on that, as do the local businesses and communities that depend on the fishermen,” Willis said. “The governor is trying to pressure the Legislature. Of course we need a budget, but we don’t need the additional pressure of telling people they’re not going to get their money.”
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Collapse of the Middle Class? May 13th, 2008
[SOURCE: Article Printed from Senator Sanders Website - Sanders.Senate.Gov - NOTE: the links to the full news pieces go to their separate news sources and may not always be valid addresses, for much time after their original publication dates]
EXCERPT:
News May 13 — 05/13/2008Senator Sanders
Collapse of the Middle Class “One of the few national politicians willing to speak unflinchingly about how the so-called ‘robust’ U.S. economy has failed vast swaths of America, last month, Sen. Bernie Sanders asked constituents to share their stories of how they’re coping with rising prices of medicine, gas, heating fuel and food. Since then, over 700 responses from Vermont and across America have flooded his office. The letters — a painful installation of the hollowing-out of middle-class America — should be required reading for any elected official here in DC,” according to a post on The Nation. LINK
The GOP Onslaught David Bossie, already deep into a mudslinging campaign against Obama through a political organization called Citizens United, is planning a widespread DVD release of a documentary that will portray Obama as a “limousine, out-of-control leftist liberal … more liberal than Bernie Sanders, who is a socialist,” Bossie tells Newsweek. McCain has little leverage over Bossie, who has run ads attacking McCain as too liberal in the past, the magazine added in a cover story about a Republican Party attack machine that “has been successfully scaring voters since 1968.” LINK
The Veepstakes The Hill asked all 97 senators who are not running for president the same question: “If you were asked, would you accept an offer to be the VP nominee?” Some senators laughed, but others took the question seriously. “I have not yet been asked. Furthermore, I expect I will not be asked,” Sanders said. LINK
Hightower Populist author and journalist Jim Hightower, in a book tour interview, was asked by Boulder Weekly about mainstream media’s tendency to dismiss the average person. “In politics,” Hightower said, “you see it on the Sunday morning talk shows. You never see [U.S. Sen.] Bernie Sanders on there. For election coverage, you get the same old cast of characters on there who haven’t had a clue in 30 years. But there they are, telling us what the election means. LINK
Burger King Locked in Dispute with Farm Workers Burger King is embroiled in a labor dispute with tomato pickers in Florida, and now a Burger King executive has been tied to e-mail spreading misinformation about the workers’ cause, says Amy Bennett Williams of the Fort Myers News-Press in a National Public Radio Interview that also mentions Senate hearings chaired by Senator Bernie Sanders. LINK
World
Death Toll From Chinese Earthquake Nears 12,000 Soldiers, paramilitary police and civilian rescue workers struggled against rainstorms and fog Tuesday to reach thousands of people trapped under the rubble of schools, hospitals and homes collapsed by Monday’s deadly earthquake in central China. Nearly 12,000 people were killed by the tremor, which measured 7.9 on the Richter scale as it rolled through a half-dozen Chinese provinces and rattled buildings as far away as Vietnam, The Washington Post reported. LINK
Lebanese Army Says It Will Use Force to Quell Fighting The Lebanese Army announced on Monday evening that it would start using force to stop fighting between supporters of the governing coalition and the Hezbollah-led opposition, a step the army had not taken during almost a week of sectarian violence that recalled the country’s 15-year civil war, The New York Times reported. LINK
In Lebanon, a Call for U.S. Action Politicians in Lebanon’s Western-backed governing coalition criticized the United States on Monday for not doing enough to counter the opposition Hezbollah movement’s recent takeover of West Beirut. At the same time, President Bush, who will visit the Middle East this week, vowed continued support for the Lebanese government and its military, which announced that it would take a greater role in containing violence, The Washington Post reported. LINK
Myanmar Regime Accused of Hoarding Cyclone Aid The United Nations said Tuesday that only a tiny portion of international aid needed for Myanmar’s cyclone victims is making it into the country, amid reports that the military regime is hoarding good-quality foreign aid for itself and doling out rotten food. The country’s isolated military regime has agreed to accept relief shipments from the U.N. and foreign countries, but has largely refused entry to aid workers who might distribute the aid, The Associated Press reported. LINK
Dispute Over Judges Deepens Rift in Pakistan One of the two main parties in Pakistan’s ruling coalition declared Monday that it would quit the government in a dispute over when and how to reinstate judges fired by President Pervez Musharraf during a crackdown late last year, the Los Angeles Times reported. LINK
United States
Average Gas Prices Set Record at $3.72 a Gallon The average price of gasoline jumped to $3.722 a gallon, the government said Monday, up a hefty 10.9 cents in a week and the fourth consecutive record. Diesel, the fuel of semi trucks, delivery vans and railroad locomotives, shot up 18.2 cents to $4.331 per gallon, guaranteeing higher shipping costs that could boost the price of everything from TVs to tostadas. Expensive fuel “is acting like a battering ram knocking at the economy,” Peter Beutel, head of energy-price consultant Cameron Hanover, told USA Today. LINK
Lawmakers Want Oil Shipments Stopped Amid daily bipartisan sniping over high gas prices, Democrats and Republicans appear to agree on at least one thing: With oil over $120 a barrel, President Bush ought to stop buying crude for the government emergency reserve. Both the House and Senate are expected to approve, with bipartisan support, legislation Tuesday directing Bush to temporarily halt the shipment of about 70,000 barrels of oil a day to the Strategic Petroleum Reserve, The Associated Press reported. LINK
Bush Hits New Low Public disgruntlement neared a record high and President Bush slipped to his career low in the latest ABC News/Washington Post poll. Eighty-two percent of Americans now say the country’s seriously off on the wrong track, up 10 points in the last year to a point from its record high in polls since 1973. And 31 percent approve of Bush’s job performance overall, while 66 percent disapprove. Bush now has gone 40 months without majority approval, beating Truman’s record (also during economic discontent and an unpopular war) of 38 months from 1949-52. LINK
Farmers Unable to Cash in on Soaring Food Prices All over the world, prices for basic foods — barley for beer, milk for cheese, corn for tortillas, and the rice that serves as a staple for more than half the world’s population — are soaring. But farmers aren’t rushing to cash in on the boom by planting more of the crops…They say the reason is simple. The cost of planting some crops is rising as fast as their prices, and sometimes faster, leaving little incentive to increase production of some foods that remain in high demand around the world, the Los Angeles Times reported. LINK
U.S. Receives Less From Corporate Taxes With turmoil rocking financial markets and housing woes slowing the economy, corporate tax revenues are falling and leaving big holes in the federal budget. The Treasury Department reported Monday that corporate income-tax revenue over the first seven months of the fiscal year, which began Oct. 1, was $171.1 billion, 14.7 percent lower than during the same period a year earlier. Meantime, government outlays rose 7.3 percent, to $1.7 trillion, and the federal deficit ballooned to $152 billion, 88 percent higher than the same period last fiscal year, according to The Wall Street Journal. LINK
Popularity: 2% [?]
Posted in GENERAL INTEREST, POLITICS | 1 Comment »
