The California Supreme Court on Oct. 4 upheld Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger‘s order to furlough state workers.
In its unanimous ruling, the court concluded that the state Legislature’s 2009 budget legislation “validated the governor’s furlough program.”
State employee unions have been challenging Schwarzenegger’s order since he implemented two-day-a-month furloughs for more than 200,000 state workers in February 2009. He later expanded it to three days a month, which has translated to a pay cut of roughly 14 percent for government employees.
Schwarzenegger said the move was intended to save money as California faced a severe budget crisis, but his order prompted the filings of more than two dozen lawsuits.
During a hearing in San Francisco last month, the governor’s legal team said the administration was acting within its rights to deal with a budget crisis. Labor attorneys claim the order violates collective-bargaining law.
An Alameda County Superior Court judge had issued a temporary restraining order preventing the governor from implementing furloughs.
After an initial round of furloughs ended in June, the governor brought back three-day-a-month furloughs in late July while the state deals with a $19 billion deficit.
The order exempts about 37,000 workers in six unions that recently reached tentative labor agreements with the Schwarzenegger administration. Those unions agreed for their members to contribute more of their salaries toward their pension benefits and to take one day of unpaid personal leave a month, the equivalent of a nearly 5 percent pay cut.