Thread: Schwarzenegger orders minimum wage for state workers

Schwarzenegger orders minimum wage for state workers

By Jon Ortiz
jortiz@sacbee.com
Published: Thursday, Jul. 1, 2010 - 4:37 pm
Last Modified: Thursday, Jul. 1, 2010 - 5:01 pm

The Schwarzenegger administration today ordered State Controller John Chiang to reduce state worker pay for July to the federal minimum allowed by law -- $7.25 an hour for most state workers.

The instructions from the Department of Personnel Administration exclude roughly 37,000 state workers in six bargaining units that recently came to tentative labor agreements with Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Some employees, such as doctors and lawyers, would get no pay because federal exempts them from any minimum wage requirement. Managers, supervisors and others who don't get paid for working more than 40 hours per week would receive $455 per week until a budget deal got done.

Schwarzenegger has invoked a 2003 state Supreme Court decision as grounds for the move. That ruling, White v. Davis, held that without a budget that appropriates money for state payroll, employee wages can be withheld to the federal minimum. That condition exists today, which is the start of the 2010-11 fiscal year and the state is without a budget. The back pay would be paid once a budget is enacted.

The administration issued similar instructions to Chiang during a budget impasse in 2008. The controller refused to comply over concerns that doing so would violate federal law. He also asserted that the state's decades-old computerized payroll system couldn't handle the complexities of changing the pay for 240,000 state workers affected by the governor's instruction.

Calls to the Controller's office seeking comment were not immediately returned.

http://www.sacbee.com/2010/07/01/286414 ... nimum.html

No, no , no. The federal minimum wage should be RAISED. If the fed minimum was raised there would be INSTANT money coming into the Cali coffers. INSTANT!! And stop letting people send so much money out of the country!!! If that money was circulating in our economy, IT WOULD PRODUCE TONS OF STATE SALES TAX. That would be even more money for Cali. RAISE THE MINIMUM WAGE. When you raise the minimum wage, all other wages go up. THE CONSUMER IS NOT MAKING ENOUGH MONEY!!

They aren't talking about lowering the Federal Minimum Wage.
They are talking about PAYING CA. state employees federal minimum wage because
the state is broke. There is no money to pay the state employees with.

Originally Posted by JohnDoe2

They aren't talking about lowering the Federal Minimum Wage.
They are talking about PAYING CA. state employees federal minimum wage because
the state is broke. There is no money to pay the state employees with.

Oh yea, I got that part of it. But what I am saying is that if wages were higher there would not be such a budget mess. Out of a higher paycheck (for all Californians), more money would go for state tax. And also there would be more disposable income....so more spending....more sales tax. That would add up fast. We went through this last year, and we will keep going through it. There are not enough tax payers because many have such low income that they dont pay tax. And they make such poverty wages that they have no disposable income to spend. Raise wages. Also deport illegals...that would help a lot too.

Red Pony, the degree of your lack of economic understanding is astounding.

Originally Posted by Richard

Red Pony, the degree of your lack of economic understanding is astounding.

More state tax taken out of paychecks and more sales tax equals more money for the state of California. No?

Originally Posted by Richard

Red Pony, the degree of your lack of economic understanding is astounding.

Instead of just replying in this not too nice manner, could you please expound on your economic understanding?

Raising the minimum wage drives up the cost of producing goods or services so that buyers switch to alternative sources or economize. It does not actually help and employers respond by cutting hours or mechanizing or on the more extreme side close down or relocate. In practice it hurts workers entering the market. It helps the more experienced workers including those who might be illegal aliens who do not neccessarily undercut the new minimum wage but are perceived as being a more economically efficient source of labor.

How 'bout - yer both right?

I'm seeing lots of businesses cut their prices in half just to get business so obviously they were making a hell of a lot of profit that was unecessary for survival. I don't think every pizza joint and carpet cleaner should be non-profit by any means but the idea of the cost of production going up that drastically due to wage increase is just one of those things we don't think about too much but is starting to $%^&*( errrr . . . make me mad. The people at the top are the ones who make too much but they keep nickeling and diming us wage slaves and I for one am very sick of it. Of course payroll is a huge expense but redpony is right - it will be taxed - and they will spend the money because they have no margin with which to save it.

Course I was all for that e-mail I got that said forget about bailing out the banksters - bail out the people - make it mandatory that they pay off their mortgage and buy an American car - and so on like that. The banks would still get their money - but the people would be OK. Now the banks have our money and they are hoarding it and the people are not OK. Sophisticates tried to say it wouldn't work but I never could understand their explanation. That's OK. They said educated people understood NAFTA and I couldn't understand that explanation either. I'm not educated. It looked bad to me then and it still looks bad to me now. Only now alot more people agree with me.

Richard you are reminding me of working for years to get a paltry increase and then new young things getting hired in for more than those of us that paid our dues for years. And the other thing you remind me of is age discrimination and losing a job before retirement for bogus reasons but really because the company did not want to pay the retirement.

I think some of us are so frustrated that we are throwing out everything that we learned about economic theory - I know what you present is real simple and I am somewhat simple, but stubborn, and I'm simply not buying any of it anymore. I think that what you write is true when the business is driven permanently by the increasing greed of the shareholders but that obviously has gotten ridiculously out of control. Slow but steady wins the race and maybe the shareholders also should be satisfied with less rather than creating this tremendous pain and suffering for people. Sorry - I never was allowed to make enough money to become a shareholder so I admit that my perspective is warped.