Friday, June 06, 2025

CA LAWMAKERS JOIN CIVIL SERVICE WORKERS IN OPPOSING SALARY FREEZE

By Bob Walsh

 

California State Assembly
California State Assembly

 

The dynamics are interesting.  CA is in a severe budget crisis.  Gavin Newsom wants desperately to be the next President of the United States so he needs to at least pretend to be a socially reasonable person with a veneer of fiscal responsibility.  He is making noise about a salary freeze for civil workers for a while to help with the budget impact, so he can keep funding free health care and free legal assistance for illegal aliens.  

CA is a union state for civil service workers.  Those civil service unions OVERWHELMINGLY support the Democrat-Socialist party which has a super-majority in both houses of the legislature and holds all of the constitutional offices in the state.  The more money the workers are paid the more money the unions can extort from their members to give to Democrat-Socialists to help ensure their re-election, so those legislators can continue to vote for raises and bennies for the union works, and the cycle repeats ad infinititum.  

CA has a more or less hard deadline to finalize the budget.  June 15th.  In the old days this was routinely ignored until the general public got rightously pissed.  Now the members of the legislature DON'T GET PAID for the intervening period if they don't pass the damn budget on time.  The members of the legislature really hate to not get paid.

The current budget bill is written so that the governor would be able to stick the salary freeze down the throats of the 21 unions.  Assuming it passes in it's current form.  The individual contracts are signed off by the legislature so they have the force of law.  Changing the rules in the middle of the game is awkward for everybody.  The whole thing is complicated by the fact that the governor is trying to force state workers back into the offices at least four days per week.  This will bring increased costs to state workers for commuting, parking, child care, etc.

It is a real issue.  That is why we pay these clowns the big bucks.  Let them earn their money.  

No comments: