Nothing could be more counterproductive or detrimental to the repu- tation of state workers than the Service Employee International Union's current push to get its members not to show up for work on Monday, Oct. 12 - Columbus Day.
The state of California is flat broke. It's financing its operations on borrowed money.
To cut costs and save precious cash, the governor and the Legislature together approved a budget in February that eliminated two of the state's 14 paid holidays.
Columbus Day was dropped altogether, and Lincoln's and Washington's birthdays were combined.
Those two changes save the state an estimated $26.2 million a year, most of it in overtime that doesn't have to be paid to workers who work holidays. These are primarily California Highway Patrol officers, firefighters and prison guards.
Initially the plan was to grant the union two floating personal days off in lieu of the holidays.
But the Legislature failed to approve the new SEIU contract that contained the floating days off.
With negotiations stalled on a new contract, SEIU contends that the old contract, the one with the holidays, remains in force.
The governor's personnel office, citing the change in law, insists the holiday provision has been removed.
Workers who don't come to work on Monday could face "possible disciplinary action." SEIU has sued, so eventually the courts will decide the matter.
But in the court of public opinion, SEIU has already lost.
The jury in that informal public court is composed primarily of private sector workers who don't enjoy anything near 14 paid holidays a year and therefore don't have much sympathy for state workers on this point.
If the union wins in court, the governor's only recourse may be to lay off more union workers to make up for the extra payouts required, probably with interest.
Who benefits from that?
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