California Legislature rejects state worker salary freezes. Negotiations continue

The Legislature’s Monday budget plan included some welcomed news to state workers: a flat out rejection of Gov. Gavin Newsom’s proposal to freeze state workers’ salaries.

“At a time when labor unions are under attack, we applaud and thank the State Legislature for standing with state employees,” Anica Walls, Service Employees International Union Local 1000’s president, said in a statement. Walls said the union rejected the governor’s idea of pausing pay raises at the bargaining table this week.

While the development is a sunny one for state workers, there’s still time for the budget to change, and the initial salary freezes are not off the table, said Tim Yeung, a public sector labor expert. He said negotiations between the Legislature and the governor, and between unions and the administration, are ongoing.

Lawmakers have until Sunday to approve Capitol leaders’ proposal and a final agreement between the Legislature and governor is expected by June 27.

All the possibilities — furloughs, pausing retirement contributions, changes to California’s telework policy — are still up for negotiating, Yeung said.

“At the end of the day, you have to balance a budget by law,” Yeung said. “So they gotta figure out how to do it.”

Additionally, as lawmakers have already pointed out when discussing the budgetary fate of their other priorities, the governor can use his veto power to shape the budget passed by the Legislature.

It’s not clear whether the governor can line-item veto salary raises that were approved by the Legislature and promised in bargaining agreements. The Governor’s Office did not respond to questions on the subject.

Given several public sector unions have challenged the governor in court and at the state’s employment board over his return-to-office order, it’s hard to imagine that line-item vetoing raises would go unchecked.

The Legislature rejecting the salary freezes surprised some given the governor, as state employees’ boss, has largely had the final say on labor relations. But in decades past, the Legislature hasn’t always ceded control to the executive branch.

In 1979, the Legislature passed a bill, authored by then-state Sen. Al Alquist, that provided a significant salary increase to public employees. Former Gov. Jerry Brown then vetoed the bill, according to the California State Library.

But, according to the state library, lawmakers eventually took the side of state workers, overriding Brown’s veto and reinstating the pay raise.