Workers: 'Can't survive on $7.25!'

Scared of foreclosures, divorces, repossessed cars and the other stresses tied to substantial pay cuts, Porterville Developmental Center employees hit the street Thursday evening to protest Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s order to reduce pay for all hourly state employees to the federal minimum wage of $7.25 until lawmakers approve a budget.

A majority of the purple shirt-wearing protestors who stood at Henderson Avenue and Prospect Street are members of SEIU 1000, which represents 95,000 state employees. SEIU 1000 is fighting the order in Sacramento on three fronts: in the courts, in the legislature and at the bargaining table. While lobbyists blanket Sacramento, Porterville Developmental Center workers say they feel like pawns in a political chess game that has serious consequences.

Between angry shouts into her megaphone, Cathy Reabold, senior steward of 500 SEIU workers at the PDC, said their pay will dwindle to $600 a month.

“I don’t know what you could do with that,” she said.

State employees were already put through the governor’s 18 month furlough wringer, and said further cuts would detrimentally impact the local and state economy.

“We didn’t think the furloughs would happen either,” Luanne Codd, an office technician, said. “We understand that there needs to be concessions, and we are willing to do our part, but it needs to be something that is... balanced.”

Codd said that many of her fellow employees in the Production Plus department — which hires new workers — and other departments, too, are retiring early to avoid the cuts. One protestor held a sign that read “we can’t survive on $7.25!”

“People don’t have any other options,” she said.

SEIU 1000 spokesman Jim Zamora said the union will continue bargaining today for a new contract that would exempt state employees from minimum wage. The California Association of Psychiatric Technicians, which represents about 760 PDC employees, was one of four unions that already struck such an agreement. It must be ratified by local members and the state legislature before it takes affect.

“We are also lobbying in support of Assembly Bill 1699 which would authorize continuous funding of many state operations — including salaries — in the event of a budget stalemate. That bill passed the Assembly with a two thirds majority,” Zamora said.

AB 1699 still needs Schwarzenegger’s signature, but SEIU members said they have assurance from Senate President pro Tem Darrell Steinberg (D-Sacramento) that if the bill is vetoed, he will call for a re-vote. Additionally, SEIU fully supports State Controller John Chiang’s countersuit filed Wednesday to have the governor’s order thrown out. Zamora said the union “will file a motion with the court to that effect.”

In a cross-complaint filed in Sacramento Superior Court, Chiang argues that the pay letter from the Department of Personnel Administration compelling him to cut pay “forces the controller to choose between violating the pay letter or violating various federal and state laws.”

The governor’s press secretary Aaron McLear told National Public Radio Thursday morning that the Schwarzenegger’s administration is forced to abide by a 2003 Supreme Court ruling that says state workers do not have the rights to their full paychecks in the absence of a state budget.

“Nobody wants to do this, nobody wants state workers to get minimum wage, it’s a really difficult situation and we hope it doesn’t come to that,” he said.

SEIU employee Bob Johnson works in the PDC’s transportation department, said it is unfair that workers have to suffer because lawmakers were unable to strike a budget deal before July 1.

“I think that if this passes, the state is just going to be implode,” he said, referring to the cuts as the “strangling effect.”

If the cuts are enacted, state workers would see their paychecks cut starting this month. Most employees are paid at the end of the month and the threat would vanish if a budget is enacted before then. Workers would be compensated for lost pay once a budget is in place.

Contact Jenna Chandler at 784-5000, Ext. 1050, or jchandler@portervillerecorder.com.