Do furloughs even work?

By Steve Sloan

All of us who work for the state know the hardships imposed by furloughs on our families. We’re also aware of the impact on students of furloughs, reduced class sessions and increased fees. But, do furloughs work?

Furloughs are designed to save money and reduce layoffs. Furloughs may save some jobs, do they really save money? According to some recent studies and articles, it is possible state furloughs do not save much money.

David Greenwald of the UC Berkeley Labor Center, in a California Progress Report, said state furloughs save the general fund only 12 cents for every dollar cut in wages. Greenwald and others look at our state government furloughs in general. In addition to university employees our sister union, the Service Employees International Union Local 1000, represents 95,000 of the 193,000 state workers covered under the furlough program. Many of these workers are getting three furlough days a month, a 14 percent pay cut.

Ken Jacobs of the UC Berkeley Center for Labor Research and Education, in the policy brief The High Cost Of Furloughs wrote, “Whether imposed on employees paid from state, federal, or special funds, furloughs impact the broader economy in multiple ways. First, any reduction in pay is a reduction in spending in the local economy and will have a multiplier effect, resulting in private sector job loss and subsequent loss of tax revenues.”

Jacobs said, “It is poorly designed, if the goal is to provide savings to the general fund.” Jacobs, also the chair of the Labor Center said, “Key design problems include furloughing state workers in revenue-generating positions, continued accumulation of pension and benefit debt and inclusion of workers whose salaries are paid by the federal government and other special funds, in addition to the general fund.”

Even some conservatives question furloughs. Dr. John Sullivan in the employee-recruiting forum ERE.net wrote the post Employee Furloughs Can Be a Bad Alternative to Layoffs. He said, “While the tool may be popular and widely used, that doesn’t make it effective or the best choice.”

Sullivan cites many reasons for this conclusion including productivity loss, morale decline over loss of income and increased workload, increased employee stress, higher error rates, angry customers, possible lawsuits over furloughs, loss of good employees who react to furloughs by leaving and a general decrease in innovation.

Sullivan said, “It’s hard to plan ahead and think of innovations when your job security is up in the air.”

I got my flu shot!

Did you?

SJSU Rally for Higher Education on October 12

Meet and greet Torrico & Garamendi

Assemblyman and Assembly Majority Leader, Alberto Torrico, and Lt. Governor John Garamendi

By: Liz Cara for the SJSU-CFA Executive Board

Alberto Torrico will use this day to initiate his campaign to pass AB 656, the oil severance task dedicated to higher education. All campus unions, UC, Community Colleges, and K12 students are supporting this measure and this event.

The meet and greet is Monday Oct 12 11 a.m.-12 p.m. in the University Room of the SJSU Student Union followed immediately by a rally from 12 noon – 1 p.m., 7 Th Street Plaza.

This is the kick-off event for a week of action at each of the 23 CSU campuses. This event will have a high media presence and will be crucial for solutions to the CSU budget crisis.

Please support this event and Alberto Torrico’s bill sponsored by CFA to bring in one billion dollars each year to public higher education. To request flyers, call CFA at (408) 924-6501 or e-mail calfac@sjsu.edu. Use your anger about furloughs, job cuts, fewer classes, and less students and show your support at this event.

From South Bay Labor Council (SBLC):

Amy Dean to speak Oct. 12

Amy Dean, former SBLC head, to speak about her new book

Amy Dean, the youngest person and first woman head of a major labor federation when she was elected in 1993 as executive officer of the South Bay AFL-CIO Labor Council, will speak as part of Working Partnerships Leadership Network’s Social Innovators Series on Monday, Oct. 12. She founded Working Partnerships USA in 1995.

Dean, co-author of “A New New Deal: How Regional Activism Will Reshape the American Labor Movement,” will be joined in her conversation by Cindy Chavez, current executive director of Working Partnerships USA and executive officer of the Labor Council.

The 5:30 p.m. event will be held at the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Hall at 2125 Canoas Garden Ave. Hearty refreshments will be served and those wishing to attend should RSVP to Chase Inman at (408) 269-7872 or by e-mail to chase@atwork.org by Monday, Oct. 5.

This is the second event in the Social Innovators Series, sponsored by PG&E and co-hosted by the American Leadership Forum.

No progress toward safety

The problem with HPV’s at SJSU
I am not against bicyclists, or bicycling, but I am seriously against the very dangerous use of them. I am an avid cyclist. I know that cycling, even done carefully, can result in serious injury or death. Life is full of risk. I am not against anything that involves a risk, but I am against unnecessary needless risk. Risk needs to be taken carefully, that is why we have “Risk Management” at SJSU.

I am against what I feel is a grossly dangerous unmanaged risk situation. That is why I have been complaining for years about how bicycles and other human powered vehicles (HPVs) are currently being used, and I think abused, on the sidewalks at SJSU.

I am a union steward and have filed grievances. I will continue to file grievances, complain, document and make public what I feel is a danger as long as I am able, or the problem gets fixed!

The ironic thing is I am not only advocating for the pedestrians at SJSU, I feel I am advocating for the safety of the cyclists, skateboarders and other users of HPVs at SJSU.

I have been in a serious bicycle accident. Everyday I suffer pain and discomfort from that accident. I know what that feels like and I know what knowing that the pain will NEVER go away feels like. Judging by the way some people who use HPVs navigate the campus, I doubt many of them do.

In my opinion, so far the university has done nothing to manage the risk on our campus.

[More on this topic]

[More photos here]

SJSU offers faculty training on furlough days

How can the university on one hand offer events to faculty on furlough days, like this one, when The CSU/CFA Faculty Furlough Agreement requires that prior to the start of their assignment for any term, faculty must certify in writing that they will not work on the assigned furlough day?

Do faculty who attend the training get an automatic letter of reprimand, or do their managers?

CSU Staff Furlough Agreement 2010/11

Furlough Agreement 2.0
This is a work in progress. Here is the furlough agreement between CSU and CSUEU for 2009/10. I was out of the country when that agreement was made and I did not vote either for or against that agreement.

If there is another furlough agreement for non-faculty CSUEU represented employees proposed for 2010/11, these are some of the things I would like to see added to it.

This is my shopping list:

• Campuses will be closed on furlough days.
• All provisions of this agreement, will be subject to the grievance procedure, Article 7 of the Collective Bargaining Agreement.
• All calendars must be ready 45 days before implementation of a new furlough agreement.
• Rescheduling of furlough days to alternate days will only be allowed for real and documented operational need.
• Furlough CTO is Compensatory Time Off earned through the rescheduling of furlough days. It functions just like normal CTO, as defined by Article 19 of the Collective Bargaining Agreement, except that it must be used within the budget year or the term of the furlough agreement that it was acquired under, whichever is less. Toward the end of that term, if an employee has not requested it, the university will mandate that Furlough CTO will be used within 30 working days of the expiration of this period.
• Rescheduling of furlough days requires 14 days advance notice. If 14 day notice is not received, employee(s) receive Furlough CTO at a rate of 1.5x the hours rescheduled.
• For exempt employees, Furlough CTO amounts less than 8 hours must be taken on a week they are on non-exempt status. Furlough CTO amounts more than 8 hours may be taken in 8 hour blocks, as a day off, on a week they are on exempt status or on a week they are on non-exempt status; at the employee’s discretion.
• Where an exempt employee believes he/she has been assigned an excessive or unreasonable workload during a week in which he/she maintains his/her exempt status, the employee may file a complaint using a similar process contained in Article 8 of the Collective Bargaining Agreement. This process shall include a Chancellor’s Office Level of Review.  The parties shall execute a MOU fully outlining the mutually agreeable process to be followed within twenty-one (21) days of the execution of this agreement. If this is not able to be done in a way that is mutually agreeable, the employee may file a grievance using Article 7 of the Collective Bargaining Agreement.
• Opportunities to switch furlough days will always be offered first to the employee in an organizational unit with the most seniority able to accomplish the task(s) requiring the reschedule.
• If nobody volunteers, or not enough staff volunteers, to switch furlough days; alternate furlough days will be assigned to employee(s) in an organizational unit able to accomplish the task(s) requiring the reschedule in reverse seniority order.
• Since the desire is to achieve savings, employees may request more furlough time and that request can only be denied due to operational needs.

This is my way of preparing for the possibility that the university might want to ask for furloughs again next year. Note, as I said before, this is a work in progress. This list will be added to as ideas or issues present themselves. I would love to hear your ideas. I want to have this list ready in case their is a proposal to negotiate another agreement; then I will present it when our union’s negotiating team solicits input.

Of course, whatever ends up happening is subject to the collective bargaining process and I know you don’t always get what you want. But, if you try; sometimes you get what you need!

CSU must show respect in furlough implimentation

Commentary

The California State University system is a union shop. Most non-manager employees in the CSU system are covered by one of several collective bargaining agreements. When CSU wanted to make cuts in its overall employee compensation it only had one option under the agreements, that option was layoffs.

When CSU decided instead that it wanted to furlough university employees it had to go to the unions and negotiate a side agreement to do so. Employees who were in their unions then had an opportunity to vote to ratify that agreement and almost all the CSU unions voted to accept furloughs for one year.

At this time it appears the budget problems may go on beyond a year. You may see the unions and CSU negotiating again on this topic. Any tentative agreement that may come out of a future agreement would most likely have to again go through a ratification process.

Under the agreement currently in place, management is apparently being given a great deal of discretion in how they are dealing with furlough days. For example, at SJSU, President Whitmore has decided to not close the campus on at least some furlough days. Some university employees are being asked to work on some furlough days and to take other non-furlough days off instead.

This is not the understanding some employees had who voted for furloughs of how furloughs would be implemented. Many employees expected the campus to be closed on furlough days. These employees made other plans on these days (for example for daycare) and some resent that it is not being closed and resent the possibility that they could possibly be asked to work and to take other days off instead. These employees are sometimes feeling taken advantage of.

If employees do not feel that the university is respecting the spirit of the furlough agreement it may be a lot harder for CSU to get a second agreement ratified, if that becomes necessary. It is important for the universities to remember that university employees have made a sacrifice here and if that sacrifice is not respected, it may not ever be repeated.

CSUEU SJSU Chief Steward on Furloughs

The following was sent to union employees from Dennis Fox, the chief union steward for the California State University Employees Union, at SJSU:

The first furlough day for most SJSU employees is coming up on Monday, 10 August 2009. Unfortunately, President Whitmore has not declared the furlough days to coincide with campus closure days so there is going to be a lot of confusion at the outset of this experiment. It is very important for all of us to have a clear understanding of what happens or does not happen on a furlough day. First and foremost, you don’t do any work on a furlough day. Don’t check your email or your voice mail or work on a project at home.

Since a number of people will still be at work on our furlough day, there are going to be a number of you who will receive calls from those at work who need to know something that only you know. I strongly encourage you to NOT ANSWER that call. Only a manager/supervisor has the authority to call you back to work. Any call to you from work, even if it is just a question, constitutes a “call back”. In the academic areas there is a lot of confusion about who is a manager/supervisor. Many employees do not realize that only the Dean and, in the larger colleges, one of the Associate Deans are manager/supervisors. Department chairs, directors, confidential employees, and CSUEU represented employees are not manager/supervisors and are not authorized to call you back to work. I want to hear from anyone who gets a work-related call on a furlough day — even if you don’t answer it. I will forward the information to HR in an attempt to get the problem resolved. If it is a legitimate “call back” from a manager we need to be sure you get full credit as outlined in the contract.

The furlough transition is going to be especially confusing for exempt employees. Hopefully, all exempt employees know by now that, during a week that includes a furlough day, they are non-exempt. If you have any questions that have not been answered in the FAQs that have been distributed let me know. If necessary, perhaps we will have a Q&A meeting over the lunch period to address some of these issues.

Heading away for awhile

From Steve:
I am headed out of the area. I will not have my iPhone when I am gone because AT&T wants to charge me an extra $200 a month for an international data plan.

I will have my iPod Touch and so will have e-mail and I will be trying to stay on top of the furlough situation and will continue posting union stuff mostly on my union Twitter Feed.

Please follow that here:

http://twitter.com/my_union

For other more fun stuff I will be posting mostly on my personal Twitter Feed.

Please follow that here:

http://twitter.com/ssloansjca