Furloughs, Furloughs Everywhere

After declaring an impasse last week, it looks like the Governor and SEIU have come to an agreement:

Oregon state workers will take 10 to 14 unpaid furlough days during the next two years, under a tentative contract agreement announced Tuesday morning between the state and its two largest workers' unions.

The contract also calls for delaying a scheduled step pay increase for more than a year and deleting a second planned step increase, according to a joint release by Service Employees International Union Local 503 and the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Council 75.

As expected, there will be no cost-of-living pay increases for any workers during the 2009-11 biennium....

The final agreement represents a compromise on both sides. SEIU started negotiations by offering eight furlough days and a cost-of-living wage freeze. Kulongoski countered with a demand of 24 furlough days and a total wage freeze, including both cost-of-living and step increases.

The article goes on to note, in a comment I was going to make myself: "The settlements with AFSCME and SEIU will serve as a model for contracts with smaller state workers' unions, Gov. Ted Kulongoski said in a release Tuesday."

It's still not clear to anyone how furloughs might be applied to salaried faculty and staff, yet in anther story from the New York Times, that's exactly what members of the Cal-State faculty have agreed to do:

A union that represents 22,000 faculty members at California State University has agreed to two furlough days a month to help close a huge budget deficit at the 23-campus system, officials said Friday.

Members of the union, the California Faculty Association, voted for the furloughs, which amount to a 10 percent pay cut, over the coming academic year. The move was approved by 54 percent of 8,800 union members.

Union officials are still negotiating with system officials about how to carry out the furloughs, which are likely to result in fewer teaching days or administrative duties for faculty members, said John Travis, a professor who is chairman of the union’s bargaining committee.

The chancellor has called for nearly all of the system’s 47,000 employees to take unpaid leave two days a month as part of a plan to address a $584 million budget deficit caused by a 20 percent reduction in state financing. The furloughs could save up to $275 million.

Lots more to come, and I'll try to keep you up to date.