Labor Union Blog

By Doug Cunningham

On Thursday California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger cut 22,000 jobs and slashed the pay for 200,000 state workers down to the federal minimum wage, effective in September. The California Labor Federation’s Jeremy Smith says the governor is wrong to lash out at workers and their livelihoods to try to resolve the state’s budget problem.

[Smith]: “Anytime you cut workers pay – add on top of that the fact that he’s cutting workers’ pay to the federal minimum wage, which is much lower than the California minimum wage – we think is anti-worker. We can’t figure out why the governor thinks he should penalize them for the inability to get a budget passed.”