by Jack Lee
It’s only been two days since I reported the problems with labor unions and here we go with union problems locally. CHICO — Failing to reach agreements with five of the eight unions representing city employees, the city of Chico sent out 19 layoff notices Wednesday afternoon, with 13 going to Chico Police Department officers and employees.
Wednesday morning, Chico City Manager Dave Burkland said the city had yet to reach the concessions needed with the Chico Police Officers Association, the two Service Employees International Union groups, the International Association of Firefighters and the Chico Public Safety Association to avoid sending out the notices.
The city is seeking a 5 percent wage reduction from all employees to help close the $6.7 million city budget deficit.
The 5% across the board was probably not the best way to approach this deficit. Mangement (dept. heads) should have taken the largest percentage hit and the bottom rung employees the smallest percentage.
What is a good cop-loving, union-hating guy to do?
I mean, are we s’posed to love the guys whose union’s are destroying the very fabric of America?
Ah!
Irony.
It is intriguing. Did the city lay out the projected revenue to the unions? You’d think the unions would agree to the cut, so long as they were promised it back when revenues were back up.
Revenues will be back up, eventually.
Something else must be going on.
The way it looks to me is the unions felt the city had the money and they called their bluff, but the city really didn’t have the money and they sent out layoff notices. Or the unions knew they didn’t have the money but didn’t care about a small number of people being fired. This one seems unlikely. If there was a third possibility it might have been that the unions wanted management to take a bigger share of the hit and they wouldn’t…rank and file lost