This could well presage similar attacks on state sector workers all over the US.

The State of California is undergoing yet another budget crisis. This time the governor, Arnold Schwarzenegger, is threatening huge concessions and job cuts. John Chiang, Democratic Party state controller, has refused to enact the pay cut. The SEIU Local 1000, which represents some 95,000 of the 200,000 state workers affected by this current budget crisis, is filing a law suit claiming that the cuts in pay aren’t legal. The unions are not opposing the job cuts, which have been decreased from the proposed 20,000 down to 10,000 workers cut. Ultimately, this budget standoff in California heralds much more severe attacks on workers among some of the largest and most important employers in the US - state governments. The SEIU members shown in the picture below have their blue and white signs. For the Schwarzenator and the California government this is a worst case scenario bargaining ploy designed to get workers to swallow wages, benefits and hiring concessions that while not being quite as severe in the end as slashing everyone’s wage down to the legal minimum ($6.55us), will be enacted with help from the union, which will support the concessions. If the governator’s gambit works, this could be a pattern by which state governments increasingly force concessions out of their workforce with the aid of the unions who will act as if the contracts they sign are great victories that have spared their workers the worst of the planned austerity measures.

Pantaloons