California furloughs of workers comp attorneys ruled ‘illegal’
He may not be a terminator in real life, but that Gov. Shwarzenegger is a rip-snorter for putting state workers on furlough–so much so that now there’s seven separate lawsuits challenging the legality of the tactic, which the San Francisco Chronicle reports has affected nearly a quarter-million state employees.
Wow, if the Chronicle is correct (apparently they’re rounding up numbers, to 238,000), then all state employees are affected: according to the California State Controller’s Web site, the State Employee Demographics page shows a total of 237,731 employees, including part-time, intermittent and indeterminate workers.
Schwarzenegger says the furloughs are a cost-cutting measure for state coffers that have been ravaged by the Great Recession. Unemployment reached a record level in January, and California is one of five states sharing $1.5 billion in aid, for the areas hardest hit by foreclosures.
Whatever the total count turns out to be, the furloughs certainly involve several thousand employees of a state workers comp fund, a quasi-public agency that has one set of rules for line workers and another for execs.
Furloughs of 7,400 already ruled on, last year
We first mentioned the furloughs back in September, when a superior court ruled “that Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger illegally furloughed 7,400 employees of the State Compensation Insurance Fund this year. . . .”
The governor’s actions have been upheld in some courts, but according to a March 20 San Francisco Chronicle piece, “An Alameda County judge ruled in December that Schwarzenegger illegally furloughed more than 50,000 employees in 68 agencies, [although] other judges have upheld the governor’s actions.”
But on Friday, Schwarzenegger took another hit when a three-judge appellate panel ruled that he “had no right to furlough about 475 lawyers who work for the State Compensation Insurance Fund.
“The Court of Appeal said the attorneys are protected by a provision of state insurance law that makes fund employees ‘exempt from any hiring freezes and staff cutbacks otherwise required by law,’ according to the Silicon Valley Mercury News.
The Chronicle had this: “The ruling by the First District Court of Appeal in San Francisco applies to about 500 attorneys and hearing officers who work for the State Compensation Insurance Fund. It is likely to affect a separate case, pending before another division of the court, that involves more than 7,000 clerical workers, support staff and other employees of the insurance fund.
“Other laws apply to most of the 238,000 state employees the governor furloughed for two days a month from February through June 2009, and for three days a month since then.”
Governor asks Supreme Court to intercede
A very interesting aspect of the seven suits is that Schwarzenegger has requested intervention from the state supreme court, which the Sacramento Bee earlier this month described as move that stunned labor unions: “Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger’s request Tuesday for the California Supreme Court to take over seven key furlough lawsuits caught state employee unions off guard.
“Schwarzenegger wants to legally leapfrog two appellate courts now considering those cases and go straight to the state’s highest legal authority, sort of like skipping the playoffs and going straight to the Super Bowl.”
And, of course, the sheer size of the numbers grabs your attention–this from the Chronicle’s account: “At stake is more than $1 billion in back pay, plus interest, that the state would owe the workers if they won their cases.”
But here’s what really interesting, again (with our emphasis added) from the Chronicle:
“The governor’s Supreme Court request did not include suits by employees of the insurance fund, which is authorized by state law to make its own staffing decisions. Schwarzenegger’s press secretary, Aaron McLear, was noncommittal about an appeal of Friday’s ruling, saying only that the administration was reviewing its options.
“Patrick Whelan, lawyer for the union representing the insurance fund attorneys, said the ruling doesn’t apply directly to most furloughed state employees but is still encouraging.
” ‘It shows the governor’s authority is not as broad as he believes,’ he said.
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Whether you’re an injured employee or an aggrieved employer, if you’re facing legal problems regarding workplace injuries, be sure to seek counsel with attorneys trained and experienced in workers’ compensation. Here’s some resources:
