Wants workweek or jobs cut
With a $4 million deficit, Walker plans to either layoff 400 workers or cut the workweek to 35 hours for all county employees. Labor leaders promise a court fight if Walker makes a unilateral decision:
Why should it only be county employees who take a hit? We don’t think that’s the only choice the exec has. . . . The county could ask its hundreds of private vendors to take a cut, or seek workers interested in taking voluntary furloughs.
Walker tells the unions that if they do not agree to the cut in the workweek, he will be forced to layoff people:
We feel we have a strong legal case for imposing a 35-hour workweek. The approach shares the pain across county government and minimizes the impact on the public, which will see little service reduction because workers in many cases could simply shave an hour a day off their schedules. Management has the ability to reduce workers’ hours to 35 hours a week without union approval during a budget crises.