Unions face furlough ultimatum - News

I know, I know, there's always someone in Hawaii crying for a handout and free ride. Natives, 'Residentally Challenged', Government Employees. If the autoworkers can lay off their lug nuts, we can certainly furlough the State's. They have had a free ride with a choke hold on our Legislature for too long. Taking money from the City and County is theft, plain and simple. Find me one business that is raising prices instead of cutting back expenses, especially labor. You can't hide no mo.

BukTooFgatoR wrote:

.... Find me one business that is raising prices instead of cutting back expenses, especially labor.....

you asked

cost of medical care is constantly on the rise
electric power and cable tv seems to always go up
private school education prices are always rising
and even getting a hair cut has gotten cheaper

haven't seen any of these guys cut back on labor expense

choo choo choo choo choo

can we afford it, can we maintain it

choo choo choo choo choo

Sure need 37.5 extra days of vacation /year. Hope I'm not expected to still complete as much work as 2 people like I am now.
I don't know about other departments, but mine has suffered 2 rounds of 7% cuts (2004 and 2005) and is currently standing at 11% vacancy. Theoretically, we still provide the same services, but it sure does show in timeliness of completions and the amount of time it takes to even get started on something.
It's high time the government looked at reducing non-essential government functions. When a business cuts back, it may reduce its hours or shut down a factory or outlet. It doesn't attempt to do the same thing in the same manner with 25% or higher fewer positions that were abolished in a random manner (just happened to be vacant.)
The courts are already backlogged. Will 37 additional days of closure each year alleviate that backlog? Our jails are stuffed to the bursting point and the guards already receive overtime. Will 37 additional days off reduce that overtime? The potholes in our highways and broken streetlights take months and months to be repaired. Will 37 additional days off reduce that backlog?
Something needs to be cut. Just reducing existing services of each department isn't going to make it happen. Stealing monies from the counties isn't going to make it happen. Reducing benefits to existing State workers will just make it harder to recruit new workers (already hard to get certain trades/professions), not to mention those that have side jobs that might feel they no longer need to work for the State due to the reductions.
It's time to get real. Examine each department's mission. If it doesn't benefit "all" of the citizens, cut it or reduce it. Those departments that provide critical services that affect everyone, hire consultants to examine work processes and streamline their functions. Reduce/restructure workforce as recommended.

37.5 days are almost two months of a public school's calendar. Is the administration proposing a four month "summer" vacation for all public schools?? It doesn't make sense to hire a sub if a classrom teacher is furloughed.

Just lay them off so we in the public sector can have some since of justice served. Unions, one of the reasons were in this financial mess. HGEA the leech of our taxes.

Bring back the soup kitchens of the 50's. I heard that they did pretty well. Young couples of those days went on dates to these "dollar a bowl" places.

choochoo wrote:

choo choo choo choo choo
can we afford it, can we maintain it
choo choo choo choo choo

Some of us prefer gridlocks from downtown Queen street all the way to Aiea.

37.5 days of furloughs would throw the University of Hawaii in shambles. How would professors be able to teach classes, do research, advise students? How would we train the people that this state needs (like doctors, of which there is a shortage)? The Governor wants to put our student's future and the future of the state in jeopardy. The University of Hawaii is a money making machine for the state that has a huge economic impact and improves our standard of living (see http://www.starbulletin.com/news/20090313_UH-... ). If the Governor cuts that machine by more than 10%, all of the state of Hawaii will eventually suffer.

Solution. Let's goad and dare government workers, teachers and university professors to strike and see if we miss them.

one for all and all for one except when you're in a union... lay off the guys on the bottom of the list. let's see what HGEA does when the fur starts to fly.

on the other side of the coin, maybe the U.S. needs to follow the lead of the European nations. 37.5 days is nothing compared to their six week vacation per year. rather than killing ourselves on this non-stop rat race, maybe we should slow things down and work on improving productivity through improving our quality of life?

both unions and government need to sit down during this downturn and make some serious and hard decisions. if they don't do it now, it will only get worst. i only hope the feds can get health care under control... that would be a great start!

mush wrote:

Bring back the soup kitchens of the 50's. I heard that they did pretty well. Young couples of those days went on dates to these "dollar a bowl" places.

... come to california, the kids are already doing this... maybe not to extent of dating but volunteering at shelters and making it a "social event".

to dam many State and City workers, lay them off or fire some

I haven't heard of any other state forcing their employees to accept anything close to a 37.5 day furlough.

I think something else is going on with Lingle's ultimatum. I think she's placing politics over solving the budget problem. I'm not a big fan of an all-powerful union, but I'm also skeptical of anything that comes out of a Republican's mouth.

I agree with gerrrg - 37.5 days is severe - not only will this disrupt govt functions but those families will have far less income - so their spending drops so economy suffers - so more people get laid off - so more people have less to spend....and down and down we go....

okden wrote:

<quoted text>
you asked
cost of medical care is constantly on the rise
electric power and cable tv seems to always go up
private school education prices are always rising
and even getting a hair cut has gotten cheaper
haven't seen any of these guys cut back on labor expense

That's because most of your examples are entities that are run/controlled by the state, or are monopolistic in nature.

good time to see if anyone notices any difference in state performance before and after the furlough takes effect.

gerrrg wrote:

I haven't heard of any other state forcing their employees to accept anything close to a 37.5 day furlough.
I think something else is going on with Lingle's ultimatum. I think she's placing politics over solving the budget problem. I'm not a big fan of an all-powerful union, but I'm also skeptical of anything that comes out of a Republican's mouth.

There aren't any other states that have been controlled by the stranglehold of the democratic party and corrupt unions for the past 4 decades. the state economy is in a shambles as a result, and the best you can come up with is: its the Republicans fault?

""This will transfer the tax from the visitors to the local residents," Apo warned".

Hey Todd, take another look at the budget. You guys put $900 million in there for rail. You're not supposed to be funding rail from property taxes. It's to be funded through the 1/2% GEUT increase you rammed up our butts.
Take the $900 million designated for rail out of the budget and walla, you have a surplus.

Typical Lingle: Don't think, just react. Instead of looking for what needs to be cut, she cuts everyone across the board. If that's the right thing to do, then it must be that all workers are doing 37.5 days of work that don't need to be done. Why wasn't she looking at that six years ago when she first came into office? No, better to wait until the last minute and then start chopping like a surgeon with a meat axe instead of a scalpel.