Sacrifice Is Not For Everyone

For months now, media outlets have been reporting that some companies faced with huge layoffs have asked workers if they would cut their hours so that fellow workers could still get a paycheck. Most said they would do so.

Gannett, the huge media company, recently told 31,000 employees at 85 daily newspapers and 23 broadcast properties to take a week off without pay. MediaNews Group, a newspaper chain in California, is telling its workers to take an unpaid one week furlough as a possible alternative to layoffs.

Even City Hall workers in San Francisco have volunteered to take pay cuts to keep their fellow workers from the unemployment line. That may not be so surprising, since virtually no job in any industry is immune from layoffs in this the worst recession since the Great Depression.

What is surprising is the response from California’s state workers to Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger request they take 2 unpaid days off a month, the equivalent of a 10 percent pay cut. That furlough could save the cash-starved state $1.4 billion. Unions sued but lost, as a judge sided with the Governor, citing extraordinary emergency conditions. The Unions plan to appeal.

Apparently these state employees, some of the highest paid in the nation, forget that they work for us, the taxpayers. And given the power of government unions, they stand a much greater chance of keeping their jobs that do those who work in the private sector. Trying to fire a government worker for cause is a lot harder than it is in the private sector.

Typical of their attitude is a quote I heard on radio from one state worker who said, “It’s the Governor’s fault. He is taking food from my table”. I don’t know what the weather is like on the planet she lives on, but back here on earth it was corporate and consumer greed, along with little government oversight, that caused this recession. The California governor is simply the messenger, trying to save the state from financial collapse.

It’s time we all suck it up, learn from our mistakes and move on. We will all survive and thrive if we work together, rather than react purely in self-interest. After all, it was narrow self-interest that helped create this financial mess.

(Brian Banmiller is a national Business Correspondent for CBS News Radio, free lance writer and public speaker. The former television business news anchor in San Francisco can be reached at brian@banmilleronbusiness.com .)