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Mayor Orders 42 Furlough Days for City Workers
Photo by johnwilliamsphd via the LAist Featured Photos pool on Flickr
It was no deal for the labor groups who rejected a proposed contract deal with the City of Los Angeles, and as a result, yesterday Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa got down to the business of ordering 42 furlough days for various city employees, according to CBS2. The Mayor issued the order verbally during a press conference at City Hall: “I hearby direct all city general managers to immediately initiate furloughs for those employees and bargaining units who failed to ratify the agreement,” declared Villaraigosa.Employees affected include "clerical workers, deputy city attorneys, plant equipment operators as well as safety and security workers." According to a live report on KTLA, the furloughs may mean less 9-1-1 operators on duty to take emergency calls in the coming months.
Furlough days are unpaid days off; the goal of the proposed contracts approved by over a dozen other labor groups was to avoid having to put those days in place. Cutting spending on department payrolls is just one of the many ways the City is working to address a major budget deficit problem.
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