What Are State Workers Willing To Give Up For Job Security?

All you have to do these days is look at Google news for "state workers", "state employees", "city workers", "city budget", "county workers", or 'budget problems" to find numerous articles about the current woes of the public sector (or just click here ). There are a lot of states right now suffering because of a down economy. Most elected officials have chosen to cut programs, jobs, enforce pay cuts, and furloughs to balance their budgets.

In Florida, the State Legislation passed a 2% pay cut on any state worker that makes over $45,000 alone with cutting state worker positions. (Tallahassee.com http://www.tallahassee.com/article/20090503/BREAKINGNEWS/90503007)

California, Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger just announced that up to 5000 state workers would be fired and possibly 5 billion in education cuts. (Sacramento Bee http://www.sacbee.com/latest/story/1862279.html)

Michigan- About 38,000 state workers must take six unpaid furlough days and state departments and local governments face deep cuts under an executive order released this morning by Gov. Jennifer Granholm in an effort to slash more than $300 million. (lansingstatejournal.com http://www.lansingstatejournal.com/article/20090505/NEWS01/30505000... )

Delaware- Hundreds of state workers rally against pay cuts DelawareOnline.com http://www.delawareonline.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20090506/N... )

Wisconsin- Up to 1,100 state workers could be laid off and most state workers would be forced to take 16 days of unpaid leave under a budget-balancing plan outlined Thursday by Gov. Jim Doyle. (Postcresent http://www.postcrescent.com/article/20090508/APC0101/905080485)

North Carolina- Gov. Beverly Perdue ordered a 0.5 percent pay cut for all workers in exchange for 10 hours of unpaid leave to help close this year's $3 billion budget gap,(Forbes http://www.forbes.com/feeds/ap/2009/05/05/ap6381080.html )

New Jersey - furlough workers as part of deficit reduction plan (NJ.com http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2009/05/nj_to_furlough_workers_as_... )

Vermont - State Workers on edge (Burlington Free Press http://www.burlingtonfreepress.com/article/20090515/NEWS03/90514032... )

Is your personal job security worth having friend and colleagues fired? Would you be willing to take a pay cut to keep from having coworkers let go? Would you rather be furloughed 5 or 10 days during the next fiscal year to avoid salary cuts and layoffs? No one wants layoffs, nor do they want pay cuts or furloughs, but there are times that concessions must be made. Today?s post is not about the fairness of the imposed cuts, but which would you prefer and why?