This from Service Employees International Union Local 1000:
Local 1000 has filed a lawsuit asking the court to exempt Local 1000 SCIF members from the governor's furlough order.
Local 1000 President Yvonne Walker demanded, in a letter to SCIF President Janet Frank, that SCIF apply the judge's ruling to all SCIF employees. Walker wrote: "There is no rational basis on which State Fund can claim that the provisions of the California Insurance Code, which the court found prohibited 'staff cutbacks' or furloughs, applies to some employees of State Fund, but not others."
Local 1000 had hoped to piggyback on San Francisco Superior Court Judge Peter Busch's ruling that Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger illegally furloughed the 500 State Fund members of the state legal professionals union.
CASE attorney Patrick Whalen told us this week that even though Local 1000 wasn't a party in the State Fund furlough case, CASE submitted language for the judge to consider for his final judgment that was broad enough to include all the fund's employees. Busch rewrote that section of the judgment before issuing it earlier this month.
Without that inclusive language, it was clear that Local 1000 would have to go to court to get a CASE-type exemption, despite the letter from Walker to Frank that threatened legal action unless the fund unilaterally applied the court ruling to SEIU workers.
You can read the Local 1000 newsletter post about the lawsuit by clicking here. And you can view the union's petition by clicking this link.
The Author
About Comments
Reader comments on Sacbee.com are the opinions of the writer, not The Sacramento Bee. If you see an objectionable comment, click the "report abuse" button below it. We will delete comments containing inappropriate links, obscenities, hate speech, and personal attacks. Flagrant or repeat violators will be banned. See more about comments here.