Irate workers rally against shutdown

07/07/2005

Pat Doyle and Conrad Defiebre,
Star Tribune
July 7, 2005

Blaming Republicans and Democrats for a partial government shutdown that has idled thousands of state employees, hundreds of frustrated union workers and their supporters rallied in the State Capitol rotunda Wednesday to demand passage of a stopgap spending bill that would bring them back to work.

“To Governor, House and Senate, this is your layoff notice,” read a sign held by one of the demonstrators. “Shame on you, Governor and legislators,” read another.

Union members reproached state leaders for drawing pay during the shutdown while nearly 9,000 state employees whose jobs were deemed noncritical were put out of work.

“We’re all critical,” they chanted.

Cal Ludeman, commissioner of employee relations, said all the employees are valued. But he added that the shutdown, coming after a two-year pay freeze, is damaging their morale and making it hard for the state to retain qualified employees.

If the shutdown persists until July 15, Ludeman said, the state faces $211 million in severance costs, including accrued vacation and sick pay plus ongoing health and unemployment insurance payouts. About $100 million of that, for unemployment benefits, is not budgeted, Ludeman said. The other severance costs are owed to employees, he added, but normally wouldn’t be paid out as quickly.

Of the workers on furlough, 1,150 already have exhausted their vacation time and will come up short on their next paychecks, Ludeman said. Another 2,000 will run out of vacation time by July 15, he said.

A few dozen more employees may be called back to work within days as special needs arise, Ludeman said. They could include workers to process overweight and oversize road-hauling permits, driver’s license reinstatements and school district levy certifications, he said.

A court order called back a handful of Health Department laboratory workers to handle a busy weekend investigating suspected outbreaks of food-borne salmonella, Legionnaires’ disease and West Nile virus, Ludeman said.

Meanwhile Wednesday, union demonstrators signed billboard petitions demanding stopgap funding under the budget terms that expired June 30. They marched the petitions to the offices of Gov. Tim Pawlenty and legislative leaders.

The DFL-controlled Senate has passed a bill to continue funding at previous budget levels while legislative leaders and the governor tried to work out a deal, but the Republican-controlled House has not. The governor’s chief of staff, Dan McElroy, told the demonstrators Wednesday that Pawlenty wants to continue funding at previous levels, but first wants “at least the outline of an agreement.”

The demonstrators included Gail DeGrood, 41, of Faribault, and Tammy Schwichtenberg, 56, of Morristown, who worked at the Minnesota Library for the Blind and Physically Handicapped in Faribault before it was shut down by the budget impasse. It usually mails up to 1,500 Braille and large-type books and cassette tapes a day to the visually impaired.

“We feel sorry for our patrons,” DeGrood said after the rally. “They’ve told us the service is so important to them.”