The Downsized » california

Short – City of Vallejo looking at more cuts

The Downsized Staff — Mon, 22 Jun 2009 21:11:41 +0000

To quell a budget shortfall of $18 million dollars in the upcoming year, in addition to a variety of cuts being considered across the board the likelihood of a reduction in force action becomes greater. While not set in stone, hearings on the upcoming fiscal year budget in addition to several workshops will probably lead to 20-30 positions being eliminated.

Why is this important? So far, Vallejo is the largest city in the state of California to file for bankruptcy protection (2008).

Stay Tuned.

Los Angeles Unified School District Approves Layoffs – 9000 Affected

Sun Microsystems to layoff workers

The Downsized Staff — Wed, 01 Apr 2009 16:46:29 +0000

Looks like the tech sector is taking another hit. Sun Microsystems has announced a further reduction of 1,500 workers from it’s payroll worldwide. This represents an 18% reduction in staff.

This reduction in force is in addition to some 1,300 employees laid off earlier this year. Whether they are acquired or merged with IBM doesn’t change the fact that the total layoffs for Sun during this economic downturn is now between five and six thousand.

Sun Microsystems manufactures computer hardware, and software such as java, and mysql.

UPDATE
Sun was acquired by Oracle on 4/20/2009

Tracking the Cisco News for Layoffs

The Downsized Staff — Mon, 16 Mar 2009 21:08:59 +0000

Cisco, a tech company based in San Jose California, completed a wave of layoffs at the end of February 2009 totaling approximately 2000 of the 65,000 employees worldwide, 250 of which were at the headquarters. This follows an early layoff in October of 2008 wherein a little over 100 people were let go at a US facility in hopes that no further layoffs would be needed.

Common big business vernacular for a realignment of resources was invoke by the CEO John Chambers during the 2008 cuts and was also cited by the company in the February 2009 layoff. As companies continue to operate during this period of depressed economic times they must seek creative solutions which maintain a well trained workforce, hone their ranks to those workers and groups who perform their tasks most efficiently, and balance fear within the company with a responsibility to their shareholders for performance within the black. We at the downsized do not envy their position and hope that this dim period in our history will soon be over and that we will be able to reemerge better, leaner, and more innovative as the world’s economy becomes more competitive and hopefully more diverse.

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Los Angeles Unified School District Approves Layoffs – 9000 Affected

The Downsized Staff — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 21:50:44 +0000

In a move that should be unthinkable in an increasingly competitive global economy that is only going to get tighter, the Los Angeles Board of eduction is considering releasing teachers and staff to combat dire fiscal crisis affecting the state and the nation as a whole. The decision to layoff roughly 2000 elementary school teachers, 3500 nontenured teachers, and 3500 district and classroom support staffed will be made in the face of enormous protest by the teacher’s union. The district with an operating budget of $19.9 billion dollars (2008) is expected to see a budget shortfall of $700 million dollars over the next year and half with the possibility of that amount growing to an eventually higher number by the time the period is over. While the decision to release personnel will have to be made in June, the potentially affected staff were issued notices that their jobs would be on the chopping block.

The Los Angeles School District is the second largest school district in the nation (only New York is larger). Over the last decade enrollment has increased and declined with an annual enrollment of close to or exceeding 700,000 students. The district includes schools in the cities of Bell, Cudahy, Florence, Gardena, Huntington Park, Lomita, Los Angeles, Marina del Rey, Maywood, San Fernando, Southgate, Topanga, Universal City, Vernon, View Park, Walnut Park, West Athens, Westmont, West Hollywood, and portions of Carson, Commerce, East LA, Hawthorne, Inglewood, Monterey Park, Rancho Palos Verdes, West Compton, and Willowbrook (2).

The district contains 878 K-12 schools (as of the 2007/2008 school year) and employs over 83,000 people, over 45,000 of whom are regular teachers. Teachers within the district are represented by the United Teachers Los Angeles (UTLA) union. Per the union, notices for a reduction in force need to be delivered to permanent teachers by 3.15.2009, though nonpermanent teachers would only get 14 days notice. Final notices for layoffs would be delivered the the Los Angeles Unified School District (LAUSD) by May 15th for permanent teachers, if they are to be delivered at all.

UTLA members who have received a reduction in force (RIF) notice should see the union website and download an RIF packet.The packet includes the following:

RIF FAQs (for Permanent Employees) (for Non-Permanent Employees)
RIF Basics
RIF Fact Sheet
COBRA Assistance Subsidy Program
Samples of RIF notices (for Permanent Employees) (for Non-Permanent Employees)
Displacement Guide
RIF Parent Flyer
RIF Parent Flyer (Spanish)

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