The California State University furlough proposal, which requires a uniform amount of unpaid days off for all faculty, staff and administrators, was written to affect every employee salary equally.

"In bargaining with the various unions, the equivalent of a two-day per month furlough for all employees appeared to be the preference," CSU spokesman Erik Fallis said.

However, this was not the approach taken by the University of California in assigning furloughs, and some feel that the CSU's approach was less fair than it seemed on the surface.

According to California State University Chancellor Charles Reed, 85 percent of the CSU's budget is used to pay employee salaries and benefits.

"So that's where we had to go to get the savings," Reed said.
According to the CSU furlough program agreement ratified by the board of trustees July 29, all employees of the CSU will take either 20 or 24 furlough days this school year, 24 for those working full calendar years, adding up to a 9.5-10 percent pay cut over the course of the year. Every employee is subject to this percentage, regardless of salary.

This will cut an equal percentage from lower-income employees' paychecks as it will from someone like University President Robert Corrigan. The Chronicle of Higher Education sets the median salary for presidents of public four-year institutions at $427,000. Compare this figure to that of a custodial employee, for instance.

Associate Vice President of Facilities and Services Robert Hutson said employee salaries are confidential, but according to salary.com, the median expected salary for a janitor in the United States is $24,341.

By taking the standard 10 percent cut Corrigan will be losing more from his salary this year than a custodial employee might make altogether, he considers this system unfair to low-income employees.

He added that someone supporting a household on $28,000 might experience more than an inconvenience in losing 10 percent of their salary.

"I'm very uncomfortable with furloughs," Corrigan said. "Furloughs are like the sales tax. They're very regressive. And unlike the University of California, we do not differentiate between income levels."

Corrigan said this aspect of the furlough program needs to be reconsidered, and he expressed sympathy for those in financial situations that won't allow them to absorb this reduction easily.

"That's food money. That's rent money," Corrigan said. "If we're going to look at furloughs we at least ought to try to discriminate more in terms of ability to pay."

Humanities department chair Saul Steier said that the SF State custodial employees do good work for salaries unacceptable to academic employees, and don't deserve as deep a cut.

"Cutting 10 percent of my salary is lousy, but I will get by. Cutting 10 percent of theirs puts them dangerously close to not being able to pay rent and feed their families," Steier said.

UC President Mark Yudof originally wrote the UC furlough proposal with equal cuts, but after hearing input from the community in the form of tens of thousands of e-mails, adopted a graduated approach using a sliding scale to assign fewer furlough days to lower-salaried employees, according to Peter King, director of media relations for the UC office of the president.

The guidelines state that employees who make up to $40,000 a year are only required to take 11 furlough days, amounting to a four percent pay cut.

Employees earning between $40,001 and $60,000 will receive a five to six percent cut, and so on.

"Those who make the most should feel the most pain," King said. "And those who make less should feel less."

Had it been written into the CSU's furlough proposal, this would apply to many low-income CSU employees who instead will be forced to give up a portion of their salary equal to employees who make upwards of $100,000.

"CSU should be ashamed of itself for pretending equal cuts were fairer," Steier said.
According to Fallis, the system of equal cuts was agreed upon by the CSU and the nine unions representing their employees.

"Ultimately, the CSU process of collective bargaining arrived at a different outcome," Fallis said.