San Francisco Ready to Cut 500 City Workers

San Francisco, which is facing a $483 million budget deficit, is poised to eliminate 500 city jobs under a tentative deal reached between Mayor Gavin Newsom and union leaders.

The deal calls for far fewer layoffs than the 1,500 city officials had been considering, notes the San Francisco Chronicle. The deal is for two years and, in addition to the layoffs, calls for a shutdown of “nonessential” city services during the week before Christmas and New Year’s Day.

When announcing the deal, Newsom praised the unions for their role.

“Once again, our public employee unions are stepping up to be part of the solution toward closing next year’s budget deficit,” Newsom said in announcing the deal.

The director of the local Professional & Technical Engineers office noted the deal will save more than 1,000 jobs city.

“That whole principle is called shared sacrifice,” said Bob Muscat, director of Professional & Technical Engineers, Local 21, and a key negotiator on the deal. “We think that should apply to all the unions that are not party to this agreement.”

The agreement calls for up to 500 workers out of a full-time force of  26,000 employees to be let go by June 30.

The deal would reportedly close the next fiscal year’s deficit by almost 10 percent. But, as a spokesman for the mayor’s office noted, “that’s an important 10 percent.”