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After students across California spoke out against furlough days for University of California faculty, the UC Berkeley Labor Center published a new study on October 15th questioning the effectiveness of the furlough program. Governor Schwarzenegger’s mandated furloughs will mean a 13.9 percent pay cut for 193,000 state employees, or seven weeks’ worth of an employee’s annual salary. The study says the furlough program will only save the state $738 million—compared to the Governor’s estimate of $1.3 billion in savings—because of decreases in productivity.

The UC system has instated its own program requiring university employees to take furlough days on a graduated scale in proportion to their salaries. University of Berkeley employees will face salary reductions of 4 to 10 percent because of the furlough days. 
 
Those salary reductions are one of the reasons the UCB Labor Center cites for the ineffectiveness of the furloughs.

“When people are worried about paying the bills, it’s going to have an impact on their performance on the job,” said Ken Jacobs, the author of the Labor Center’s study.
 
According to Jacobs, UC Berkeley reduced the financial effects of the furloughs by only furloughing employees paid with UC funds.

Furloughs in California’s revenue-generating departments will result in a loss of $363 million in tax collections.

More from the Daily Californian at UC Berkeley