Furlough or Free Work?

We're going to be dealing with the furlough issue next year as my wife's employer has ordered a 10% reduction in work days to meet falling budgets. The NY Times has an article on how furloughs have hit other California employees:

Wendy Roberson, a state employee in California, founded the Fun Furlough Fridays Club partly as a joke, but also because she honestly believed that she would be having long-weekend-type fun on her forced time off.

Not quite. The Fun Furlough Fridays Club? It never met. Instead, Ms. Roberson has found herself working as hard as ever on most Fridays, and every other day of the week. Further, she has come to resent the very idea of a furlough more and more with each paycheck, every one 10 percent less than it used to be, as mandated by California’s budget cutters.

And she has taken off only about half of the time to which she is entitled.

“Sometimes it’s just too busy at work,” said Ms. Roberson, whose pay was cut in February as part of the state’s effort to close a multibillion-dollar budget deficit. “You start to feel guilty.”

In California and elsewhere, people have put their imaginations to work trying to make the best of furloughs — temporary, usually unpaid, leave — ever appreciative that they are a far better alternative than layoffs.

But for many, the plans to turn the unpaid days into modest holidays spent appreciating the simple things in life like afternoon movies, walks in the park, naps or trips to see Grandma have given way to a different reality.

Some people take the time off but feel bad about doing so, out of loyalty to bosses and colleagues left to carry the workload. Others work quietly — and sometimes openly — through furloughs, because they fear for the long-term safety of their positions and hope their self-sacrifice impresses the management.

And some say the message from the management is unclear, leaving employees wondering: Is this real time off?

“I think it’s a joke,” said Roland Becht, who works at the California Department of Motor Vehicles in San Diego. (More than 200,000 state employees are supposed to have two furlough days each month.) “I’ve tried to schedule furlough time and was denied because we’re short-staffed.”

American workers are finding themselves at a new frontier, and the rules are being written on the fly. Some companies have strict policies forbidding work during furloughs, or close down for days at a time. Others simply tell workers, however unrealistically, to squeeze in furlough time when they can.

“In terms of what employers are doing, it’s all over the map,” said Alison Hightower, a lawyer in San Francisco who specializes in employment and labor disputes. “Employers have to think about it ahead of time and clearly tell the employees what they can and cannot do.”

Trying to cope with budget shortfalls and huge amounts of red ink, governments and companies across the country are turning to furloughs as a cost-saving measure that allows them to retain their employees. Furloughs are being instituted this year at law firms, city halls, states, media companies and myriad other businesses.

Robert Bruno, a professor of labor relations at the University of Illinois, Chicago, said the furlough experience could be traumatic.

“A furlough is a dangerous and risky bet because it severs the relationship between an employee and their compensation,” Dr. Bruno said. “A worker’s emotional reaction to a furlough takes control of rational thought.”

“It begins to look punitive, intentional or not,” he said.

Yep. It certainly hasn't done anything for employee morale.

I can't speak for others, but if I was in that situation and they were cutting my paycheck 10%, I'm taking the furlough days and I don't care how busy the office is.