The state’s labor department plans to lay off 11 permanent workers and offer them the chance to stay as limited term employees (LTE) without benefits.
That’s a sharp change from the past practice of laying off limited-term employees first, and union officials don’t think it’s a very good idea, to put it mildly. They contend that this is simply a way of meeting Gov. Jim Doyle’s campaign promise to cut 10,000 state employees in eight years, because permanent employees count as state workers but LTEs do not.
The union leaders also allege that the new procedure threatens the state’s civil service system.