Adios 37.5-Hour San Francisco Work Week, Hola 12 Furlough Days

​Mayor Gavin Newsom today announced a tentative deal with the city's public employee unions that would kill his controversial plan to lay off some 17,000 city workers and rehire them at 37.5-hour work weeks. (No news yet on whether Las Vegas Mayor Oscar Goodman, who read about Newsom's plan in the paper and pushed for it in Sin City, will drop the notion, too. Apparently, what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas).

The tentative, two-year deal, which requires unions' approval of course, calls for a dozen furlough days instead of workers leaving half an hour earlier every day. This is seen as far more desirable -- and for just the reasons you'd expect.

"You get the full day off," Gus Vallejo, the IT workers' chapter president for Local 21 told SF Weekly earlier this month. "If you have to take off the time, you may as well take the time in one big chunk. And our membership is open to that; we've gotten feedback from them."

Back around St. Patrick's Day, Vallejo figured it might take at least "10 to 13" furlough days to start making a dent of the sort the mayor wanted to make. Pretty good calculation there, Gus. 

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