My employer is laying off 130 people (several of my friends got axed by OS)

[Omaha Steve]

My job is safe. Several friends will be without a job over the next month. Our contract expired last December. My local votes on the revised contract offered by the city last week, on the 19th. IF we turn it down, it could be the end of our union. I'll fill in the info on the 20th.

OS

http://www.omaha.com/article/20090807/NEWS01/708079839

Suttle chops choppers, jobs

By Robynn Tysver
WORLD-HERALD STAFF WRITER
« Metro/Region

Omaha's eyes in the sky — its police helicopters — will be grounded this year.

The city's next police recruiting class will be postponed.

And 130 civilian employees will lose their jobs in September, as the city struggles to keep its budget in the black amid a financial crisis underscored by dropping sales tax revenue.

Mayor Jim Suttle announced the reductions today and warned that more “drastic cuts” are coming if the City Council does not find new sources of revenue.

He again urged the council to embrace his proposed entertainment tax and a property tax hike. So far, a majority of council members have given the tax hikes the cold shoulder.

Suttle said it was time to “face the music.”

“We still have too many people in denial that money grows on trees. It doesn't,” he said.

The budget cuts come as Suttle and the council struggle to make up for a $12 million shortfall in this year's budget, while trying to rewrite the 2010 budget amid gloomy revenue projections.

The cuts announced today are not the end.

FULL story at link.