CALIFORNIA UPDATE: The State Worker: Job cuts make unions rethink hard line.

Has California’s growing budget mess pushed public employee unions into retreat?

Take Service Employees International Union Local 1000, which represents 95,000 state workers in a wide variety of jobs. Last week local President Yvonne Walker told The State Worker, “There are going to have to be cuts. We’re going to have to raise taxes” to address the state’s cash crunch.

This was the same union leader who last month, after Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger proposed furloughs and other measures to trim the budget deficit, said, “We’ll fight back with everything that we have.”

Between Walker’s two quotes, the governor threatened to detonate the labor equivalent of a nuclear bomb: layoffs. It’s one thing a California governor can unleash without negotiating with unions or legislators.

California’s going to have to lay off some people. So are a lot of other states.