Legal Question in Employment Law in California

Re: Legality of University salary reductions

Legal answer:

Nice try. While you may, or may not, be able to find some technical basis to make your claim, such lawsuits and litigation costs would further aggravate your bureaucracy's negative cash flow problems, if not for you, then for others. I suspect that the state's numerous in-house legal eagles reviewed these proposals and cuts, and feel confident in defending them. You would probably spend more in attorney fees that you'll lose in pay cuts. The math is not in your favor unless you are certain of winning and getting your fees paid [from department budgets remember].

Pragmatic answer:

Your focus should more properly be on worrying how you'll survive further substantial pay cuts or where you'll find work after rounds of firings as the state finally confronts the reality of its need to file bankruptcy and dramatically cut programs and funding, since it can't pay its bills, and can't print money. I've read that tax revenue is down something like 1/3 and continuing to decline.