NYS Furlough Vote?

New York's Legislature has approved unprecedented furloughs for state workers to contend with the state's fiscal crisis.

New York legislators agreed to force 100,000 state workers to take an unpaid day off each week under an emergency spending plan that will keep the government running while lawmakers try to close a $9.2 billion budget gap.

The furloughs are meant to save $30 million a week.

Isn't this vote illegal? How can they get away with it?

It is not illegal.
Public employee unions though contended that the furloughs, which officials said would be the first for state workers in New York, would be illegal, and they said they would seek a temporary restraining order in Federal District Court in Albany to block Mr. Paterson’s plan.
Workers will lose one day of work and pay for each week the state operates on emergency spending bills.

At least 2,000 public workers jammed into the park on the Capitol’s West side, chanting various anti-Paterson slogans and blasting his plan to furlough state workers one day a week until a new state budget is adopted.

Public employee unions contended that the furloughs, which officials said would be the first for state workers in New York, would be illegal, and they said they would seek a temporary restraining order in Federal District Court in Albany to block Mr. Paterson’s plan.

Union leaders including Donohue and Public Employees Federation President Ken Brynien, defiantly vowed to fight Paterson’s plans in court. They also promised to remember in November those legislators who don’t stand with them.

At least 75 percent of U.S. states have eliminated vacant government jobs and more than half have used layoffs or furloughs to close budget gaps since the recession began in December 2007, according to a compilation by Stateline dot org, a nonprofit research group. In California, legal challenges have prevented Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger from implementing as many furloughs as he proposed.