The Florida Supreme Court has ruled that changes to the public employee pension system did not violate the workers' rights. The changes require workers to contribute 3% of their salary to the pension system in order to close a budget deficit. The court ruled that the state can alter benefits for the future. Workers had fought the changes, saying that they amounted to a pay cut for employees. The changes will cover about 650,000 employees and are estimated to have saved about $1 billion in 2011.
See "Florida Worker Pension Changes Are Legal, Court Rules", Jef Feeley and Christine Jordan Sexton, Bloomberg News, January 16, 2013