Maryland Workers Blast Cuts to Education, Health and Retirement
|
|
Some 15,000 Maryland teachers, government workers and other public employees rallied and marched in Annapolis last night to protect public school funding and workers’ health and retirement security. Bills before the state legislature call for big cutbacks in all three.
Before marching to the State House, AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka told the crowd that rallied at Navy-Marine Corps Stadium:
We keep hearing from politicians that they’ve got to cut, cut, and cut. I want to ask you something, where did they ever get the nonsensical idea that you can cut our way out of the hole they put us in?
Destroying economic security and our fragile economic recovery is bad policy and is just plain wrong. Scapegoating teachers and other public workers is bad policy and it is flat ass wrong. Jeopardizing our children and America’s future by hacking up public education is bad policy and it is just wrong and it won’t go on in the state of Maryland.
Here’s more on the rally from Union City’s Chris Garlock:
Terry Jefferson, a 20-year special education teacher and member of AFSCME Maryland, which spearheaded the event with the Maryland State Education Association, said, “The way things are going; I don’t even know what my future looks like.”
Solidarity in Action: Check Out This New Video
|
|
Check out this great video from our team here that pulls together some of the many moments of people power in Wisconsin, Ohio and other states where governors and state legislatures are trying to take away the right of public employees to bargain for good middle-class jobs. It gives a glimpse of the huge outpouring of nationwide support and solidarity for workers under siege by lawmakers who are bought and paid for by billionaire CEOs like the Koch brothers.
As Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley says in the clip:
When you try to make unions the problem rather than the politically difficult decisions that we have to make as a people, then you’re not being very forthright and honest with the citizenry you’re representing.
‘No Room for Anti-Worker Effort in Maryland’
|
|
Working people from across Maryland rallied yesterday at the state capital in Annapolis to show solidarity with public employees in Wisconsin who are fighting a plan to deprive workers of the freedom to bargain for a decent living. The rally was organized by the Maryland State and District of Columbia AFL-CIO.
Maryland Lt. Gov. Anthony Brown (D) told the crowd of several hundred that there is “no room, place or welcome mat” out in Maryland for the wave of anti-worker sentiment trying to take hold across the nation.
State Sen. Jim Rosapepe (D) compared the Wisconsin public servants’ fight to the push for democracy in Egypt, Bahrain and other Middle East countries. Leading the crowd in a chant of “Workers’ rights are human rights, ” Rosapepe said:
People around the world are watching crowds of ordinary citizens in the Middle East. And crowds around the world are watching crowds of ordinary citizens in Madison, Wisconsin. What do they have in common? They are people struggling for universal human rights.
AFSCME Members Rally to Save Public Services
 |
||||
|
||||
While state and local governments and school districts across the country struggle with budget deficits, AFSCME members are standing up to tell their elected representatives that raising revenues is the best solution to a budget crisis instead of cutting critical public services just when they are needed the most.
State and local governments and school districts have a $178 billion budget shortfall this year alone.
In Illinois, more than 3,000 activists, including hundreds of members of AFSCME Council 31, rallied at the state Capitol rotunda in Springfield this month to demand that lawmakers pass legislation to increase the individual income tax rate and expand the state’s sales tax base.
Pilots Soar with New Spirit Air Settlement, and More Bargaining News
Spirit Airlines agreed to stop shortchanging the number of days off pilots receive—and more updates here from the “Bargaining Digest Weekly.” The AFL-CIO Collective Bargaining Department delivers daily, bargaining-related news and research resources to more than 900 subscribers. Union leaders can register for this service through our website, Bargaining@Work.
NEGOTIATIONS
ALPA, Spirit Airlines: Spirit pilots, represented by the Air Line Pilots (ALPA), celebrated a much anticipated System Board of Adjustment decision, which orders Spirit management to cease shortchanging the number of days off that pilots receive after a scheduled sequence of trips. Under the collective bargaining agreement, pilots are entitled to receive up to five days off after the conclusion of a sequence of trips with no intervening days off.
Newspaper Workers Hold the Line on Layoffs, and More Bargaining News
Hold the press—much needed good news at a daily paper, the Long Beach Press-Telegram, and more updates here from the “Bargaining Digest Weekly.” The AFL-CIO Collective Bargaining Department delivers daily, bargaining-related news and research resources to more than 900 subscribers. Union leaders can register for this service through our website, Bargaining@Work.
SETTLEMENTS
TNG-CWA, Long Beach Press-Telegram: In California, newsroom and circulation workers at the Long Beach Press-Telegram, represented by The Newspaper Guild (TNG-CWA) Local 9400, reached a pact on a 30-month contract that offers layoff protection for a year and boosts pay by 2 percent after two years of bargaining.
