Maryland AFSCME Members: ‘Enough is Enough!’
March 17, 2011
ENOUGH IS ENOUGH! – AFSCME Maryland members by the thousands rallied March 14 at the Statehouse to preserve public services and to prevent cuts in pension and health care benefits.
Photo Credit: Luis Gomez
Annapolis, Md. – Thousands of AFSCME Maryland members and supporters converged outside the State House last evening to urge lawmakers to avoid drastic cuts to education, juvenile services, libraries and other crucial programs, and to live up to their promises for retirement and health benefits.
Jeannette Taylor, a parole and probation officer in Baltimore and a member of AFSCME Maryland, addressed the crowd, saying she never thought public service workers “would be the ones blamed for the errors of Wall Street, while those who can afford to pay more – like millionaires and multi-national corporations – continue to get huge tax breaks from our elected officials. Enough is enough!”
The public service workers directed their outrage at Gov. Martin O’Malley’s (D) plan to cut $1 billion from the fiscal 2012 budget, including $264 million cut in state Medicaid payments to hospitals, $104 million sliced from the state employee retirement system and $52 million axed from aid for local governments.
Instead of such Draconian cuts, AFSCME Maryland is urging lawmakers to maintain the so-called millionaires’ tax; close corporate tax loopholes and stop wasting the public’s money on expensive outside private contractors.
Outsourced services “could be performed by qualified, experienced state workers,” contends AFSCME Maryland Dir. Patrick Moran. He notes that more than 3,500 state employee positions have been cut during the past three years – a period in which contract spending increased by 30 percent. “We’ve already sacrificed along with other Maryland taxpayers,” Moran adds. “We pay all the same taxes but we have sacrificed through no pay raises, short staffing and furloughs.”
In addition to preventing service cuts, demonstrators demanded that lawmakers protect their retirement security and health care benefits. A state commission has proposed requiring state workers to pay 3 percent more to keep the same pension benefits. It also would double – to 10 years – the time required to become vested in their retirement program. Cost-of-living adjustments also would be eliminated.
“I kept my promise to the state and people of Maryland and now I’m worried what would happen to me and my family if elected officials break their end of the promise,” said retired corrections maintenance officer Ernie Prince, a member of AFSCME Maryland Retiree Chapter 1. “We need to urge our elected officials, together, to keep their promises just like we’ve kept ours.”
“Like our brothers and sisters in Madison, Wis., Cleveland, Ohio, Indianapolis, and a hundred other cities, you are showing our country the best of America,” AFL-CIO Pres. Richard Trumka told the assembled activists. “If Maryland’s budget needs fixing, we’ll sit down at the table and work it out. That’s the beauty of collective bargaining. We can work it out!”
Read more about the rally in The Baltimore Sun and check out this video report.
