All Together Now
As the budget crises deepen, councils and locals in two threatened locations — Wisconsin and Buffalo, N.Y. — are combining strategies and forces.
By Jimmie Turner
Despite an apparent upturn in the economy, the crises that afflict state, county and municipal budgets continue to spread. Faced with severe budget shortfalls, governors and lower-level officials seek to close the gaps chiefly with job cuts, furloughs or similar measures. AFSCME members are among the workers most at risk, and across the country they and their leaders are offering a variety of sensible money-saving alternatives. With lawmakers, AFSCME is pursuing a four-point approach: provide additional federal support; suspend tax cuts; reduce health care costs; and tap state and local budget reserves.
Madison, Wisconsin
As legislators here haggle over the budget, public employees have been giving them an earful from the steps of the capitol. Last March, thousands of members from Councils 24 and 40 staged rallies and told politicians to find rational solutions to the problem of balancing the state budget. Both events (Council 40’s above) received blanket media coverage.
Wisconsin lawmakers have given workers plenty of reason to protest. In January, interim Gov. Scott McCallum (R), working to clear a $1.1 billion deficit, asked the legislature to gradually eliminate the $1 billion-a-year shared-revenue program — money the state dispenses to augment local government budgets. Several cities and towns, which employ Council 40 members, rely on it for at least 50 percent of their funding.
In addition, state employees from Council 24 are feeling the pinch from the Republican-controlled state assembly, which recently acted on a budget that eliminates $118 million in funds for pay and benefit improvements in the 2002-2003 fiscal year. The plan would also reduce workers’ benefits and eliminate health insurance issues from collective bargaining.
PEOPLE’s rally
At the Council 40 protest, AFSCME members joined a coalition of other unions and pro-worker demonstrators. "We’re here to tell the governor we believe there are other ways to save money," said Pat Smith, president of Local 60. "For instance, big corporations should start paying their fair share." Council 40 officials note that Wisconsin has some of the lowest business tax rates in the country.
Several county leaders have pooled their talents and drafted a "Fiscal Fairness Plan." It would freeze current state spending, reduce shared revenue by only 5 percent and lower the sales tax rate to 3.5 percent but extend the tax itself to most services. The plan would also end a boatload of special exemptions for such businesses as legal services, health clubs and pet grooming.
"There’s got to be some fat somewhere that we can trim," says Julie Meier, a member of Local 731 from Manitowoc, where she’s a clerk typist for the local police. "We’ve got to distinguish between the needs and the wants." Her office has seen a recession-driven rise in forgeries, bounced checks and people illegally using credit cards, all of which create a bundle of paperwork for the clerks. If Meier loses her job — and she’s been notified that she could be laid off — the burden shifts to the cops themselves.
State employees from Council 24 have proposed their own cost-saving options: end the state’s 60-percent exclusion on capital gains tax; reduce or eliminate corporate tax loopholes; raise the cigarette tax by 85 cents per pack to offset selling off the tobacco settlement — which the assembly approved — and pay for health programs; and enact the sales-tax reform favored by Council 40.
"We are drawing a line in the sand. Enough is enough," roared Council 24 Exec. Director Marty Beil. "We will not be anybody’s scapegoat."
"As state employees, we understand there is a deficit, and we are willing to help out," Council 24 Pres. Bill Fendel told hundreds of protesters.
Said International vice president and Council 40 Pres. Michael Murphy: "We cannot, and we will not, carry the burden alone."
Truth squad
After the demonstrations, dozens of Council 24 and 40 members blitzed the halls of the capitol to get face time with their representatives. A group of about 25 Manitowoc residents belonging to Council 40 crammed into a room with State Sen. Jim Baumgart and Rep. Bob Ziegelbauer, both Democrats.
Contentious moments arose as the voters grilled their lawmakers on where they stand on the budget controversy. Ziegelbauer tried to shift the focus to McCallum: "If you look at what the governor has proposed, you almost can’t take it seriously because it’s almost totally unworkable. He’s going to have to do a lot of fence mending."
Baumgart told the group that he would defend such benefits as health insurance. He also exten-ded a peace feeler by agreeing to meet with union representatives on a regular basis to discuss policies and issues affecting labor.
See you in November
Legislators are walking a tightrope: They are trying to balance the budget in an election year, but Wisconsin union officials and workers are challenging them to be courageous and be fair in their decisions.
Governor McCallum, who is planning on running for a full term, has aroused workers across the state with his anti-union stance. He told a convention of real estate business moguls that local officials should look at reducing public employee benefits and "consolidating," a code word for job cuts.
At the Council 24 rally, AFSCME Pres. Gerald W. McEntee said: "We want to put all Wisconsin politicians on notice. If you take away our jobs and benefits this spring, we’ll be there at the voting booths ready to take away your jobs next fall."
Get Off Our Backs!
By Rebecca Hughes
My husband, Barry, and I work for the state of Iowa as Resident Treatment Workers (RTWs), providing direct care to people with mental retardation at the Woodward Resource Center. I have been employed there for almost 19 years. I’m also active in Local 2990 (Council 61), and I represent AFSCME on a governor’s committee, Partners for Progress.
There is not enough money in the budget to spend on state services for our most vulnerable citizens. We do have a $120-million Economic Emergency Fund, but the Republicans in the legislature don’t think it should be used at this time.
The governor does not want to raise taxes, and the state has instituted numerous tax cuts in the last several years. In addition, there have been no moves to suspend cuts. Everybody instinctively likes tax cuts. But think about it: For public employees, they can prove a disaster when the economy turns sour and elected officials look to cut jobs.
At Woodward, we have 30 vacancies in our RTW classification. There are also vacancies in Campus Food Services and the Nursing Department. Because none of them are being filled, we are all working harder. Our client-staff ratios are higher. But we still have to meet our federal and state standards for our clients. As a result, staff members are working both volunteer and forced overtime, which takes time away from their families. And that kind of schedule inevitably has a negative effect on the people in our care.
Employees at Woodward want to do their jobs well. With the cuts, however, there aren’t enough of us to sustain a level of good service.
Budget cuts and job furloughs can have serious personal consequences, too. Barry and my two children attend Iowa State University, where the cuts are causing an increase in tuition and in room and board. Most students will have more expenses and heavier debt when they graduate. Many will not be able to graduate in four years.
To help with the budget, we at Council 61 recently postponed the raises scheduled for July. In addition, state employees saved the state $800,000 over a 15-month period. Many of them submitted money-saving ideas to help the government run more efficiently and provide better services.
Four Paths to an Economic Reprieve
At a Washington, D.C., conference in February, AFSCME adopted a four-point approach to combating the state and local budget crises and the resulting threats to our members’ jobs:
- Provide additional federal support — Governments whose budgets have taken a severe hit need federal assistance, and AFSCME has been leading the fight to obtain it. Among the measures we favor: federal guarantees for state and local debt, and an increase in Medicaid matching funds that go to the states.
- Suspend tax cuts — In tough economic times, tax cuts make no sense. Public employees — our members — have their own responsibility here: to recognize that taxes pay their own salaries and benefits, and therefore to demand that their state legislators not cut those taxes.
- Reduce health care costs — States are reeling from the rising health care expenses they have been forced to absorb. Strategies to ease that problem: efforts by groups of states to negotiate with drug manufacturers for lower prescription-drug prices; and legislation that would force the manufacturers to reduce prices.
- Tap state and local budget reserves — States often save money in good economic times for use in bad times — "rainy day funds." Legislators, check the weather: It’s raining hard now, so it’s time to apply those funds to ease budget crises.
