Stepping Up
Barely a week into January, the number of challenges
facing members of our union seemed to be growing every day. Due to declining
state revenues, the Baldacci administration was expanding on its December
order curtailing state services and eliminating vacant positions.
Smelling blood, the Alliance for Maine’s Future and the
Heritage Policy Center launched a well-financed attack on state workers
and their wages and benefits. These groups denigrated state workers through
radio ads and slickly produced reports likening state workers to pigs
at a trough. Their stated goal: to build political support for mass layoffs
and substantial cuts in state workers’ health insurance benefits.
Given the difficult economy and this unprecedented level
of attack, our members had to make a choice: Step up and speak out in
support of the public services we provide and the wages and benefits we
are paid, or step out of the way and hope for the best.
Our members chose to step up — in a big way. And so did
thousands of Maine people who also recognize the importance of quality
public services.
Early on in this legislative session, our members talked
with their legislators and kept those conversations going during the session.
They wrote letters to the editor. They talked about the public services
they provide, and also about what they are paying for health care. They
talked in support of our retirement “Cliff” legislation.
Through these conversations and others, legislators and
other Maine people learned that contrary to the lies told by the other
side, the average state worker pays over $4,000 annually to insure a spouse
and child, that state workers also pay individual deductibles of $200
and family deductibles of $400, plus copays of up to $15 each doctor’s
visit, $10 for each generic drug prescription and $30 for each brand-name
prescription.
Yet we did more than just set the record straight. We
joined together with dozens of other organizations and advocated not just
for the services we provide but also for other public services, culminating
in the largest State House rally in recent memory in support of quality
public services. The result was a final Supplemental Budget that, in addition
to protecting the health insurance of our members and rejecting gimmicks
like furlough days, at its core recognizes the importance of quality public
services in Maine.
We didn’t win every battle. Yet we reduced the level
of harm. We succeeded because so many people stepped up. Thanks to all
of you.
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