The Mobilization Continues……

Monroe County employees once again flood the Monroe County Legislature chambers at the 1/11/11 Legislature meeting. CSEA members are demanding a fair contract. For more information read the latest BLAST by Clicking Here (feel free to print the BLAST and distribute to your co-workers).

Comments made by Cris Zaffuto to the Monroe County Legislature on 1/11/11:

Good Evening,

I bring Happy New Year wishes to you from all the Hard working Men and Women of Monroe County.

I again come before you to share with you the work that goes on, on a daily bases by the CSEA members that work in this county.

Monroe County has 3 DMV offices. These are the employees who make sure that everyone in the county has a legal driver’s license and insurance on their cars.

But of course you all know that bit of information. But…….

What you don’t know is what they have to deal with everyday. As you are aware many times there are customers who are not always happy with what the DMV Rep tells them. This information sometimes leads to the employees being sworn at, yelled at and even spit on.

You may remember there was a woman who went over the table after the rep over at the mobile site across the street in city place. That’s just 1 example..Many times employees get grabbed at thru the window at the offices.

These employees handle as many transactions as a bank teller without any bullet proof glass, panic buttons or any barriers between them and the customers.

They work in conditions that are far from ergonomically correct, which may hinder their health in the future and raises the cost of Workers Comp Insurance.

These folks are dedicated employees of Monroe County. Even working in conditions that may be harmful to themselves they show up every day ready and willing to serve YOUR Community.

Which why I have to close with this:

“Monroe County Works Because We Do.”

Cris Zaffuto, President

CSEA Unit 7400

Monroe County Legislature Meeting

Please bring your co-workers and family to the next Monroe County Legislature Meeting to show support for hard working Monroe County Employees:

Tuesday, January 11th, 5:45 - Monroe County Legislative Meeting, Monroe County Office Building


Here is an article you may find interesting:

The Shameful Attack on Public Employees
Wednesday, January 5, 2011
 
In 1968, 1,300 sanitation workers in Memphis went on strike. The Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. came to support them. That was where he lost his life. Eventually Memphis heard the grievances of its sanitation workers. And in subsequent years millions of public employees across the nation have benefited from the job protections they’ve earned. (TO READ THE WHOLE OPINION ARTICLE - CLICK HERE)

Anti-Union Measures Harm ALL Workers

by Caitlin Vega, C. L. F.

Yesterday's New York Times reports that in a number of states around the country, Republican lawmakers are taking advantage of the budget crises they face to attack unions.

Proposals include limiting collective bargaining, ending prevailing wage on construction projects, eliminating the right to strike, and even banning the union shop. Some Republican House leaders are even pushing to take the word "labor" out of the "Education and Labor Committee" and change the title to "Education and Workforce Committee." Here we are in the midst of the greatest economic crisis since the Depression, and politicians are attacking the only voice for working people in this country.

The idea that unions are somehow responsible for destroying our economy is absurd. The Labor Movement has been the most outspoken critic against all of the things that actually did cause this crisis: bad free trade agreements that harmed all workers, unfair lending practices that resulting in millions of families losing their homes, unrestrained corporate greed that rewarded CEOs for mass layoffs and the offshoring of jobs.

The Labor Movement has been the leading force to extend unemployment benefits to the millions of laid off workers and their families who depend on them. We are fighting to stop the attacks on Social Security, the most effective anti-poverty program we have in this country. Most important, the Labor Movement stands for the idea that every working person deserves to be treated fairly at work, get decent wages, and have dignity in retirement.

We want the American Dream to be realized not just by the wealthy but by those who build bridges (like my dad) and who teach the next generation of students (like my mom). We believe construction workers, delivery drivers, hotel workers, probation officers, janitors, grocery clerks, truckdrivers, nurses, cna's, homecare attendants, and cafeteria workers should make enough money to take care of their families and not have to depend on public assistance or charity.

When these workers get together to demand a decent wage for their work, they are raising wages for all workers in that industry and in that community. When they are able to get health care through the job, they are setting standards that benefit all workers, making it less likely that they will have to rely on public programs or emergency rooms. This is how the middle class in this country was built.

When workers have secure retirement, they don't have to face the shame of relying on their children in their old age. AFSCME represents 1.6 million public employees across the country -- and their members have an average pension of just $19,000 per year. No one is getting rich or living high on the hog, but maybe that's just enough that their retirees can stay in their homes, provide food and necessities, and still afford birthday presents for their grandchildren. After 30 years on the job, don't we all deserve that?

Not only do union wages and benefits raise community standards, but they directly help the economy. A city street-cleaning worker who makes a decent wage can afford to spend more at Safeway, allowing Safeway to hire more workers, who are able to take the family out to dinner once a month. A construction worker paid prevailing wage on a public works project can afford to buy a home, increasing property taxes to the community. This is the multiplier effect of good union jobs, whether public or private.

It wasn't that long ago that public employees were among the lowest paid workers in the nation. Martin Luther King Jr spent one of his last days in Memphis with striking sanitation workers to highlight the injustices they had to endure without collective bargaining rights. So what's changed? Private sector workers have suffered devastating losses. Good jobs sent overseas, industry wage standards degraded by deregulation, once secure pensions lost to corporate malfeasance. The problem we face today isn't that public employees have too much, its that private sector workers have too little.

I have a poster on my wall of that Memphis sanitation workers protest. The picket signs say "I am a man." Really, that's what the Labor Movement is about. Recognizing the dignity of every person. Rewarding hard work. Realizing the dream of economic security and a better future for your kids.

The politicians seeking to strip workers rights say it will stimulate investment. But all that means is a race to the bottom where companies jump from state to state, country to country, seeking the lowest wages. A better way to attract companies to relocate is with good schools, a skilled workforce, reliable infrastructure, and a modern transportation system. But all of that requires an investment in the people who do the work and apparently that's not something these politicians believe in.

On one of his last nights on this earth, Martin Luther King Jr faced thousands of black men in the South, striking City sanitation workers, who were putting their jobs and their lives on the line. He said to those gathered "either we go up together, or we go down together."

Today, as unemployment mounts, as foreclosures soar, as working families are forced to rely on food banks, and one in four California kids don't have enough to eat, the truth is now as it was then. Either we go up together or we go down together. Thanks to the Labor Movement, we are all in this together -- and together, we will find the way out.

Caitlin Vega is legislative advocate at the California Labor Federation. 

MARK BRENNER   |  DECEMBER 30, 2010

With all the venom directed at public employees these days, it’s hard to separate the facts from the attacks. Here’s a guide to common claims made about government spending, taxes, and public employees.


The Claim: Government employees are overpaid.

The Facts: The Economic Policy Institute measured state and local public workers against their private sector counterparts with the same age, experience, and education. They found that public workers earn about 11 percent less. (CLICK HERE TO SEE THE REPORT)

Public workers had better benefits on average, but even when health care and retirement were included, public workers were still 4 percent behind private sector counterparts.

Claims that state and local government workers are overpaid often fail to account for their education and experience. Fifty-four percent have at least a four-year college degree, compared to 35 percent in the private sector.

The Claim: The federal deficit is out of control.

The Facts: It’s true that this year’s budget deficit—projected to be 10.3 percent of U.S. economic activity—is the highest since World War II. Whether it’s a problem depends on your time frame and how we address it.

Short-term government spending was the only thing that kept the economy from cratering in 2008. It staved off a second Great Depression.

With no private sector investment in sight, public spending will be the only engine for job creation in the foreseeable future. Aside from the pain created by high unemployment, no jobs means no recovery for tax collections and therefore a widening deficit.

The deficit is a long-term problem if we do nothing, but before doing something we have to look at spending and revenues. The bulk of federal spending is on the military (22 percent) and health care, including Medicare, Medicaid, and children’s health programs (21 percent).

The obvious place to start trimming is today’s military budget, which is two and a half times what it was 10 years ago. Health care costs are also skyrocketing, because they are driven by for-profit health care. A single-payer system like “Medicare for all” would correct that.

The Claim: Taxes are too high.

The Facts: Depends whose taxes you mean. According to Citizens for Tax Justice, overall taxes in the U.S. are the third lowest among industrialized countries (only Turkey and Mexico are lower). Corporate taxes are also lower than in most other industrial nations.

But there are inequities—and they favor the rich. People at the bottom of the income ladder, the lowest 20 percent, pay almost twice as much of their income in state and local taxes as the top 1 percent. The poor pay 11 percent, the rich just 6 percent.

At the end of World War II corporations paid more than a third of all taxes collected by the federal government. Today they pay only 10 percent. The burden was shifted to individuals, and as taxes on the wealthy were cut over the last 30 years, the liability has been transferred to working people.

The Claim: The private sector is more efficient than government.

The Facts: Advocates claim outsourcing will save money. But after more than two decades of experience, reality isn’t so clear-cut.

Cost overruns combined with the cost of contract monitoring and administration often makes privatization more expensive than in-house services. According to a 2007 survey by the International City/County Management Association, more than one in five local governments had brought previously outsourced services back in house.

In most cases insufficient cost savings were cited as a primary reason. And where contracting out does produce savings, they typically come from lower wages and benefits for workers—not some supposed inherent superiority of business.

The Claim: Government waste, fraud and abuse are rampant.

The Facts: Government-bashers love to talk about overpaid, do-nothing bureaucrats, but if you’re looking for misused tax dollars your best bet is to scour the Chamber of Commerce’s membership list. Defense contracts and construction projects like the “Big Dig” in Boston hold taxpayers hostage with wildly inaccurate, often fraudulent cost estimates.

According to the Project on Government Oversight’s database of federal contractor misconduct, the top five defense contractors have racked up 156 instances of misconduct since 1995, totaling $3.57 billion in fraud and waste.

Mobilization at MCH

A simple guide for talking unions this holiday season

by Zoe Bridges-Curry

It’s no secret: Not everyone sees unions as key to rebuilding America and the middle class. It’s easy to tune out the misinformation about unions and the workers who make them strong when you hear it on the news, but what should you do when the same misinformation comes from your friends and family? We’re here to help with some simple facts so you can speak up the next time you encounter someone attacking unions, and help shed light on what unions are really all about!


MYTH: Unions are run by big, overpaid bosses.


FACT: Unions are run by workers.

A union is simply a group of employees who join together to address workplace issues, so they can improve their working conditions and have a fair shot at a better life for themselves and their families.

Unions are democratic institutions. At the local, state, and national level, all union leadership is elected by majority votes—just like elections for public office.

MYTH: Unions only care about their members.


FACT: Unions are fighting to improve the lives of all workers.


It’s easy to forget that we have unions to thank for a lot of things we take for granted today in today’s workplaces: the minimum wage, the 8-hour work day, child labor laws, health and safety standards, and even the weekend.

Today, unions across the country are on the frontlines advocating for basic workplace reforms like increases in the minimum wage, and pushing lawmakers to require paid sick leave.

Studies show that a large union presence in an industry or region can raise wages even for non-union workers. That means more consumer spending, and a stronger economy for us all.

So it’s no wonder that most Americans (61%) believe that “labor unions are necessary to protect the working person,” according to Pew’s most recent values survey.

MYTH: Union workers are lazy, and unions are bad for business.


FACT: Unions and profitability go hand in hand.

Actually, unions make the workplace more efficient – despite the stereotype that we all hear.

Unions raise productivity on average by up to 24% in manufacturing, 16% in hospitals, and 38% in the construction. Union workers have higher professional standards because unions increase opportunities for worker training. Many even offer their own training programs.

Union workers are employed in some of the most respected professions. They’re nurses, firefighters, teachers, day care providers, engineers, and NASA scientists. Union members are responsible for building nuclear subs, the space shuttle, The Smithsonian, the Hoover Dam Bypass Bridge, and even the American flag.

Even small business owners think that unions are good for workers—and the economy. In fact, over 80% agree “strong unions make the free market system stronger.” They’re right. Unions exist at some of the most successful companies out there, including AT&T, Costco, UPS, and Southwest.

MYTH: Unions ask for too much. In this economy, people should be thankful for any job.


FACT: Good jobs mean a stronger economy, and that means more jobs.


This idea is coming straight from the same corporations that ran our economy into the ground. Now they’re taking advantage of our financial worries to grab an even bigger slice of the pie.

It’s just plain wrong to make working Americans foot the bill for Wall Street’s party. And it’s also bad for the economy. Because when workers can’t afford the products they produce, consumer spending takes a serious hit, and the economy does, too.

But when workers can bargain for family-sustaining pay and benefits, consumer spending increases. The result is a stronger economy—one that creates jobs and enables people to work their way into the middle class.

MYTH: Public employees are to blame for our budget woes.


FACT: Public employees earn less than private-sector workers in similar jobs.

You’re going to hear this a lot more soon. But we can’t afford to have extremist policymakers get away with scapegoating civil servants like teachers, fire fighters, and police officers.

Private-sector workers should be angry about the inadequate benefits they receive, but the solution isn’t to take hope away from the public sector workers who keep our communities strong. We have to make the economy work for everyone.

Recent studies show that public employees make significantly less than private-sector workers with comparable education and experience, even when you factor in benefits. And according to Nobel laureate economist Paul Krugman, state and local employees’ pensions make up only 6 percent of non-federal public sector spending.

Still not convinced? It turns out that what’s bad for public workers is bad for the economy, too. The Center for Economic Policy Research reports that freezing federal workers’ pay will mean a loss of $2.5 billion in consumption by 2012—18,000 private sector workers stand to lose their jobs as a result.

And don’t forget, it was Wall Street’s recklessness that caused budget shortfalls in states across the country—not public service workers. Making public service workers pay for Wall Street’s wrongdoing won’t create jobs, and it won’t save the public services we all depend on.

The Mobilization inundates the Monroe County Legislature Meeting on 12/14/10!

Despite the snow storm members of CSEA Unit 7400 flood the Monroe County Legislature Tuesday 
December 14, 2010. CSEA members are asking the Legislators to assist CSEA in getting a fair contract!
Click on this picture to enlarge!

Members of CSEA Unit 7400 attend the Monroe County Legislature on Tuesday December 14th.  CSEA members from across the Monroe County travelled through a blizzard (parts of 390 and 490 were closed) to communicate to the County Legislature that we need a fair contract.

A number of CSEA members spoke directly to the Legislature outlining the important contributions Monroe County Employees make to maintain a high quality of life in Monroe County.

Unit 7400 President Cris Zaffuto reminded the legislators that Monroe County Works Because We Do. To read Cris's comments CLICK HERE. 

Region President Flo Tripi called on the legislature to get involved in the current contract dispute, and help us work towards a resolution.  Here is a full text of Flo Tripi's speech before the Monroe County Legislature:

Honorable Legislators, I am Flo Tripi, president of CSEA’s Western Region.

I would like to thank you for the proclamation earlier tonight recognizing CSEA’s 100^th anniversary. You have recognized our importance, our strength, and our dedication to public service. You have honored our past, and wished us well for the future. We hope that CSEA and the Monroe County Legislature can continue to work well together in the years to come. Even more importantly, we hope we can count on you to work with us right now as we continue to pursue a contract that is fair and respectful, and that recognizes the importance of the work we do.

Flo Tripi, CSEA 
Western Region President

Almost every Monroe County resident would agree that the services we provide are an important addition to the outstanding quality of life in this county. Legislators, wouldn’t you also agree that “Monroe County Works Because We Work?” Take a look at the men and women here tonight wearing the yellow shirts. They are the backbone of this county. They work tirelessly every day for the good of all.  They provide essential services to residents of Monroe County every single hour of every single day.

CSEA Unit 

President Cris Zaffuto 

addresses the County Legislature

Young or old; city, suburban or rural; we are there when you need us.

Today alone, our members worked to protect children and the elderly from abuse and neglect. We worked to keep criminals off the streets and to monitor those sentenced to probation.

We provided mental health care to those in need and protected crime victims.

Today, we also made sure the water from your tap is clean and healthy. We made sure restaurants safely prepared your food and that the scales in grocery stores weighed your purchases accurately.

We helped residents register their vehicles, and access vital records.

Today, we helped families receive the help they need to heat their homes, to put nutritious food on their tables, and to acquire medical coverage.

This is just the beginning. There is so much more that hard-working, dedicated CSEA members do, every single day, to protect and serve.

But, honorable legislators, it is important to note that these same hard-working, dedicated CSEA Monroe County Unit members have been working without a contract for almost two years.

Christmas Tree in the Monroe 

County Office Building.

We know you agree that our work is important and essential. We know you agree that the work we do makes Monroe County a better place. We know you agree that Monroe County Works Because We Work.

We know you agree that after almost two years, CSEA members need a fair contract. A contract that recognizes the importance of the work we do.  A contract that treats the workforce with dignity and respect. We ask that you join us in our effort to negotiate that fair contract.

Legislators, you count on US to provide essential services. Now we need to be able to count on YOU to do whatever you can to help us. Tonight you recognized our history, our strength and our dedication to public service. Tonight, we hope that you will also commit to helping us reach a fair agreement with the county. I am asking you to get involved. I am asking you to work with us toward a resolution.

Two years is far too long to go without a contract.

Thank you for your time, and we look forward to working with you in the future.

Flo Tripi

President, CSEA Region 6

Sue Newman and Don Wallace

Pictures by CSEA LRS Robert L. Leonard.

Mobilization

Come to the Monroe County Legislature Meeting on Tuesday December 14th at 5:45pm. Stand with your negotiation team as we advocate for a fair agreement. Hard working Monroe County employees have been working without a contract for nearly two years. That is just too long! 

Also, join the facebook cause for a fair contract by clicking here!