We’ll do whatever it takes to protect our contract,
period!

By KENNETH BRYNIEN
Since the beginning of April, it has appeared the governor has declared war on the state’s work force – delaying pay raises, discontinuing funding of negotiated benefits and, most recently, attempting to impose furloughs on our members.

The governor continues to insinuate the work force isn’t sharing in the sacrifice needed to address the state’s fiscal crisis; this is completely false.

The only part of the state budget that has seen no growth since the beginning of the fiscal crisis has been state operations, including salary and benefits for the state work force. And, just last year, we were praised by the governor for our sacrifice in allowing the creation of a new retirement tier.

The common thread through all of the governor’s rhetoric is a demand for pay cuts from the work force; more significantly, that we open our contracts and renegotiate concessions. The “shared sacrifice” the governor is looking for is not negotiation. It is simply blackmail, and the way he would extract those concessions has significant long term implications for our ability to negotiate future contracts and prevent future concessions.

PEF members clearly understand this. On just four days notice, we organized a statewide day of action against the furloughs. More than 8,000 participated in rallies from Buffalo to Long Island, sending a powerful message that we will not stand idly by as the governor breaks our contract, not now and not when the election rolls around.

PEF has given the governor proposals to cut hundreds of millions of dollars. Our position has been and remains the state should do everything possible to reduce costs and waste before it even considers targeting the work force. If this were really about saving money and closing the budget deficit, the governor would be taking every possible action to reduce the budget deficit, focusing on the other 97 percent of the state’s budget gap, rather than attempting to scapegoat the state work force.

The struggle to protect our contract and our members’ jobs is not over, and will likely continue as the state’s economy recovers from the recession. We will do whatever is necessary to protect our jobs, our contract and our benefits. We will continue to fight the governor’s attempts to break our contract with everything we have.