Job Actions Needed Now

Brothers and Sisters,

We have only until November 28th to make an impression on the public about what these cuts will do to our quality of life in Washington state. Banks and big business are raking money in hand over fist while the middle class and the vulnerable pay the price. Unless we can pressure the legislature and the governor into developing a real revenue package that saves state services, we will live in a state where our children are not safe, where our neighborhoods are not safe, a state where assaults and home robberies will overwhelm our public safety system. It will be a state where those who speak no English cannot get medical interpreter services, a state where emergency rooms are overcrowded and overwhelmed. The jobs we do will disappear and those we care for will be without state services.

I believe some of the cuts are cuts by design. The design is to contract out work to the private sector where the oversight and scrutiny to which government workers are subjected does not exist in the same way. Taxpayers will pay more, citizens will receive less. We need a real revenue solution. Without it we will all pay more for less. Job actions need to begin immediately. Please call Council 28 at 1-800-562-6002 and let us know how we can support your job action and get the word out.

Tomorrow morning at 10 am, members of Local 793 at Western State Hospital will be outside the kitchen on grounds in advance of an all staff meeting where they expect to hear about moving the mentally ill out of the hospital.