There was a ton of action on bills affecting public employees today (Monday), with one setback on the budget but major victories on our arbitration bill, child care organizing, retirement, and unions' right to speak out on public issues.
BUDGET/FURLOUGHS/LAYOFFS/PAYCUTS
We had staff and members testify at the Senate Finance Committee earlier today in opposition to HB 854. In particular, we advocated finding other sources of income rather than going after working families' paychecks, and using a sliding scale so that if there is any impact, it's primarily on high-salaried exempt employees.
Senate Finance Committee members essentially argued that because of the Obama stimulus, and the fact that the 1.5% is pre-tax, employee paychecks would stay about the same and possibly increase slightly. But that's not a good argument. The stimulus is meant to put more money into the economy, and the state is taking university, public school, and state employee families' share of it to help balance the budget.
We all understand shared sacrifice, but when out-of-state corporations are avoiding taxes and millionaires aren't paying an extra dime, it doesn't feel much like sharing is going on. At the very least, by raising our opposition to the 1.5% this session, we're laying groundwork for the legislature to look to additional sources of revenue during the special session likely to occur in April or May.
The last chance before the special session to affect the 1.5% is if there's a budget conference committee. We still don't know who will be on it, but please call the following 8 representatives and senators and let them know that we want them to find other revenue sources first, and to make any changes progressive.
HOUSE LEADERS AND POSSIBLE BUDGET CONFERENCE COMMITTEE MEMBERS
House Appropriations Chair Kiki Saavedra (D-Albuquerque) 986-4316
House Appropriations Deputy Chair Lucky Varela (D-Santa Fe) 986-4318
SENATE LEADERS AND POSSIBLE BUDGET CONFERENCE COMMITTEE MEMBERS
President Pro Tem Tim Jennings (D-Roswell) 986-4733
ARBITRATION
In one of the biggest surprise votes of the session, Senate Bill 164 passed the Senate Finance Committee 6-4 after an amendment was added that essentially says that if the arbitrations turn out to be too costly to be absorbed by agency HR litigation budgets, the policy will be reviewed in a year.
Since we truly believe that there won't be more than 10-20 full arbitrations a year (only 80 or so are even eligible each year, and the vast majority settle or are screened out by the unions), we expect that this program will be cemented in place if the legislation is passed.
Two Republicans (Beffort and Neville) voted along with four Democrats (Campos, Cisneros, Morales, and Ortiz y Pino) who bravely opposed Chairman John Arthur Smith.
SB 164 now goes back to the Senate floor, where either it or House Bill 15 will hopefully have enough votes to go over to the House. HB 15 is preferable because all that would be needed, even if it's amended like SB 164 was, is "concurrance" by the House, which is a simple procedure.
Please call the following Senators and ask them to support House Bill 15:
John Pinto (D-Tohatchi) 986-4835
CHILD CARE ORGANIZING
Monday was a great day for workers in New Mexico--2,500 of our sisters and brothers won the right to organize. Senate Bill 402 was ably carried in the House by workers' champion Representative Miguel Garcia, and passed the House with a 35-28 vote. It now goes to the Governor for his signature.
Please call Governor Richardson's main line at 476-2200 and ask him to sign Senate Bill 402.
Special thanks to Jenn Shaw, who left her home in California to work with us for almost two full months (just as she did in 2007) and did incredible work explaining to legislators why this bill was so important to the people who take care of thousands of children every day.
RETIREMENT
One of the top ways we will save the PERA fund over the next 30 years is by ending or limiting the practice of double dipping. The bill continues to have strong support except by, of course, double dippers. Double dipping is bad for the state and city/county general funds and bad for PERA, and limits upward advancement. We are all proud of our retirement plans, but should be wary of those who look to nearly double their salary overnight at the same job. That money comes from the rest of our members who contribute to PERA and who are funded from general funds.
As noted before, our success in stopping any changes to PERA and ERA for FY '10 continues to hold, with no amendments to any of the eligibility bills.
UNION POLITICAL RIGHTS
Multiple bills designed to prevent non-profits (including unions, which are 501(c)5 organizations) from communicating with the public are stalling. About an hour ago, House Bill 808, which was widely considered the most likely bill to pass, ran into major opposition, including from AFSCME, at the House Judiciary Committee.
HB 808 is being rolled over to Wednesday's HJC calendar. While there would still be time to get it out if it passed, it seemed like passage out of HJC would be difficult even with amendments, as even one of the bill's supporters noted.
Carter Bundy
Political Action Representative
AFSCME International
1202 Pennsylvania St. NE
Albuquerque, NM 87110
(505) 266-2177 ext. 13 (work)
(505) 266-3155 (fax)
