SACRAMENTO, CA – The Service Employees International Union (SEIU) in California, 700,000 workers strong, today urged the Governor and Legislators to take a balanced and fair approach to solving our budget problems.
The following statement may be attributed to David Green, Executive Board Member of SEIU California and President of SEIU Local 721:
“SEIU members urge California’s leaders to build a fair and inclusive budget.
“In past recessions, we saw deep and harmful cuts that hurt our economy, increased economic insecurity and hunger in our communities, hurt workers, and damaged our state’s ability to deliver quality public services and our economy’s ability to quickly recover.
“We recognize that some of the worst ideas from previous budgets, such as furloughing workers or cutting cash and food benefits, have not been resorted to, and that significant progress, such as inclusion of immigrants in Medi-Cal, has been preserved; yet, we are deeply concerned about proposed cuts to safety net services, which will jeopardize children, exclude immigrants from critically needed care and assistance, and undermine the efforts of families and individuals to exit poverty and to thrive.
“We learned in the Great Recession that investing in workers and communities is the strongest and most effective response to economic uncertainty; austerity policies only deepen problems in our economy. Likewise, we cannot disinvest from our state government by making permanent workforce cuts that will result in higher turnover and compromise the services the public relies on, and we cannot prepare for the rapid aging of our population by dismantling crucial components of our care system, such as the In Home Supportive Services (IHSS) registry and workforce training. We know that cuts to the state’s public health workforce and to child welfare programs are more costly and dangerous in the long run.
“As devastating as these proposed cuts would be, we acknowledge the ongoing commitments made to several workforces, and we know that recent increases in minimum wage will insulate many families and communities from some of the cuts made in the budget.
“SEIU members commit to working with the Governor and the legislature to create a fair, balanced budget now, a budget that upholds our values, protects our communities, supports workers, and ensures a fair contribution from those who can most afford to pay. And, to ensure that we do not find ourselves fighting a more significant budget deficit in future years, we are committed to working with lawmakers, the Governor and our partners across labor and beyond to build a broad and powerful movement to defeat the corporate effort to rewrite our Constitution through the Taxpayer Deception Act.”
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