As you are aware from the last Bargaining Update, after 10 weeks of bargaining, CSEA refuses to move off of its economic “take away” proposal. This is despite current fiscal relief from Prop 30 and 2012 congressional pension legislation vastly reducing CSEA’s minimum defined pension contribution by millions.
To add insult to injury, the CSEA team has made it clear that they believe you -- the AEU membership -- do not support your AEU negotiations team or the issues that we fight hard to resolve. They believe that you won’t stand up. We believe they will know soon enough our collective resolve for a fair and just contract. We go to battle on behalf of CSEA members everyday. Now we must go to battle for our coworkers, our families and ourselves.
PLEASE PLAN TO ATTEND THE CSEA BOARD MEETING IN SAN JOSE ON SATURDAY, JUNE 15TH AT 8:00 A.M. WE MUST STAND TOGETHER NOW.
Why Have We Begun This Public Campaign?
The answer is simple: CSEA has forgotten what it stands for and why it has endured. The current CSEA is not a model for worker treatment. Instead, CSEA has taken to the Corporate Playbook. Workers are expendable. Over the last year in particular, mistreatment is becoming the norm. Wages are less today than four years ago without cost of living increases. Now CSEA wants you to contribute to health care and pension “just because.”
CSEA claims it has a “structural deficit”
Fact: CSEA spent $7,154,967 less than what it received in CSEA member dues for 2011-2012.
During the 2010 negotiations, CSEA projected that its minimum pension contribution would fall between $12-15 million for years 2012/13 and 2013/14.
Fact: CSEA paid under $7 million in 2012/13 year. It is projected to be even lower for 2013/14.
CSEA claims that despite the reduction/elimination of 30 bargaining unit positions over the last two years, in addition to increased duties and “goals,” that work load issues don’t exist.
Fact: We know the difficult struggle made worse by political campaigns – and so do they. Yet, “workload issues don’t exist.”
The economic and workload realities divide us at the table with our union employer. Away from the table WE MUST FIGHT FOR OURSELVES and the very integrity of CSEA itself.
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