Md. AFSCME warns against cutting retiree health benefits

[Omaha Steve]

http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/local/bal-workers0927,0,5354363.story

By James Drew | Sun reporter
2:42 PM EDT, September 27, 2007

Members of Maryland public workers union said today that any efforts to cut retiree health care benefits would harm efforts to recruit and retain state employees.

"This is not the time to make our work less desirable," said Flo Jones, a foster care social worker for the Baltimore Department of Social Services and recording secretary of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees Local 112. "We need to work to attract and keep staff, not drive them off. Taking away our retiree health care will do just that."

About 25 AFSCME members and retirees gathered for a news conference today in Annapolis, half an hour before a meeting of a state commission that is studying retiree health care funding options.

Last year, the General Assembly formed the Blue Ribbon Commission to Study Retiree Health Care Funding Options to review health care benefits that state employees and retirees receive, and how they are funded.

The commission has a Dec. 31, 2008, deadline to release a report.

FULL story at link.

[Raejeanowl]

1. These Are Government Employees, Folks

Too many State of Maryland agencies already have genuinely pathetic wage scales for their non-exempt job classifications, and more work is being contracted out at all levels including professional positions every day rather than employ benefited workers.

Cash-strapped counties here outdistance the wages of the state in most job classifications. There is something deeply counterintuitive in reducing the already disappearing benefits of working for your state government, and expecting a stable, committed, and loyal workforce in return.

Like Congress, the Maryland General Assembly (a part-time legislature) needs to start with an examination of their own salaries, operating funds and accountability/oversight for those funds, and retirement benefits.