President's Corner
AME Members...Call to Action!
3/4/2008
AME Members…Call to Action!
Wear RED on Fridays
To fight for adequate staffing levels throughout Suffolk, and
Against the sale of the John J. Foley Skilled Nursing Facility
I hope the New Year finds you well and ready for another fight with the County. On behalf of the Executive Board of AME, I am not going to sugar-coat the reason I am writing this article to you. AME members, our jobs, our benefits and our security, are under attack again. And, we need your help. This will be the first of many “calls to action” that will be scheduled in the months to come.
As we begin 2008, we are asking Suffolk Legislators to establish a legislative committee called the Agency Oversight Committee, to serve as a checks and balances, to monitor staff vacancy rates in relationship to workloads/caseloads. AME members attended a public hearing on creating the committee on, Tuesday, March, 4, 2008 at 2:30 p.m. One by one, AME told their stories on how services are being delayed due to understaffing. Together, we spoke in support to protect our members and the need for greater accountability in Suffolk.
The members of the AME Executive Board and Political Action Committee delivered over 1,000 postcards to the Suffolk County Legislature to show AME’s overwhelming support for legislative action. We showed that we will help each other in this fight.
If you are like most AME members, you are witnessing your responsibilities increase as staff rapidly decreases. Both are delaying or preventing you from effectively delivering services and probably has you saying you “can no longer do more, with less!” What is worse, the County Executive is projecting huge budget deficits that are motivating him to reduce the workforce even more, while he has accumulated $131 million in a tax stabilization fund due to the vacant staff positions that are funded, but remain, unfilled.
Save the County Nursing Home-
John J. Foley Skilled Nursing Facility
The County Executive’s first answer to a “projected” budget deficit is to balance the budget on the backs of the workers. The County’s answer, “SELL” the John J. Foley Skilled Nursing Facility (JJFSNF) which may potentially put nearly 400 members on the streets! Two years ago, Mr. Levy asked AME to sit on a joint Labor/Management Committee to examine the efficiency of the JJFSNF, but then never called a meeting or put the committee together. If labor were involved in seeking solutions, perhaps we wouldn’t need this conversation now.
If you have been reading the newspapers or watching the local news, you will see the stage is being set for AME’s upcoming negotiations. It was confirmed as we listened to the State of the County Address, delivered by Steve Levy on February 5, 2008, that Negotiation 2009 is going to tougher than ever before. And every week thereafter, the County Executive is predicting more doom and gloom without asking for any input from the workers. This is only the beginning of many drastic measures the County will try to make as we get closer to contract negotiations by the close of 2008.
Since 2003, AME successfully fought back lay-offs and or privatization in the Labor Department, the Audit and Control Risk Management Division, several health units, and even John J. Foley Skilled Nursing Facility. By working with the Suffolk County Legislature, we won before, and we will win again!
Take action today! Wear RED on Friday and wear your “no more with less” buttons. If you haven’t already done so, sign and mail the postcard, creating an oversight committee at the Suffolk County Legislature back to AME, and join us at future “Calls to Action” meetings. Your involvement is the only way AME will prevail in the fight against the County’s insensitive budget cuts.
With united purpose,
Cheryl A. Felice, President