Local 1994 Secretary-Treasurer Yvette Cuffie, speaking at the union budget summit on Wednesday, November 7th, stressed the union's support for Gov. Martin O'Malley's budget proposals and strongly urged Maryland lawmakers to do the same.

"When the wealthy pay less than their fair share, average people wind up paying more than theirs to fund quality public services," Cuffie said. She warned lawmakers that they must "choose between being a shill" for people earning more than $250,000 a year, "or the remaining 93 percent of us who don't."
More than 200 activists attended the session sponsored by the Montgomery County Education Association, including more than 90 from Local 1994.

"We feel the pressure that you create," Sen. Mike Linnett toldd Montgomery County employees at the budget summit sponsored by MCEA.

More than 65 PGCMLS workers—joined by a dozen more members in solidarity from the Montgomery County Library system and members of the Local's Executive Board—rallied at the monthly meeting of the PGCMLS Board of Trustees meeting on Thursday, October 18th. They heard Local 1994 Executive Director Bob Stewart urge the Trustees to "step out of your comfort zone and speak up for the employees" who have consistently gone to bat for the library system, school kids and Prince George's taxpayers to make the library service one of the best in the nation. In his formal comments, Stewart said that after one year of negotiations it is "disheartening" that the Trustees are permitting outside attorneys "to undermine the collaborative relationship we have built over the past two years."

Trustee President Michael J. Howard responded to the union's charge, saying: "We want the same things you do," but Howard took umbrage at the suggestion that the Board is in a comfort zone and afraid to speak out against County Executive Jack Johnson's position. "We really can't speak about [the negotiations] which, he said, are "at another level."

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