State Budget Proposal Echoes Federal Proposals SEIU Members Are Fighting Against
SACRAMENTO, CA – SEIU California – 750,000 workers strong – today called out the hypocrisy in a state budget that takes money and services from the same working class Californians who are fighting for their jobs and our democracy in Washington, DC. The following statement may be attributed to David Huerta, President of SEIU California and SEIU-United Service Workers West:
“We can and must do better for working people. In an era when the Trump Administration has taken actions that threaten trade and tourism, critical underpinnings of California’s economy and worker’s livelihoods, California should be pushing back against these attacks and fight for the working class by strengthening our safety net instead of piling on and further destabilizing working families with deep cuts to healthcare, long-term care, and public services.
“While California leads the fight against Trump’s extremist attacks on our neighbors, our co-workers and our families, we must stand strong behind our values here at home. Instead, the Governor’s proposed budget reads more like a CEO wishlist – sticking it to the working poor to protect tax breaks for the rich, and continuing to hollow out good, middle-class jobs.
“When state leaders time and time again look to solve California’s budget challenges on the backs of working class families, immigrant workers, home care workers, child care workers, health care workers, foster parents, public sector workers, rather than ask corporations to chip in a single penny, is it any wonder we feel the rules are rigged against us?
“SEIU members today promised a full-throated fight for working people’s jobs and values and called on legislators to join workers in rejecting proposed budget cuts and identify revenue options that can bring some of California’s great wealth back to our state where it should be used to improve the lives, dignity and opportunity for everyone in our state, not just the CEOs. As the fourth largest economy in the world and home to more billionaires than most nations, California has the ability to solve our fiscal problems without pushing working families into greater insecurity and misery.”
SEIU California Call on Legislators to Reject These Proposed Budget Cuts
- Healthcare –
- Immigrant Workers: Limiting access to health care based solely on where someone is born flies in the face of California’s values and undermines our collective health as a state. We can’t be healthy as a state if we allow hardworking Californians, farm workers, janitors, caregivers, food service workers, and others, to fall into the ranks of the uninsured.
- Asset Tests: Restoring the outdated asset test undermines both access to care and people’s path out of poverty.
- Long-Term Care –
- Quality long-term care delivered in our homes promotes dignity and saves manifold state costs by avoiding more costly nursing home care. Singling out immigrant families to lose access to home care is inhumane and counterproductive – forcing families to choose between staying home to care for loved ones or working outside the home to put food on the table. Lowering the cap for overtime hours reduces access to care and will aggravate our already grave caregiving crisis.
- Quality long-term care delivered in our homes promotes dignity and saves manifold state costs by avoiding more costly nursing home care. Singling out immigrant families to lose access to home care is inhumane and counterproductive – forcing families to choose between staying home to care for loved ones or working outside the home to put food on the table. Lowering the cap for overtime hours reduces access to care and will aggravate our already grave caregiving crisis.
- State Workforce –
- High vacancy levels across state agencies are leaving workers stressed and leaving in staggering numbers, a vicious cycle that compromises access to vital public services. Taking another 3% from workers’ paychecks will only push more workers out of vital roles and further diminish the public’s trust in state government. This cut adds insult to injury as state workers face a return to office order which will increase personal costs related to their commute, parking, meals and so on.
- Child Care –
- Child care providers’ cost-of-care rate reform, promised in prior budget agreements, was not funded and no cost-of-living adjustment was included in the Governor’s May Budget Proposal. What’s more, the planned child care 200,000 slot expansion is proposed to be, once again, delayed. In total, this budget proposed a $550 million dollar delay in justice for working families with kids and the child care workforce. Most urgently they put children in danger of going without care they need and deserve while their parents are at work.
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