The people we hear from are generally sympathetic to our stance and often provide good suggestions and also inform us of the initiative they have taken in their facilities and agencies, including downloading and distributing flyers.
We have also received some strongly worked emails critical of our positions and flyers but only one of them was signed.
Here is a story very much worth sharing. It is from a woman who asked that we post her story at the blog.
She gave us her name and her permission to publish her name. However, since she has already been "targeted" by the state we decided to withhold her name.
If you would like to reach out in solidarity to this PEF sister we will forward your email (even if anonymous).
I'm a PEF member.
I was called by PEF on the phone twice in the last week.
Both times I was encouraged to vote YES to ratify the contract. Both times I explained that I am a single mother and I only make 40 thousand a year.
I cannot afford to cover my kids under the health insurance increase in the contract. I told them am voting NO.
One of the two callers advocating that I vote "Yes" described the contract. She told me about the three years of zero pay increase with two percent in the fourth year.
She told me about the reduction in pay to cover the furloughs. She volunteered that the loss of four percent of my pay in the next ten weeks might be offset by my husband’s income.
I was like, Huh? But I just told her I was a single mother?!
So I told her again.
I am a single mother.
I am voting NO.
She said she didn't understand that when it was such a good agreement. I should read the information on the PEF website, she told me.
I told her that I know all about the agreement.
For example the layoff language is the same as the agreement that got voted down.
But my issue is the increase in family health insurance, which I simply cannot afford. That is why I will vote NO again.
I also told her that I received a layoff notice and that I believe I will be better off on unemployment than working under this agreement.
