Belt-Tightening in Montgomery County
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The May 7 editorial "Soap, Toilet Paper and Sacrifice" criticized the public-sector employees union's cost-cutting suggestions for Montgomery County. When we submitted a lengthy inventory of savings opportunities to the County Council last month, we emphasized the toilet paper angle because, otherwise, the media probably would have ignored our suggestions.
The context of our recommendations to the county's elected officials -- which we hoped the media would also report -- was the serious suggestion that as major stakeholders in budget decisions, county workers are willing to cooperate and collaborate in identifying potential solutions. Moreover, county workers are intimately familiar with the wasteful spending that depletes the county's coffers.
The suggestion that county workers should volunteer to pare down contractually established pay increases not only ignores the financial realities of living and working in one of most expensive areas in the country, it also undermines the collective bargaining process.
GINO RENNE
President
Municipal and County Government
Employees Organization (United Food and
Commercial Workers Local 1994)
