LABOR News:
SANTA FE – As the 2016 legislative session comes to a close, New Mexico’s labor leaders and workers offer their perspective on the 30-day session.
Maxine Velasquez, Secretary-Treasurer, New Mexico Federation of Labor: “This year’s session was bittersweet for working people in New Mexico. While attempts from the new conservative majority in the House to roll back wages and benefits were defeated, much needed conversations about how we create Main Street jobs were pushed aside to make room for grandstanding by those pushing an ‘all crime, all the time’ agenda. Families who get up every morning, go to work and struggle to make ends meet got little more than the status quo this legislative session. And for this administration, the status quo means benefiting those at the top while leaving real working people farther and farther behind.”
Miles Conway, AFSCME Council 18: “New Mexicans need to know that while we led the nation in unemployment, Governor Martinez and House leadership spent practically all of their time pushing bills to cut wages and race to the economic bottom rather than putting more people back to work. The question lawmakers should have been asking themselves is: How do we create jobs and improve incomes for ordinary New Mexicans? That simply didn’t happen. New Mexico deserves better.”
Jon Hendry, President, New Mexico Federation of Labor: “The only people Governor Martinez and House leadership created jobs for are the political operatives making attack ads against Senator Sanchez and Democrats, who put their political careers on the line to stand with everyday working New Mexicans during this session. New Mexicans need to know more about what our elected leaders actually did – and didn’t do – during this session before they head to the ballot box this November.”
Stephanie Ly, President, AFT-NM: “Compromise helped to end the six-year long campaign against immigrant workers and will give voters a chance to put more money into public education, but New Mexico still leads the nation in unemployment and poverty among children. None of the crime bills House leaders spent so much time promoting do anything to address those problems. New Mexico’s problem isn’t that we put too few people in prison. It’s that our students and working families are struggling. In the end, it seems like so much more could have been done with a focus on students.”
