The following statement can be attributed to UAW Vice President Cindy Estrada:

"As the director of the UAW's Public Sector and Health Care Servicing Department, which services 17,000 hard-working State of Michigan public servants, I listened to Governor Snyder's budget presentation yesterday with special interest.

 "We agree with the governor's budgetary governing principle regarding shared sacrifice and his desire to make government more effective and efficient. In fact, our members have made many sacrifices for years, and we have been very proactive in asking to meet with the governor and his cabinet members to discuss re-imagining state government.  We have had some meetings to date and are hopeful that the governor and his appointees will look at labor-management cooperation in a new way and reject attitudes of the past which leave employees out of the process.

 "I am concerned however, that today Governor Snyder talked about examining employee compensation and government efficiencies, but he did not say that he welcomed dialogue on those matters with employee representatives who have wanted to seriously talk about these issues for years.

 "Only a true labor-management partnership based on mutual respect will help Governor Snyder address longstanding state government problems. We hope that Governor Snyder's failure to acknowledge this factor in his address today was an oversight."