Retired Providence police officer Kerry O’Mara carries the American flag in yesterday’s rally to the State House to fight for pension security, education funding and a “fair tax system for working families."

The Providence Journal / Gretchen Ertl

PROVIDENCE — Two themes generated the loudest cheers at a State House labor rally yesterday afternoon — respect for workers and protection for public-employee benefits. Labor officials say both concepts are under attack as Rhode Island grapples with an estimated $384-million budget deficit for the coming fiscal year. Among other cuts, Governor Carcieri has proposed reducing health-care benefits for state employees, reforming pension plans and privatizing some jobs. “Working people across the country, especially here in Rhode Island, are getting treated like second-class citizens,” said Patrick Crowley, assistant executive director of the National Education Association of Rhode Island and an organizer of the rally, which drew an estimated 700 supporters. “It’s time to show the governor it is time to stop.”

A drizzling, misty rain kept the number of labor supporters in the hundreds — not the thousands organizers had predicted. A few hundred union members marched from the Westin Providence hotel, the site of the weekend-long Jobs with Justice National Conference, which brought 1,000 workers from 40 states and a handful of other countries: India, Hong Kong and the Philippines.

Rhode Island firefighters playing pipes and drums, teachers holding a banner, “Public Education: A Promise That Must Be Kept,” and municipal workers carrying “Jobs with Justice” signs joined the out-of-towners in a procession that slowed traffic on Francis Street and Memorial Boulevard during rush-hour. Several puppet performers from Providence’s Big Nazo puppet theater marched alongside student musicians from Brown University.

John Evans of Eugene, Ore., a retired union representative for United Food and Commercial Workers, said the light rain did not deter him.

“Somebody has to speak out against the madness and speak up for workers’ rights and immigrant rights,” Evans said, as marchers around him began chanting, “We’re fed up!”

“We really want to make a statement here locally to the governor in regards to his recent proposals to make cuts that really affect working families and his executive order that affects immigrant workers,” said Roxana Rivera, a director with the Service Employees International Union, Local 615, as the march began. “We will continue to fight for justice. We believe the governor is moving in the wrong direction by focusing the budget problems on working people.”

As is the case across the nation, Rhode Island leaders of organized labor feel they are under siege.

Rhode Island has been a strong organized-labor state. In 1970, about 30 percent of the state’s workers were unionized — a figure that dropped to 18 percent by 1990, 17 percent in 2004 and 16 percent last year.

Still, union leaders point out that union membership provides a big economic advantage for American workers. According to the U.S. Department of Labor, unionized workers earn an average of 30 percent more than nonunion workers and have consistently better health-care and pension benefits.

Those same federal statistics show that union membership particularly helps women and minorities.

Although many unionized jobs in the private sector were lost, first to the South and later to developing countries, today almost all of the state government’s 15,000 full-time employees, about 4,300 of whom work in higher education, are covered by union contracts. The governor, facing a state budget deficit, has proposed cutting government costs by chipping away at the wage-and-benefit packages for state employees.

Carcieri proposed that costs be cut by reducing health-care benefits for state employees who retire after Sept. 30 — a plan approved by the General Assembly earlier this week.

The governor has also proposed forcing all of the state’s employees to take six unpaid days off before July.

“I just don’t think [Carcieri] has any understanding or respect for the state work force,” said George Nee, secretary-treasurer of the state AFL-CIO. “I think he sees life too simply and has been caught up in the attitude that state employees don’t work hard, the myth that they have it easy.”

Of the state’s annual budget of nearly $7 billion, roughly 21 percent is spent on wages and benefits for all state employees, according to information supplied yesterday by the House Fiscal Office.

Nee said that, because of misinformation generated by the Carcieri administration, Rhode Islanders believe that most state expenditures go toward employee wages and benefits.

“I bet if you did a study you would find that the costs of state government are similar to that of other nonprofit institutions, like hospitals or colleges,” says Nee. “What we have from the governor is government by talk show. I guess the governor thinks he is winning with that small group of people. But what does that mean, what do you really win?”

Judith McLaren, a second-grade teacher in Burrillville, says she worries that she and her two sons, both of whom work in Woonsocket — one as a police officer and the other in the Highway Department — will lose more than just their benefits and job security.

“We are all union members, and I would like to see my sons receive the same respect I have in the past,” McLaren said, as the rally wound down and the crowd began dispersing. “Today, there is no respect.”

jjordan@projo.com