Democratic and Working Families Party Governor Dannel Malloy of Connecticut dusted off the speech he had planned to make at the end of June, when state employee unions rejected a $1.6 billion concession package that would close a hole in the state’s budget. Embarrassed that their rank and file members rejected the plan that they agreed to with the first Democratic governor of the state in 20 years, the State Employees Bargaining Agent Coalition (SEBAC) agreed to a new vote after changing the bylaws to allow a simple majority of state employees, rather than 80%, to be the required threshold for ratification of contracts. The old bylaws also did not allow for revotes.
Following the governor’s threats of thousands of layoffs, the concession package, as anticipated, was overwhelmingly approved on the second vote on Thursday by 14 of the 15 unions. Ironically, the union representing corrections officers, AFSCME, which had rejected the package originally, approved it wholeheartedly this time, despite the fact that corrections workers have solicited membership in the National Correctional Employees Union (NCEU), charging that they were misrepresented by the vote to change the bylaws.
Upon ratification of the contract, the governor released the following statement:
“We have achieved something the skeptics said was unachievable: we’ve made the relationship between the state and its workforce sustainable. And, unlike in most other states, we did it without going to war with public employees. We’ve shown what’s possible when management and labor work together in a respectful fashion. Sure, this agreement took a few extra months to achieve – but so what? Those extra months are a small price to pay for the billions of dollars that extra time will save taxpayers, the critical services that time will preserve, and the peace of mind that comes from understanding the state now has a sustainable relationship with its employee base…”
The agreement calls for a two-year wage freeze and some changes to pension benefits and healthcare, such as required annual visits to a physician. In exchange, the unions obtained no layoffs for four-years and a pledge they would not be required to take unpaid furlough days. According to Mr. Malloy, the changes will save the state an estimated $1.6 billion over the next two years and $21.5 billion over the next two decades. As of July 1st, the governor’s budget plan called for “shared sacrifice” from taxpayers, who have consequently experienced the largest tax increase in the history of the state, including a hike in the income tax, retroactive to January 1st.
While Governor Malloy is self-congratulatory on the approval of the concessions, SEBAC officials downplayed the need to change the bylaws in order to obtain rank and file approval. Instead, they blamed the first rejection vote on “lack of clarification” of the anticipated changes to healthcare, and to a case of email sabotage by the conservative think-tank, Yankee Institute for Public Policy.
Many state workers who initially voted against the concession package said they were fearful that the plan would force them into the state’s anticipated Sustinet universal healthcare plan, Connecticut’s version of Obamacare. Not surprisingly the unions were extremely supportive of Sustinet for everyone else, while they maintained that their members should continue with “Cadillac” healthcare plans paid for by Connecticut taxpayers. Union officials “educated” their members about the true nature of the healthcare changes, at meetings that state employees were paid to attend, at the direction of the governor’s administration.
In what appears to have been an effort to save face while taking a jab at conservatives, SEBAC also charged the Yankee Institute with hacking into the state employees’ email database for the purpose of spreading misinformation about the concession package. Yankee Institute welcomed a review to prove the charge was false, and won its battle last month when state Attorney General George Jepsen cleared the think tank of any illegal involvement in the unions’ failed effort to ratify their contract concessions.
Connecticut Democrats appear to be following in-step with their liberal counterparts in Washington D.C. Remember how House and Senate Democrats wanted to “deem” a bill passed, just to get it passed? Remember Nancy Pelosi, on passing Obamacare: “We’ll go through the gate; if the gate’s closed, we’ll go over the fence; if the fence is too high, we’ll pole vault in; if that doesn’t work, we’ll parachute in…”
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Connecticut Democrats and their union buddies: If we don’t pass it the first time, we’ll change the rules so we can pass it the next time…then blame conservatives for not passing it the first time.
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