Continuing a fiat governance style that is right out of the Obama playbook, Democratic and Working Families Party Governor Dannel Malloy issued two executive orders yesterday that will force daycare providers and home healthcare workers in Connecticut to join unions.
The orders, his ninth and tenth since taking office in January, will force the state’s 4,000 daycare providers to add over $1 million in dues to union coffers, and remove the right to secret ballot election for these workers by instituting a card check process.
The governor said:
“I have said repeatedly that I believe in the rights of workers to organize and collectively bargain, and personal care attendants and family child care providers are often-times the hardest-working, and lowest-paid workers in our job force,” said Governor Malloy. “These executive orders will enable them to begin informal conversations with DSS and the Workforce Council immediately on quality-of-life issues, with an eye toward establishing formal collective bargaining rights in the future. It is important that those who care for both our youngest and oldest citizens receive equitable pay and workforce security.”
According to Zachary Janowski, Mr. Malloy came through for the unions where the Connecticut legislature failed. A bill that would have converted “family child care providers” into state employees, for the purpose of collective bargaining, had been introduced in the state Senate, but never made it to a vote.
The New England Health Care Employees Union, District 1199, SEIU, which represents nursing home workers, affirmed the governor’s order as “a first step toward solving workforce shortages.”
Despite the fact that a recent Quinnipiac poll showed that 48% of Connecticut voters disapprove of the way Governor Malloy is handling his job, he continues in his arrogant manner, referring to himself as the “anti-Christie,” achieving even higher levels of power by providing political “cover” for the Democrats in the state legislature, who awarded him even greater authority over the state budget over the summer, when it was unclear if the state employees’ unions would agree to concessions.
Gov. Malloy drew controversy as well for his “First Five” program, supposedly a plan to bring new private sector jobs into Connecticut. Mr. Malloy touted all kinds of cash and tax incentives to the “first five” companies who relocated to the state. Well, he got his “first five,” but the problem is all five companies were already located in the state. So, essentially, taxpayer money went to five companies, already in Connecticut, that were “picked” by Gov. Malloy. Anyone for yet more “crony capitalism?”
Like his apparent idol, President Obama, Dannel Malloy’s governance by fiat style seems to be landing him nowhere. Despite the largest tax increase on citizens in the history of the state, including retroactive income tax hikes, his pandering to state employee unions is leading the state into the financial red zone.
What more will it take, Connecticut citizens?