June 30, 2014
From: The Federation of
Connecticut Taxpayer Organizations
Contact: Susan Kniep, President
Website:
http://ctact.org/
Email: fctopresident@aol.com
Telephone: 860-841-8032
Courts Pummel Public Sector
Unions!
The court cases highlighted below could have a deleterious
impact on Public Sector Unions throughout the Country to
include Connecticut.
****************
What Now Connecticut?
Today’s court findings protecting Illinois home health
aides from being forced to pay dues to a union they do not wish to join
will have an impact on Connecticut as explored today by Hugh McQuaid of CTNewsJunkie.com in an article captioned
What Does
Personal Home Care Worker Decision Mean for Connecticut?
Hugh McQuaid writes: In a ruling that
could affect Connecticut unions, the Supreme Court found Monday that personal
care attendants in Illinois
are not “full-fledged” state employees and can not be compelled to pay public
sector union dues.
The justices ruled 5-4 in Harris v. Quinn that home health
care workers in Illinois
who are paid through Medicaid but work for private individuals are not subject
to the law which requires public sector workers to pay unions for their
representation. That law had clear boundaries in that it applied only to public
sector workers, Justice Samuel Alito wrote in the majority opinion.
“Extending those boundaries to encompass partial-public
employees, quasi-public employees, or simply private employees would invite
problems,” he wrote.
The Illinois case will have
ramifications here Connecticut,
where home care attendants voted in 2012 to have SEIU District 1199 represent
them in collective bargaining with the state under a similar
arrangement.
The process was put in motion by Gov. Dannel
P. Malloy through an executive order. The order was controversial to some and
challenged in a lawsuit that claimed the process amounted to the forced
unionization of some workers. The lawsuit was unsuccessful after the
legislature codified and expanded the executive orders. Continue reading at …. http://www.ctnewsjunkie.com/archives/entry/what_does_personal_home_care_worker_decision_mean_for_connecticut/
**************
Supreme Court rules against
unions in Illinois case Chicago
Sun-Times - June 30, 2014 Sun-Times wires @Suntimes WASHINGTON — The
Supreme Court dealt a blow to public sector unions Monday, ruling that
thousands of home health care workers in Illinois cannot be required to pay
fees that help cover the union's costs of collective bargaining. Continue
reading at …. http://politics.suntimes.com/article/washington/supreme-court-rules-against-unions-illinois-case/mon-06302014-911am The full opinion is at the following web
link http://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/13pdf/11-681_j426.pdf
In June, 2014 we learned that California Teacher Tenure
Ruled Unconstitutional : NPR Ed .... As ERIC WESTERVELT notes in his article “A California judge today ruled the
state's laws governing teacher tenure and the firing of public school teachers
unconstitutional, saying they interfere with the state's obligation to provide
every child with access to a good education. “The plaintiffs in the case, Vergara v. California,
argued that the tenure system for public school teachers in California verges on the absurd, and that
those laws disproportionately harm poor and minority students. In his ruling,
Judge Rolf M. Treu agreed.” Continue reading at …. http://www.npr.org/blogs/ed/2014/06/10/320726651/california-teacher-tenure-ruled-unconstitutional
In April, 2014 we learned that Wisconsin's Collective-Bargaining
Limits Upheld in Court. Jason Stein of McClatchy News wrote “Dealing unions yet another legal defeat, a federal
appeals court Friday upheld Gov. Scott Walker's tight limits on collective
bargaining for most public employees.
“The unanimous ruling by the three-judge panel upheld a September
decision by U.S. District Judge William Conley in Madison that the law known as
Act 10 does not infringe on the constitutional rights of government workers to
freedom of speech and association and equal protection under the law”. Continue
reading at …. http://www.governing.com/news/headlines/mct-anti-union-law-upheld.html
In August, 2013 Michigan Unions Lose Right-to-Work
Challenge - Governing wrote The
state appeals court ruled 2 to 1 that the state's right-to-work law applies to
35,000 unionized state employees, rejecting a lawsuit filed by labor unions.
The measure went to court after questions were raised because the Michigan Civil Service
Commission, which sets compensation for state employees, has separate powers
under the state constitution. The law prohibits forcing public and private
workers to pay union dues or fees. http://www.governing.com/news/state/michigan-unions-lose-right-work-challenge.html
*****************
On Jan 3, 2011, STEVEN
GREENHOUSE wrote in the New York
Times Strained States Turning to Laws to Curb Labor Unions Therein, he noted “Faced with growing budget deficits and
restive taxpayers, elected officials from Maine to Alabama, Ohio to Arizona,
are pushing new legislation to limit the power of labor unions, particularly
those representing government workers, in collective bargaining and
politics”. Continue reading at
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/04/business/04labor.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0
And it now appears that those challenging the unions are
having some success.
However, could similar successes be realized in Connecticut where public
sector unions are driving up a myriad of state taxes and local property
taxes? Only if state and local elected
public officials are more concerned for the fiscal climate of their towns and
state as opposed to how much money they will be bankrolled and supported at the
polls by unions in an election.
Currently, approximately 80% to 85% of property taxes in Connecticut are
dedicated to financing personnel related expenses for Town and Board of
Education employees. This includes
wages, overtime, pensions, healthcare, etc.
These costs are driven by state mandates to include Collective
Bargaining and Binding Arbitration Laws which also impact State employee
unions.
Where does Governor Malloy stand on the issue of unions,
etc? Governor Malloy is very clear in
his position as noted on the state’s website at http://www.governor.ct.gov/malloy/cwp/view.asp?A=11&Q=479456 where a 2011 news article is highlighted in which the
reporter notes …. “With a tentative labor concession deal in hand, Gov. Dannel P. Malloy delivered his first red-meat speech as
governor Monday night, proclaiming himself a proud son of organized labor and
defender of a social safety net woven by generations of Democrats dating to
FDR.”
Failure to abolish or reform Connecticut’s Binding Arbitration
or Collective Bargaining Laws will result in more headlines such as the
following as taxpayers clearly understand where the money is coming from every
time the Governor, the State Legislature, Mayors, and Local Legislative Bodies
take from the taxpayers’ pockets the money which they commit to putting in the
pockets of public sector employees. And
unions are also very generous in return as noted by Yankee Institute in their
publication captioned “What will state-employee unions spend on politics?
“Money could determine with whom they'll negotiate
“Connecticut’s
public employee unions are big players in the state’s elections, spending millions on their political operations, which may affect 2014 races”. http://www.raisinghale.com/2014/06/19/government-unions-millions-politics-again/
And until changes are made to Collective Bargaining and
Binding Arbitration Laws in our State, more headlines such as the following
will help to define our State.
The Day - 'A financial time bomb': State pension system
is ... one of the country's
most underfunded Jan 2014 Retired Connecticut state employees received the highest
annual pensions in the country in 2011, despite contributing less out of their
paychecks than the national average. That meant
the state's pension system was the second-most underfunded in the United States, in worse shape than every other
state's except Illinois'.
Connecticut
would have to allocate about $70 million in additional funds each year for 18
years to close the funding gap in the major state employees' pension system,
according to actuarial estimates. And that wouldn't address the $11 billion gap
in the teachers' retirement system, which would need tens of millions of
dollars more every year during that same period. To demonstrate the size of the problem: It would cost each
man, woman and child in the state $12,157 to close the $44 billion funding gap
afflicting the state's two largest pension systems and its two retiree health
benefit programs. Since the mid-1990s, the state rarely has met its required
contribution, although it did so in 2013.
Nonpartisan Analysts Predict 2.8 Billion Dollar Budget Deficit for
2016 - 2017
WalletHub Report: Connecticut Ranks
As 4th Worst State To ...
To Be A Taxpayer March, 2014
Nutmeggers say higher taxes, cost
of living forcing them to ... rethink living in Connecticut
Unfunded Retiree Healthcare Liabilities Grew By $3.3 ... Billion From 2011-2013
How Did Rich Connecticut Morph Into One Of America's Worst Performing Economies?
Connecticut's struggle with profits
Connecticut's Unfunded Pension Liabilities: A clear and ... present danger
Analysts: Malloy’s budget for Connecticut never was balanced