Losing political clout
Even longtime supporters
take unions to task for rejection savings and concession agreement
By Susan Haigh Associated Press
Published: Monday, July 4, 2011 8:08 AM EDT
HARTFORD — State employee
unions might not just lose 6,500 jobs after rejecting a labor savings and
concessions agreement.
They’re also risking their considerable clout with the General Assembly.
The Democrat-controlled General Assembly long has had a reputation of being
friendly to organized labor. But after the deal failed last week, some reliable
allies chastised workers for shooting down a package that included a three-year
wage freeze and pension and health care changes, but also guaranteed future pay
raises, protection of health and retirement benefits, and a four year,
no-layoff promise.
Sen. Edith G. Prague, D-Columbia, the veteran co-chairwoman of the Labor and
Public Employees Committee, told reporters she felt state employees “were out
of their minds” and “stupid” not to ratify the deal.
Union leaders say they felt the sting from lawmakers this
week when the Senate passed a bill on a bipartisan vote to roll back some of
the workers’ future benefits.
Gov. Dannel P. Malloy, who’s a Democrat, and Senate
Democratic leaders echoed minority Republican leaders in saying that, with or
without a concessions agreement, some benefit changes must be made to fix a
retirement system that’s financially untenable.
The House of Representatives didn’t vote on the bill, though it reserved the
right to do so later, but the message from lawmakers was heard by union
leaders.
“Two weeks ago, I didn’t think this could look like Wisconsin, and all of a sudden it feels a
little bit like that,” said Salvatore Luciano,
executive director of the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal
Employees Council 4.
Luciano was referring to the controversial and
heavily protested new Wisconsin law that
strips many of the collective bargaining rights of almost all public employees.
Luciano said many of Connecticut’s unionized state employees
believe they’ve been unfairly blamed for the state’s financial problems, and he’s unsure whether the current rift between
the workers and lawmakers will become a long-term problem.
“I hope it doesn’t,” he said. “I hope reasonable people get to together and
work this out.”
Mark Lucey, a lieutenant with the Department of
Correction who supported the labor savings and concessions agreement, said he’s
seen firsthand the fruits of good relations with lawmakers, crediting Prague for pushing
legislation that allowed Correction Department captains and lieutenants to
unionize.
He’s particularly concerned that the unions’ bond with lawmakers has been
damaged.
“One would assume that maybe there is some damage done, but we just hope it’s
not catastrophic,” he said. “We hope it’s something that we can hopefully
repair.”
Union leaders are expected on Tuesday to announce a plan to somehow reach a
deal and stop the layoffs.
Lawmakers and Malloy had high expectations that a labor deal could be reached
earlier with the state’s 54,000 unionized workers.
In early May, against the wishes of the minority Republicans and some
Democrats, they passed a two-year, $40.1 billion budget that left a $1.6
billion hole for the labor savings.
Malloy warned at the time that layoffs would be necessary if a deal wasn’t
reached, and said he wouldn’t raise taxes beyond the $2.6 billion already in
the two-year budget.
Even though 57 percent of the voting members supported the agreement, it failed
because it was rejected by four out of 15 unions.
At least 14 out of 15 member unions must vote to support any changes to the
20-year health and retirement benefit agreement that’s in place until 2017,
under the rules of the State Employees Bargaining Agent Coalition.
SEBAC leaders have ruled out voting again on the old deal, saying that would be
offensive and unfair to members who voted no. But Luciano
said changes could be made that satisfy both the members and Malloy, though the
governor has said he won’t renegotiate the agreement.
Matthew O’Connor, a SEBAC spokesman, said the leaders’ top priority is to stop
the layoffs, saying they’d be devastating to the workers, their families, state
services, and the state economy. But he said they also want to make amends with
the lawmakers and ensure that labor-friendly Connecticut won’t start looking like other
states that have gone to battle with their public employee unions.
“It’s clear that (lawmakers) were expecting the solution to have been put in
place by now, and they were expecting this agreement to pass,” he said.
“What we’re telling them is we’re confident we’re going to come up with a
resolution. It’s not as fast as everyone wanted, but we’ll get there.”