DONE
State Employees Rally
Photo by Steve Kotchko
Posted 8/22/11
The months-long struggle between the administration of Democratic Gov. Dannel Malloy and state employee unions to reach agreement on a wage and benefits concession deal to help balance the state budget came to a positive conclusion last week, when rank-and-file voters approved the $1.6 billion package. Though it’s a done deal, questions and controversy remain.
A key element of the deal is that all unionized state employees who were hit with layoff notices are supposed to get their jobs back. Malloy ordered the pink slips as a budgetary precaution because approval of the concessions was not assured. The deal was rejected in the first round of voting months ago. Malloy’s budget chief Ben Barnes said the return process has begun, but it could be September 1 or beyond before workers begin to return. Union leaders would like to see the process speeded up.
Also, one bargaining unit representing Correction Department supervisors voted “no” on the concessions, and under the agreement, that negative vote takes away the promise of job protection. Patrice Peterson, leader of the CSEA/SEIU state employee union said: “They did vote ‘no’, and some of the layoff notices will stay in place, but we also know some of our prisons are overcrowded, they’re collapsing, and we need to keep our citizens safe. We hope the Governor will keep that in consideration.” Translation: think twice about laying off these employees.
Complicating matters further, the State Police union rejected the wage portion of the concessions deal, thereby putting their job security on the line. Does Malloy really want to lay off state troopers? “They’re subject to layoffs,” claimed the guv’s senior advisor Roy Occhiogrosso. However, some observers speculated the administration would use savings from the overall concessions deal to prevent pink slips for troopers.
Beyond state employee status, there are all those threatened program cutbacks the Malloy administration floated, cuts that would have to be made if the labor concessions were not approved. Barnes said last Friday that most of the controversial proposals will be rescinded.
That means the threatened shutdown of DMV branches will not occur, cuts in service on the Shoreline East rail line will not be implemented, and the historic ferries that ply the Connecticut River from Rocky Hill to Glastonbury, and Chester to Hadlyme will continue to run. Many citizens impacted by these and other potential cuts may breathe a sigh of relief, but some undoubtedly remain miffed—thinking they were played as pawns—in the fight between Malloy and state employees.
Union leaders are pleased that workers jobs have been saved, but they are not ready to kiss and make up with Malloy, the guy they backed in the 2010 gubernatorial race.
Asked about the relationship with the Guv, Sal Luciano, head of AFSCME Council 4 said: “I think it would be rocky right now, very rocky. We did work very hard to get this Governor elected, and we’re happy we have an agreement, but it’s been a rough road.”
Luciano and other leaders said Malloy’s initial demand of $2 billion in labor concessions over two years was shocking to many state workers who believed they’d already made big concessions in past administrations, when lawmakers and governors needed to patch up a deficit-plagued state budget. Once a deal was initially agreed to, union leaders feel the administration’s desires for healthcare changes and other concessions failed to translate well.
Commenting on why the pact was at first rejected, then eventually accepted, Luciano explained: “I think it was the confusion. A lot of people didn’t go from ‘no’ to ‘yes’, most of the members went from being confused to ‘yes’.”
Meanwhile, the partisan battle over the validity of supposed savings in the concessions package remains in high gear. Republicans lawmakers claimed from the beginning, that when Malloy backed off his initial demand for $2 billion in concessions, and accepted a $1.6 billion dollar package, that figure was a concocted total designed to save face.
Republicans charged that many of the elements in the deal represent phantom savings that will never be achieved. State House Minority Leader Lawrence Cafero (R-Norwalk) said it’s hypocritical for Malloy to “celebrate” the passage of the concessions deal when the true balance of the state budget remains in doubt.
“Connecticut is growing a little weary of these so-called celebrations of the same budget ‘victory’,” said Cafero. “The one certainty we’ve had all along is that we’ve got a $1.5 billion tax increase, and people are struggling,” said the GOP leader. Cafero contends as much as $600 million of the supposed concessions savings have not been verified.
In applauding passage of the labor deal, Malloy maintained his demand for concessions was responsible for the final result, and said his critics arguments are way off base.
“Some people suggested that the (first) rejection of the (labor) agreement proved that (state government) was too difficult for me to navigate, and that I was naïve to think we could implement real change,” said Malloy. “Obviously, they were wrong—very, very wrong.”
Cafero thinks the Governor’s political ego should not be the focus in the aftermath of the concessions agreement. “I have to remind the Governor, it’s not all about him,” said the GOP leader, “because if he can’t achieve the savings, someone’s got to pay the bill, and he ain’t the guy—it’s the taxpayers who’ve already been hit up.”
If Cafero is right, and the savings don’t materialize as planned, how does the state balance the budget? “I think the Governor is not concerned as to whether it materializes, (because) he believes the incredible tax increases that he put through will yield enough revenue to make up the difference,” said the GOP leader.
The Governor refused to let his critics take the joy out of final approval of the labor concessions deal, calling the pact a “historic agreement that represents the most fundamental restructuring of the relationship between state government and state workers that has ever occurred in Connecticut.” Malloy claims the deal will save taxpayers $21.5 billion over the next 20 years.
In any case, the labor agreement is a done deal—sort of. For state employees, it erases layoffs and pink slips and offers job protection for four years. For lawmakers, it prevents painful cuts in state programs and services that legislators in both parties did not want to see. For Gov. Malloy, it means he can put a big check mark of accomplishment on his gubernatorial “to do” list, no small feat for an impatient freshman governor whose best laid plans have been slowed by the chronically ill state and national economies.