Pact's rejection frays the bonds between organized labor and Democrats
Brian Lockhart, Staff Writer
Updated 04:39 p.m., Saturday, June 25, 2011
Can organized labor ever push its Democratic allies too far? Connecticut may be on the verge of finding out.
Last week's defeat of a $1.6 billion concessions package Gov. Dannel P. Malloy and legislative leaders were counting on to balance the state's two-year budget is straining Democrats' relationship with their union base.
"It was just incredibly stupid to vote `no,' " said veteran Rep. Bob Godfrey, D-Danbury, who has praised state workers for past givebacks that others have criticized as too little. "I'm viscerally angry at the situation ... They've been so helpful in the past in stepping up when we've had significant economic and fiscal problems. I expected them to do the same."
The clearest evidence of a growing rift came Friday when the office of Sen. President Donald Williams, D-Brooklyn, released an email advising Democratic senators to return to the Capitol this week for a special session to plug the $1.6 billion budget hole.
"The failure to ratify by state employees does more harm to them and the cause of labor than anything their enemies could possibly achieve," Williams wrote. "It's unbelievable that they don't understand that."
And Malloy, who owes his November election to labor and has prided himself on winning concessions without going to war with state workers, was declining further negotiations Friday and promising to immediately lay off 7,500 state employees.
"Hopefully this will get worked out, but ... it's a kick in the teeth to Democrats who were really trying to avoid the kind of outcomes in states like Wisconsin and Ohio," said Scott McLean, a political science professor at Quinnipiac University, referring to states where steep labor concessions were passed and unions vilified by the GOP-dominated government. "After all the things Malloy has done -- to not behave like the Republicans did in those states and really stick it to unions -- this is the thanks he gets."
It does not help that many believe the deal, which included a four-year promise of job security and guaranteed future raises in return for a two-year pay freeze and modest pension and health care changes, should have been impossible to refuse.
"They have such a great package," said Sen. Edith Prague, D-Columbia, co-chair of the Legislature's Labor and Public Employees Committee and a longtime ally of state unions. "They got the best that any unions could ask for, and what do they do? They vote it down. How stupid and selfish can you be."
Her co-chairman, Rep. Zeke Zalaski, D-Southington, a private-sector union leader, in May told Hearst Connecticut Media Group, "My members would jump through hoops to get that agreement."
Prague fears if the concessions package is not salvaged, its defeat will result in efforts to eliminate collective bargaining.
"The public is angry as it is," she said. "They say state employees have too much. They say in the private sector, `I wish I had the security state employees had.' They're making themselves look bad all over the place."
A June poll by Quinnipiac University found 35 percent of respondents thought the governor's $1.6 billion concessions deal with the unions was "about right" and 36 percent of respondents "too little."
Leaders of the 45,000 State Employees Bargaining Agent Coalition, who negotiated the deal with Malloy, attempted to minimize the extent to which their traditional alliance with Democrats has been ruptured. Their spokesmen, Matt O'Connor and Larry Dorman, spent much of last week emphasizing that around 60 percent of voting members backed the concessions but fell short of SEBAC's high 80 percent approval requirement for ratification.
They have also argued outside anti-labor conservative groups and even some state managers may have purposefully spread misinformation about aspects of the $1.6 billion deal, tainting the results. That view suggests many workers who rejected the pact inaccurately concluded they would be shepherded into a health care plan that would offer them lower coverage at higher premiums.
"We do feel that outside forces and influences ... absolutely had a negative impact on the process," Dorman said Friday.
Others said that state employees who voted to reject the pact felt they could get a better deal down the road or that this set of concessions was not the last they would be asked to swallow.
Malloy Friday told reporters that it was unfortunate that under SEBAC's ratification process, "the majority does not rule."
Godfrey agreed, saying it is extraordinary to require an 80 percent super-majority to back concessions.
"It's a minority that's driving this, not the majority and certainly not leadership," he said.
Tom Swan of the progressive Connecticut Citizens Action Group said Williams' email "represents an overreaction to the situation."
"One of the things about the budget process up until this point is people for the most part have been able to deal with each other in a respectful manner," Swan said. "I'm hopeful we'll continue to be able to do that going forward."
Swan argued that not only were many state workers prepared to sacrifice but that they did so knowing Democrats had also raised taxes on them -- the middle class -- to close the deficit.
Asked if he was let down by organized labor, House Speaker Christopher Donovan, D-Meriden, who is weighing a congressional bid, sounded a different tone than Williams.
"I don't want to talk about feelings right now. We have a problem, we need to resolve the problem," Donovan said. "I know people are disappointed ... We don't want to criticize the large majority that voted for the agreement. I would like to accentuate the positive and encourage those employees to find a way to move forward and balance this budget."
But McLean said ultimately the public will not differentiate between pro-concessions and anti-concessions employees.
"Malloy has really stuck his neck out to get this kind of deal, and it doesn't matter if 60 percent voted for it," McLean said. "It's really going to come across as the unions were not willing to share the sacrifice."
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