Malloy: New concession deal with unions possible within 48 hours

I voted Yes before. But this is not right. I will vote no now. Malloy really has shown his true colors. Does not care about anyone. Cutting services to special needs kids really hit me hard since I have one. Cant wait till your term is up so i can vote against whoever runs against you. And to think I voted for you. Such a bully his way or highway.

The popular majority of voters in 2000 voted for Al Gore, but George Bush won the electoral vote and the election. The rules were not changed for the majority of voters. What's done is done and the membership should live with the results. It just shows how corrupt the Union Leadership is when they don't get the results they want. I'm not a state employee but I hope every member votes no. The leadership needs a good housecleaning.

If by chance the second concession package is passed it will not solve the states fiscal mess. It's just going back to the old smoke and mirrors of the Rowland and Rell administrations. The only difference this time is that this package is on STEROIDS!

Who is telling the Truth?
People say they are union members; some say they voted for the concessions, but now will not.
I like to look back and see what people said before.
When I compare what they said back then with what they say now, it is all bull.
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So far none are being truthful. They were always against the union concessions.
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Some of us keep files and remember the naysayers.
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I am glad to read that there are other people who feel the same way about Dannel and this whole process. We were willing to accept whatever the outcome of the voting was but to change the rules because it wasn't the one you wanted is unacceptable. Watch out because there is no stopping them now and I can only guess what is next?

I disagree with most of you, something had to be done. No you shouldn't lend too much power to the largest union but the smaller unions had way too much power. Two unions I believe totaling approximately 2,250 (State Police and Judicial Marshal) could by themselves take down any potential ratification even if everyone else voted yes!!! That's insane!!

Don't forget that electorial colleges are based on population size and the way SEBAC was structured was certainly not. 15,000 AFSME union members had 1 electorial vote while 1,500 State Police officers had 1. The electorial college comparison is not apples to apples.

Also, I don't care what anyone says even the most modest of givebacks would be voted down because at any given moment there are at least 20% of the workforce that is selfish and think they are entitled despite the fact they are probably more often the laziest people in their agencies. This isn't a specific to government workers, I'd say this about any work environment!!!

The system made no sense as is, you want to say it still doesn't make sense that's another argument but it was certainly ripe for changing.

Some of you people voting no need to have your head's examined!! This is not just about you, it's also about 6500 people with families and bills to pay losing their jobs. It's about a ridiculous amount of state services being stopped. It's about the innocent high school athletes who are going to not be able to participate in high school sports for the next two years. Come on people, times are really bad right now and will only get worse for everyone if this deal doesn't go through. Stop being selfish and look at the big picture!!

Enlighten me, Steve.

Before, if any two little bargaining units were against a thing, they could vote it down. That power helped ensure that whatever the change was, all units had to be on board.

How is it the smaller bargaining units have more power now? I'm not saying you're wrong, just asking for a bit of illumination. What is it I haven't considered?

Also, I'm interested in reader's thoughts on using item 6 in the SEBAC bylaws (Bottom-Line Issues) to defeat the agreement, if they're so inclined.

To SteveHC,

1199 which is the second largest union will also take a very serious hit if the vote stands as it is.Right now AFSCME is a major problem if the rules stay as they are, and there is no way that this union should be allowed to continue to swing as much weight as it is. A lot of the no voters do not seem to understand that a lot of agencies will just collapse if things just stay as they are, or maybe they do understand, and they just do not care.

I agree with comments above by Bob E, Steve HC, Shoutout26, Freija, Voting Yes, and Skyreacher. It's time to put narrow self interest behind; it's time to quit being manipulated by the scare-tactics of union-bashing infiltrators. This concession deal is good for the great majority and also for the State.
Voting no would be foolish and vicious and negative.
Let's all work together for the common good! Unions ended child labor and brought us the eight hour work day (as opposed to 10-14 hours!).
Let's all do the right thing.
Vote yes.
Don't be swayed by the negative and manipulative propaganda from those who would destroy unions.

"Freeman" - For better or worse, SEBAC cannot dictate to its member unions exactly how they can or cannot conduct their business with their members. If SEBAC was an actual union, it would be a different story. But SEBAC isn't an actual union, it's just a *coalition* of independent unions.

I see most of the blogs on the Connecticut Mirror Website are from state workers. I also see that the times these blogs are posted are during normal working hours. How many of you are using state computers for your discussions and blogging on taxpayers time. How about doing it on your time and on your computers. Stop wasting the taxpayers money.

Thisis all senseless. even if the deal went through, as an accountant, there was no way it was worth $1.6 billion. Let's be honest - many people in corrections and the state police took their jobs so that they could retire after 20 years - now, the state wants to rescind the deal. If a private company in CT did this - Blumenthal would have been the first one suing them for bait and switch. It is time to take a stand - Malloy is doing the same thing BOE's do when they want more money - we will cut sports and music or give us more money. After all it is for the "children". The governor just bonded million sof dollars in unnecessary projects why? To pay back political favors.

@ skyreacher -- Might it have been me you were thinking of on the 20% pension reduction?

I'll be happy to explain. I never meant to leave you hanging. I'd just appreciate it if you don't jump all over me if you don't consider my issue worthy of a no vote. I would never criticize anyone else for their vote. Not you or anyone else. Please don't criticize me for mine.

I began my career with the state 25 years ago, just missing Tier I by a couple of years. Never paid it much mind. Tier I people I looked up to and respected kept leaving, one by one, as they reached their retirement age. It's 55 for Tier I. Good for them. A couple of decades passed, while I kept my nose to the grindstone, doing my job the best I could. Eventually, thoughts of my own retirement occurred. As I began to consider it, I realized that through diligent saving and living a frugal lifestyle, I could probably retire under Tier II Early Retirement, even though the anticipated pension would be less than half of what my Tier I colleagues had been receiving. I have personal reasons for wanting to leave state service early, it's not because I don't like my work. But the desire to leave early is there, nonetheless, and the plan has been in place for quite a while.

After 25 years, no pension plan has ever been modified for existing employees -- not Tier I, not Tier II, and not Tier IIa. None. The pension promise was about as solid as my expectation to get paid every two weeks for the work I do. That's as it should be.

Even under Tier II normal retirement, the pensions are but a fraction of Tier I pensions. Under Tier II Early Retirement, the anticipated pension would be roughly 30% less again than normal retirement. That includes the effect of the 3%/year penalty, the loss of 1.33%/year in the formula, and modest wage increases that could reasonably be expected over the the course of 5 years.

This agreement will take another ~20% off of that already reduced amount. Here's a representative example (not necessarily my personal numbers):

A 55 year old employee with 25 years of state service making $65,000/year is contemplating taking early retirement. Normal retirement for this person would be 60, with the minimum 25 years of service. Thus, this would be 5 years early. The Tier II Benefit Estimator comes up with an approximate pension of $19,100 annually. The benefit reduction in this example is about $3,371/year, or 15% of the $22,471 that would be possible without the reduction. That's the 3% per year "reduction" the agreement talks about.

Now let's compare that pension to the normal retirement version. At normal retirement, the employee would have 5 more years of credited service, adding 1.33% per year to the calculation. Additionally, some combination of increments and general wage increases could be expected to average ~ 2% per year. (The actual agreement is more generous, if you discount the new 3% retiree health care trust fund contribution that the media seems to ignore anyway.) So besides more credited time (30 years), in 5 additional years this employee's 3-year average salary might grow to $70,500. Plug that into the estimator, and the estimated pension is $28,100.

The reduced early retirement pension is only 68% of the normal retirement pension. That seems more like a 6.4% per year total reduction. Under existing penalties.

Factor in the proposed doubling of the early retirement reduction under SEBAC 2011, and the early retirement pension drops to $15,700. That's $15,700 vs. $28,100. At a little more than half the normal retirement pension 5 years later, that's almost a 9% per year penalty. So even according to SEBAC's own propaganda, an early retiree will be subsidizing the plan at a rate of almost 1.5% under the new agreement.

Now you did the math, and you found that the $15,700 under SEBAC 2011 is only 17.8% less than the $19,100 under the original, promised pension plan. True. But SEBAC 2011 isn't finished whacking early retirees yet. Don't forget the 10% insurance penalty payment that must be paid every year until normal retirement age is reached for a 25 year employee leaving 5 years early. We were told the per person premium is currently about $850/mo. It will surely be more that that in 10 years, but let's use that. At 10%, that's another $1,020/year less. So the real comparison is between $14,680 vs. $19,100.

That's actually a 23% reduction from what was expected under the promised pension plan.

Then there's the 20% COLA reduction...

Then there's the fact that once the seal on the pension plan is broken the first time, getting into it again will be a trivial matter...

Sorry. The vote stands at "NO" for me. (This is why I became perturbed.)

--perturbed

Well sais Freija! It seems you are a level headed honest working person who appreciates what they have. These are benefits not entitlements.Vote yes !! Keep the jobs and suck it up!

"perturbed" - I wasn't referring to the "state email" situation, which is all that Jepson was to deal with, nor have I ever even mentioned that particular issue in any of my posts. And my "claim" is far from ridiculous... worldwide, the political and financial elite, corporations, ultra-wealthy and right-wing extremist organizations have been trying to gut government employees' wages and kill off their defined-benefit pensions for years, because to do so benefits THEM financially. Most recently, their efforts in these regards have been stepped up considerably and they've been using electronic and other mass media to reframe the "public debate" such that public opinion has been turning increasingly against us - even though we've been paying our fair share into the pension funds while our employers have NOT. It's really a swindle, and it's going on worldwide. What makes government employees most vulnerable is that our elected officials can choose to pass legislation that removes or further limits our collective bargaining rights, and/or can choose to "modify" our pension benefits even MORE severely than this proposed agreement does. I've NEVER claimed that it is ONLY because of right-wing propaganda directed at CT state employees (directly and indirectly) that the agreement wasn't ratified the first time... in fact I've REPEATEDLY stated that there are many state employees who voted no because they believe that it was in their own best interest - correctly or incorrectly - to do so.

I don't begrudge you for voting no, and I fully understand your personal circumstances. But I ALSO believe that if we do not ratify this agreement, the LEGISLATURE would be *very* likely to make our lives - AND our pensions (including *yours*) - even WORSE than this SEBAC "agreement" does. It sucks all around, but I think that at this point in time, given the circumstances, that ratification makes the most sense in terms of strategy.

To perturbed,

You may have a valid reason for voting no if you need to retire early. For me, I actually considered it but now realize that I cannot do it. My environment is with DDS, and if you read the article about the families and respite centers, you can get an idea of what is going on with us. Connecticut is in deep trouble right now, and we are pretty much on life support, and you might have to look at the overall picture. Malloy is doing stupid things with our money, but the politicians are always going to be like that, and because of some of the programs he has put on the chopping block, I will keep my thoughts about him to myself, because if I said what I really thought, they would kick me off of this board.However, there have been a lot people on this board who seem like they just voted no because they felt that we should have no concessions at all, and in this envoronment that just is not realistic. Your situation is your own, but for me my situation is not just my own because there is a lot of crap that is going with DDS, that will effect a lot of people.To be honest, a no vote just because people think that we should not have to do concessions is not acceptable to me.

Thanks skyreacher for your tempered reply.

As I've said, I agree with you -- the vast majority of state employees agree with you -- that major concessions were/are warranted this time around.

A re-negotiated contract that left the Tier II/IIa pensions intact and replaced the FY 2012/2013 savings from the pension changes with furlough days, it would be an immediate "yes" for me.

The new Tier III being proposed was estimated to deliver twice as much long term savings to the state as adding 3 years to the retirement age and doubling the early retirement penalties combined. They really did overreach on the pension changes. Too drastic.

Let's turn this discussion sideways: Is it actually reasonable or responsible for Malloy to arbitrarily decide that an immediate shift to GAAP is needed? Isn't that really what the pension revisions are funding? Couldn't a reasonable transition period be implemented?

Malloy's insistence that we wipe out the last 20 years of fiscal irresponsibility in one year seems unreasonable and unnecessary. Especially if the Tier II and Tier IIa promises need to be trampled to do it.

--perturbed

This is all distraction to the solution:

FAiR, EQUITABLE, PROGRESSIVE TAXATION.