Malloy ups pressure on unions as concession vote nears conclusion

Interesting that it's always a "no" voter that's always telling everyone else how to vote...

I am sorry but i will not vote no because one tells me to or because employees have been "demonized". However, Should government know that statements being made about layoffs have allready been "made clear"-hundreds of times???? We know the outcome if we vote no. We know the outcome if we vote yes. Threats and reminders are not necessary. I think that it is our unions jobs to tell us what our rights are as contracted employees yet they dont really say much about layoffs. I have read many of the unions websites and consider myself up on all this stuff. Not one union that i have read up on tells their members "IF YOU VOTE NO, YOU WONT HAVE LAYOFF PROTECTION". I just wonder if both parties truly want this to pass or not. Our own governor, cant lay low and let people make up their own minds. Why? Because he doomed this just as much as some union leaders. Place a gun to our heads. I think no matter what employees do, we will always be made out to look like greedy tyrants. Malloy and Company-I dare you to actually try to say how much you value state employees and their service. You want to make a mark on your run as governor? Try saying something nice-you will be the first governor in history! There you go, what a concept. Sorry, I am just so sick of this............

Im a state employee thats still on probation I got my layoff notice thurs so my last day is august 25 we vote on the 15th I was told that weather this deal goes threw or not im out of a job so their basically keepin me around long enough to get my vote.but thats not even my biggest issue I make 35k ayear basically just gettin by and I read all these post about how malloy is this and malloy is that vote no. lets stop playing games and be real 95% of u make 3 times as much as I do and are well off and the real reason you wanna vote no is because u want your raises so vote no and get ur couple extra bucks thats gonna get taken in taxes anyway just kno that ur couple extra dollers costed me my life as well as thousands of other employees that are in the same boat as me......Ps if they took the senority rule away I wonder how many of you would still have such strong oppinions and would really still vote no... This is why we will never get anywere as a society because I is always more important then we....

"A person is bullied when he or she is exposed, repeatedly and over time, to negative actions on the part of one or more other persons, and he or she has difficulty defending himself or herself." That is how I am feeling right now, how about you? And that is why I changed my vote from yes to no!

2 things for Jen:

1. If the overall SEBAC deal goes down, so do the wage concessions/layoff protection (even if that passes) because they are tied together.

2. If this deal goes down, collective bargaining (along with binding arbitration) will most likely be legislated away. "Taking your chances in 2017", will put us in the same place as NJ - The legislature at that time will pass whatever they want and you will have no choice but to grin and take it...

To ETalon;
you say "Wow, I am glad to know that a 'No!' vote will solve all of the issues faced by state employees."

comeon, nothing is going to solve all of the issues faced by state employees. Especially THIS unfair concession deal.

By voting no, we will at least have our pensions intact while we fight antother day.
Remember, we are still DUES PAYING UNION MEMBERS.

If the legislature wants to remove collective bargaining, than so be it. I really don't think many would mind at this point.

Jen, the economy will NOT be better in 2017 and if we don't ratify this agreement - ESPECIALLY the pension and health insurance portion, we will NOT have the opportunity to negotiate a successor agreement with the State because the State will be dictating to us what our pension and health insurance will be... and what they dictate will be *far* worse than what the TA offers for both. Voting no, especially to the pension and health insurance provisions, just doesn't make any sense.

Statezilla, what you say you're going to do is what is known as "cutting off your nose to spite your face." It's not rational, and will only harm you financially a LOT more than the TA will - even on the wage issue. When your unit's current contract is up and your unit winds up going to arbitration, even if the State's last best offer is a pay CUT (of, say, 3-5%) an arbitration panel could very well side with the State given the times being what they are... and even if it didn't the Legislature could turn around and vote to reject the panel's recommendations. Voting "no" is voting for nothing other than a BIG contract loss.

"...we believe a positive result on the proposed contract in Connecticut, just like each Senate district we take back, is one important step in the right direction."

- Marty Beil, executive director of Council 24 of the Wisconsin State Employees Union, and Michael Thomas, president of the SEIU Wisconsin State Council.

The Wisconsin unions are recommending that CT state employees vote YES.

If you are reading any of the posts and you still are unsure about how to vote, I would urge you to do two simple things rely on facts, analysis based on facts, and lessons from history. First, please beware of hard sell posters who are just really arguing their opinions but state their opinions in such a manner that they want you to believe heir opinions are established facts. These posters want you to believe that they possess some type of special knowledge or power of prediction that they know for sure what will happen in politics and the economy in the future. If they did, they probably would not be spending as much time as they do trying to convince workers to vote they way they want them to vote. For example,a poster said "Jen, the economy will NOT be better in 2017 and if we don't ratify this agreement - ESPECIALLY the pension and health insurance portion, we will NOT have the opportunity to negotiate a successor agreement with the State because the State will be dictating to us what our pension and health insurance will be... and what they dictate will be *far* worse than what the TA offers for both. Voting no, especially to the pension and health insurance provisions, just doesn't make any sense." Everything this poster said in response to Jen is an opinion, there is not one statement of fact or even any factual analysis of any type.
Second, please do not forget history. You get poster like richsobi telling you should vote for this deal because it provide 4 years or job security and protects health care and retirement plans until 2022. We just had our health care and retirement plan that was supposed to be protected until 2017 reopened and changed in 2009. Now in 2011, the Governor seeks to change our health care and retirement again. SEBAC and legislators will not even promise that we are actually protected from having it reopened again before 2022. Recent history provides a more valuable source of information that is more reliable than one poster's opinion based on wishful thinking, naivete, or guesswork.
You should consider voting NO if you believe based on your review of the deal that: 1) the agreement asks veteran vested Tier II and IIa employees to give up way too much, 2) it does not ask active Tier I employees to give up enough; 3) it does not preclude the legislature from passing future legislation about collective bargaining, wages or benefits; 4) it does not preclude this or future Administrations or SEBAC from trying to reopen the agreement requesting more concessions; 5) if we vote YES we validate the unfair, undemocratic processes used to develop the agreement and set a horrible precedent for future “negotiations”; 6) the level of proposed layoffs is not realistically sustainable if the state is going to continue to provide vital services; 7) the state economy will be harmed greatly if the Governor follows through with proposed layoffs; 8) if the deal is voted down again, the Governor and SEBAC will have to reach another deal to fix the budget, avoid layoffs and economic harm to the state, and ensure vital services are provided; and 9) legislative borrowing and spending needs to be reduced or any wage and benefit give backs are futile gestures.
I regretfully, knowing the various risks of harm, believe we are better off rejecting the bad deal and corrupt process. We will really be harmed in the future if we show that we are willing accept this mess.

So Truth, is that your 'opinion'? Or are those facts? Where do you see that further negotiations 'have' to occur? All I see is a lack of willingness to negotiate and legislation already set to be voted on that will remove negotiations from the process.

You speak of facts: Fact - NJ has removed collective bargaining. Fact - NH has legislation in progress to remove collective bargaining. Fact - The MA legislature voted to remove collective bargaining for municipal workers (vetoed by the Governor, but I doubt that will happen in CT).

Now this is just my opinion, but I think that if you don't like this current deal, you will really hate the one that the legislature would pass with no input from state workers at all.

What we do agree on is that people should get all of the information that they can and form their own opinion. Don't vote one way or another just because I or anyone else says so...

@SteveHC -- Glad you brought up the pressure tactics from Wisconsin.

Let's take a closer look, shall we? On further inspection, we can see how clueless the SEIU shills from Wisconsin really are about the corrupt back-room deal that went down here in Connecticut.

First, here's the link: The Word From Wisconsin: Take The State Union Deal

Now, let's all have a laugh. Here's the choice excerpt:

"We are also inspired that Connecticut shows there is another road, a place where a crisis can be defeated by hard bargaining instead of by outright war.

We know reaching a tentative agreement wasn't easy. Your governor demanded a billion dollars per year in "savings and concessions," and it took months of struggle to reach a tentative agreement at all. As in Wisconsin, union members took to the streets, joining thousands of others in packing town halls to demand that this time multimillionaires would contribute toward solving the budget crisis, not just working families."

Hard bargaining"? "Months of struggle?

Are you laughing yet? We all sat on our hands for three months -- even our bargaining unit leaders -- waiting, hoping for just a crumb of information about what was happening in that undisclosed location where the SEBAC oligarchy was all making nice in their "air-tight" (according to Roy O.) little bubble with the Malloy administration. It never came. Our union presidents found out the terms of the SEBAC/Malloy state worker benefit-for-pooling deal that was struck after the fact, about the same time it went public. Yeah, sure, Malloy drove a hard bargain. But SEBAC wasn't about to let state employees' best interest stand in the way of their health care reform bill. For our part, yes, it was difficult to be so completely shut out of the negotiations. Somehow, I don't think Beil and Thomas from Wisconsin had that kind of struggle in mind.

The punch line comes when they talk about union members taking to the streets. Union members took to the streets?

Were they referring to the 100 angry union members that turned out to support their fellow state employee and her formal complaint filed with the Labor Relation Board against SEBAC for, among many other things, unauthorized bargaining on our wages without any representation from the individual bargaining units. Ha! Hardly a Wisconsin-style demonstration against a militant governor seeking to destroy collective bargaining. In Connecticut, SEBAC is out to destroy collective bargaining (or at least ignore it). These people are hilarious.

Really, who else would we march against? SEBAC cut this deal on their own and locked us out. In retrospect, we should have taken to the streets outside their air-tight bubble demanding to be let in. We just didn't know SEBAC was selling us out yet.

Live and learn...

So SteveHC, think that sales pitch from Wisconsin has any basis in reality?

(What it does show clearly is how very worried the SEBAC/Malloy Coalition® is that this shady deal will fail again.)

--perturbed

FACT = If it is ratified, there is nothing in the deal that guarantees that collective bargaining in CT will not be eliminated any legislative session after this deal passed or that any other types of legislative actions unfavorable to state workers will not be enacted. Oh, by the way, Wisconsin, New Jersey and the other states you keep siting to all have different facts and circumstances than those in CT. For example, we have a deal until 2017, the political parties comprising and controlling the legislatures in those states are different than here, etc. Every time we negotiate now, we will be threatened with layoffs and the end of collective bargaining. Let's focus on CT and what may actually happen here given the economic and political facts known here. The real issue we have to decide now is whether the benefits we get from collective bargaining are worth risking in light of what we are being asked to give up in the deal in terms of wages, health care and retirement benefits. At this point, based on my recent experiences with SEBAC negotiations in 2009 and now, I am willing to risk losing collective bargaining if the legislature is really serious about ending it. My union and SEBAC have demonstrated that I need to defend my pay and benefits because they will not.

I would like to comment on truth justice's comment:

1. Fact: So much No to the deal is because the senior employees are affected. It is not just screw the new guys, like Judy Rell's deal. It is more structure change vs temperary solution.

2. A lot of senior employees think the cut will not affect them. Vote no will screw the new guys.

3. Fact, if the whole deal went through, the union vote no will not have job security protection while other unit will have that.

4. If the deal get rejected, no one will negotiate again with union. They will find other ways. Voters are overwhelmingly behind them.

5. If it is not Malloy, it is Tom Foley, imagine that. That may become true after 4 years.If the deal is dead, even malloy stay in power, he will be forced to become foley.

6. Fact: A lot of CT voters want the deal to fail. so the state work force can be reduced. If service becomes horrible, malloy is not the one ct voters blame, it is the union they will blame.

7. Truth Justice's item 8 is not fact. It is his wishful thinking. Now the economy is worse, anything can happen. Do you want that uncertainty.

8. True, after 4 years, they may reopen the contract if the economy is bad. It is still better than after 6 years, we loose everything. And we have no control over that.

9. People seems to forget, the reason of the whole thing is the benefit is not sustanable. If we can't help solve that, others will find solution and force on us. Do you want to be part of solution so that you have a say in the whole thing or you want to have no saying it at all?

Truth Justice is obviously someone biased against the deal because of their own personal circumstance. Perturbed - "pressure tactics from Wisconsin"??? REALLY?! You *do* realize how crazy and irrational that sounds, right? Do you *really* think that ANYONE in Wisconsin has some sort of personal, vested interest in what happens in Connecticut? Do you REALLY think that anyone who reads your posts will believe or agree with you when you proclaim all "yes" voters to be "union shills" just because *you* say so?
Time for you guys to give it a rest already... no one's going to vote "no" just because YOU tell them to, and no one's going to vote "no" just because some other poster claims that's what *they're* going to do.

fail to approve the deal will push connecticut to the situation like wisconsin and NJ. Union will have fewer and fewer friends in legislation. And voters will send union enemies to there. That is garenteed.

The union members who vote No to protect their interest are trying to destroy it, instead. Please wake up!

From what I'm hearing everyone just expects this to be jammed through. I hope members remember the lack of leadership when it is time to dump the present union representatives. I don't blame the Governor for being angry with them, they never told him they are so out of touch with members. I bet you union members can hardly wait to hear who they will be making phone calls asking you to support in November. Odds, Even - YOU take their endorsement.... Let's see how fast the candidates run the other way this election. One thing is for sure their endorsement will be the kiss of death for some and what lacky is going to want to work on their behalf this time?

@ puzzled, SteveHC, and E. Talon - I don't have any bias other than I don't like being told that the TA is a good deal when it has lots of big dollar give concessions in it, that I should ignore all the dirty tactics used to shove down my throat, and that I am a selfish village idiot if I believe that we should reject this deal and make a public counteroffer to the Governor of a really great deal that will provide job security and preserve vital state service for the rest of his term.
I agree that the facts show that we are facing extraordinarily tough economic conditions and the state has serious debt issues. FACT = OUR DEBTS ARE CAUSED BY LEGISLATIVE SPENDING. That said, I don't believe that it is just and equitable to ask about 30,000 plus Tier II and IIa state workers to shoulder coming up with $1.6 billion of the $3 billion needed to address the state budget problem. In terms of addressing the long-term funding and viability of pensions and health care, a new Tier III with a 401k plan and new health care plan could address most of that issue. The bottom line is that THE LEGISLATURE NEEDS TO STOP SPENDING until WE ARE OUT OF DEBT!
There is never a good time for state workers to say "no" to the Governor or legislature because of the risk going forward that the Governor or legislature could take actions that are not favorable to state workers. The Governor and legislature will always have greater power than state workers. They have decision making power. We don't. The most workers can hope to do is influence politicians' decisions to get outcomes that are good or at least don't harm us. There is no need for our Governor or legislature to hurt state workers if they justly and reasonably vote against and reject this deal because state workers are willing to make a fair and reasonable deal that helps solve the budget problems the state faces.
If the deal fails and the Democratic Governor and legislature copycat the Republican-dominated reactionary conservative legislature of Wisconsin and some other states and scapegoat and screw state workers, it will be a huge mistake. First, it will not solve the spending problem. The root cause of all the state's problems is spending and raising taxes to pay expenses and debts plus interest. Second, state workers will not just forget this and let it go. They will get politically active and expose legislative spending past, present and future and help in political campaigns designed to get the incumbents out of office. After all the political hard ball this past special session, I don't believe that our legislature will take any actions to harm state workers, including eliminating collective bargaining. They know that everyone knows that spending on projects and programs is the problem. The focus on state workers and collective bargaining is a lame smoke screen distraction that everyone can see right through.
If the deal is rejected, the legislature could force the Governor to negotiate a deal with state workers to preserve state services for the next four years while the Governor restructures state agencies and reduces or eliminates positions through worker attrition and limits on new hiring.
Everyone is vulnerable right now, not just state workers. The Governor and the legislature really can't afford to do anything drastic, draconian or stupid toward state workers that will not solve the budget problem. Laying off state workers may cause further economic harm and reduce the quality and quantity of state services. The legislature really needs to focus on its spending practices and make some cuts to get us out of debt.

To Truth & Justice,

I may need to clarify the question from my last last post. In your post you wrote `Lets focus on CT and what may actually happen here given the economic and ploitical facts known here` I am particularly intersted in knowing what the known economic facts are right here , right now in Connecticut today.
If you miss this, then maybe perturbed can tell us all what they are.

"Truth Justice and Karma" - The big mistakes you make are believing that The Governor and/or Legislature actually care what you think - they DON'T - and that the State's budgetary and employee pension shortfalls are based *entirely* on excessive and/or "inappropriate" spending - they AREN'T.

The State's budgetary problems are PRIMARILY a result of decreased revenues due to the crappy economy, which is NOT going to improve for the foreseeable future. The pension changes that are in the SEBAC TA are dictated by funding shortfalls identified by the results of actuarial and accounting work that has been done on them. And the Governor and Legislature have both made it exceedingly clear through public statements that they have EVERY intention of responding to a failure to ratify the deal - and any resultant budget deficit - with thousands upon thousands of layoffs over the coming few years, additional agency and program budget cuts, substantially reducing employees' collective bargaining rights, and substantially increased privatization - REGARDLESS of what *you* think.

Your daily rants and tirades against the SEBAC TA don't even mean diddly-squat to Malloy or the General Assembly, and a failure to ratify the TA will NOT "force" them to "re-negotiate" the deal. Voting "no" is not "fighting" for ANYTHING other than the destruction of our collective bargaining rights and the loss of thousands upon thousands of jobs.

"Jen" - I don't know what you're talking about, as there is no "lawsuit" pending against SEBAC and/or any of its member unions regarding this SEBAC TA or anything related to it either directly or indirectly.

Shrinking our governmnet means shrinking its workforce too! If Malloy implements plan B, layoffs should happen! Why? Because, WE, the government, will just not need you all anymore. Privatizing, closing and merging Departments will take care of all that! Its a NO WIN for all of us who live in CT! But the budget will be balanced with everyones BLOOD, SWEAT and TEARS! Yours, mine and the rest of CT.

One thing that is fair to assume based on history and current events of 2011 is that we will always be threatened with layoffs, an end to collective bargaining and other downgrades in wage, retirement and health care plans, if we do not agree to whatever concessions the Governor and legislators demand we accept. When various threats are made, it is not possible to determine whether they are made as part of hard bargaining or are legitimate threats that will be executed. If we reject the deal, anything is possible. The Governor and legislature may carry out some, all or none of their threats. Knowing with 100% certainty that I will anger SteveHC, E. Talon and puzzled, I will state this FACT. NOBODY really KNOWS for sure WHAT WILL HAPPEN in the future. The question is whether we are going to approve a deal we hate because of these repeated threats that will be repeated time and time again now and in future negotiations.
If we don't say "NO" now under these circumstances, when will we ever say "No"? If my union brothers and sisters don't say "NO" now given what just happened in 2009 plus how this whole fiasco went down in 2011, I have zero confidence that they will ever say "NO" to any anything until we get to the point that workers can't afford to live on their state job wages alone. By then, any workers worth anything will be long gone.
The only thing state workers can control is what they think and what they do. Many state workers think the negotiation and voting processes were improper and the terms of the deal are harmful and don't solve the state's spending problem. For the many workers who think this, they think the right action to take is to Vote No. These workers, myself included, trust that the posturing will end and a reasonable deal that can actually produce verifiable dollar savings, help solve the spending problem by agreeing to limits on certain types of spending, provide job security and preserve vital state services can be reached. It breaks my heart when SteveHC, puzzled and E. Talon harshly admonish and ardently pronounce as if it is a fact carved in stone that, "There will be no more negotiations if the deal is rejected!" It may be political suicide for the Governor to adopt such an unreasonable, inflexible and fatalistic problem-solving approach. He needs to help solve the state's current short-term financial problems, not be adding to the state's problems by actually trying trying to carry out his delusional and excessively flawed Plan B.

To Truth justice, and Perturbed,

Truth, this is the third time I asked this question, and I am thinking that if you miss this, then maybe perturbed can add his thoughts. In your post you wrote, `Lets focus on Ct and what may actually happen here given the economic and political facts known here`.Can you elaborate on this and explain what the known facts are? To me the known economic facts in Ct are that unemployment is at around 9.2%, and that it jumps to around 15-16% once we factor in the number of people who have given up looking for work, and it is also a fact that right now people could care less about going without vital state services, because they have a lot more to worry about. Our government does not give a flying s about you, me or vital state services, and for proof of that I do not have to look any further than my own agency, DDS which seems intent on cutting just about every service we provide outside of basic daily living care for our consumers.
Perturbded , you seem to think that just about everything is one big Malloy/Sebac conspiracy theory, and in an article about our respite centers on the Ct News Junkie you posted that it was despicable that the part timers of the DDS respite centers were not laid off, and you seemed to imply that they were just being kept around so that they can go out and vote yes. To be honest, this was one of the most ridiculous things I have ever heard. These centers CANNOT operate with reduced staff, and that is the ONLY reason that they were not laid off, at least for now. These centers are places that parents of disabled children have come to depend on for the care of their children on a temporary basis, so they can get a break, and many of the children also have behavior issues along with the disability. The only thing that is dispicable about this, is that these places are on the chopping block. I am not sure if this will work or not but here is a link to the article, so others can see what perturbed had to say http://www.ctnewsjunkie.com/ctnj.php/archives/entry/respite_center_emplo...
I am not sure if that will provide a direct link, or if people will have to type it in to the address bar to find the article.
There are also numerous articles about Tom Foley and what he would have done as governor that totally tears apart the Malloy/Sebac coalition theory, and for a good one just go to the Ct mirror search engine and type in foley, balance budget without tax hikes, and it will take you directly to the artcle. In the article Foley clearly states that he was going to go after binding arbitration for both current and reired employees. He gave every indication that he would have been another Christie, or Walker, but you seem to to try to imply that we would have been better off with him as governor.
Perturbed, you also seem to be very uncomfortable with talking about what you do, and when I asked you referred me back to a earlier post of your yours and I was never able to find the information. I am a direct care DDS employee and I earn around 50k a year, and my agency is going to get hit hard if the deal is rejected. If you are a lower income earner it will of course gain you a little more respect, even if you are still misguided in what you say. Truth and Justice, I think I can also say the same for you. I think that Jen has said that she is an attorney?

If these people do not want to respond then maybe some others can add their thoughts. They both post here a lot, so they probably will see the post.

Steve HC - New York has 250,000 employees compared to Connecticut's 45,000. The cost per employee was therefore less than 1/5th what has been "negotiated" here...and they didn't touch pensions for existing employees.

Puts a different spin on things...huh.

New York's state employee pensions did not change because their pension plans are significantly worse than Connecticut's. *For example*, in NY no one gets COLAs on their pensions until they've been collecting their pension for *10 YEARS*. Also, they have more than twice as many pension plans (with multiple Tiers) than CT does, AND many if not most of New York's MUNICIPAL employees participate in the State's pension plans - they're not restricted to just State employees. This all makes a BIG difference.

Skyreacher, it's NOT *you* or anything that you said or did. As far as I can tell, the "no" voters who post on these "boards" are mostly very single-minded, self-centered and weakly-manipulative people who only want what they want regardless of logic, reality, or other people's needs or thoughts. A few of them are truly State employees who are basically nice people but who got taken in by right-wing propaganda, a VERY small minority are actually State employees who are genuinely right-wing zealots, and still others are NOT State employees but are right-wing extremists who decided to "pose" online as State employees when they thought they saw a chance to sway REAL State employees to vote against their own self-interests and so tried to do so. Going forward, the unions MUST become a LOT more sophisticated in order to deal with the latter much more quickly and effectively than they were able to with this whole SEBAC TA situation.

Okay, skyreacher, let's get some things straight.

First and foremost, I never said it was despicable that part-time DDS workers were not laid off. Here's what I said:

LAID OFF PEOPLE CAN’T VOTE “YES”!

It’s not complicated.

This SEBAC/Malloy Coalition is the most despicable gang imaginable.

“There is some confidence among the administration of Gov. Dannel P. Malloy as well.

“‘We don’t think it’s a longshot,’ Office of Policy and Management Secretary Ben Barnes said Monday. ‘If everyone votes the same it will pass [under the new bylaws].’”

Ah, there’s the rub, isn’t it Ben. Everyone can’t vote the same if some are laid off and others are retired this time around. And some of the employees that voted “yes” the first time are appalled by now at the S/M Coalition’s tactics.

Don’t count your chickens yet, Ben. It only passed by 52% according to the new-and-improved bylaws—not the 57% “popular vote”.

Or do they plan on allowing retired people to vote now, too? (Maybe SteveHC will get a chance to vote this time around after all.)

Clearly, the term wasn't referring to the fact that people would not be laid off for a couple of weeks; it was directed at the SEBAC/Malloy team going to outrageous extremes to manipulate the vote. And if the vote were to fail, would the layoffs still be indefinitely delayed? No, Malloy would can them immediately. But their services would be no less needed after another failed vote than before. So how could need be the only determining factor?

That your co-workers, and those providing many other types of services, could be used in that way -- temporarily for all we knew -- by Malloy for their certain vote I found despicable.

As it turned out, they would have been allowed to vote anyway, but I didn't know that. Only our bargaining unit officers seemed to know that. The majority of my union could not vote, and that was due to one reason only: they are not state employees. Using that test, laid off people would fall into the same category. SEBAC and the unions, however, allowed for a third category of member: those that were until recently state employees. Most of the people I work with didn't know that. (The fact that SteveHC did know indicates to me that he's not the disinterested, unconnected third party he claims to be; he's a union insider, after all.)

Second, I don't see everything as a Malloy/SEBAC conspiracy -- but I do see this "historic restructuring" agreement as a SEBAC/Malloy/legislature collusion. If you can't see it because of your immediate circumstances, I understand. But it's clear to me and most of my co-workers. (Bet it's even clear to SteveHC, even though he'd never admit it because he wanted this abomination to pass so his own Tier I retiree pension would be shored up at our expense.) On Foley, you're just not thinking this through. SEBAC and the Democratically controlled legislature would be united against Foley, so his power would be kept in check. SEBAC and the legislature couldn't bargain with Foley as they did with Malloy. They'd both be back to defending us and attacking the governor. In Wisconsin, do you think the public took to the streets primarily to defend state workers? You must be delusional. They took to the streets in opposition to their radical right wing governor -- a much different scenario played out there. (Did any Wisconsin state workers file a complaint against their own collective bargaining body, as was done here in Connecticut?)

Third, on where I work -- I've responded to this question twice already, and I'll do it one final time:

@ Skyreacher -- I'm sorry about your situation where you work. Is yours one of the departments that could see layoffs even if the agreement passes? None of this was necessary. I have 25 years in a large agency, office work. Strictly non-essential. I'm sorry, but I'd really rather not say any more. I certainly don't put retaliation past SEBAC.

Is there something about that you don't understand?

Will you disclose your name? If you say "no", would you mind if I keep asking you anyway? We all have our limits and our reasons. My reason is not to deceive, but simply to protect myself. Is my SEBAC union like the Teamsters? No. But under the right circumstances, they could make life more difficult. If you can't accept that, it's just not my problem. (At least I didn't give you SteveHC's response: "My personal circumstances are no one’s business, and in fact are irrelevant to the issues at hand.")

One final comment, skyreacher: I am genuinely glad your co-workers will be saved. I hope you all feel relieved.

--perturbed