Connecticut, Lamont reminded SEBAC, a conglomeration of
union chieftains authorized to strike contracts with the chief executive of the
state, was in dire straits following months of a crippling business slowdown
caused by the shuttering of businesses across the state ordered by Lamont in
response to an international Coronavirus infestation.
On June 20, some Connecticut-stay-at-homes quietly
celebrated their three month liberation from government enforced sequestration by
having breakfast – inside their local eateries. Lamont, through his extraordinary
executive authority, had permitted the opening of restaurant interiors, provided
owners observed his strictures: restaurants could only be half filled, awaiting
further orders, and everyone had to wear masks, except when moving their chops
over bacon and eggs The usual seating was expanded to accommodate state ordered
distancing. And customers would be required to sit while breakfasting on a pad
of nails – only kidding there.
Lamont might have prayed for some concession from unions,
but if he did so, he hadn’t fallen to his knees in any Connecticut Christian
church, all of them, deemed by the governor inessential businesses. Neo-pagans
and practical atheists, a majority, some say, of politicians and journalists in
the state, have generally considered the consolations of the Christian faith to
be inessential.
No deal, said state unions to Lamont. To be more precise,
the unions had already struck a deal with Lamont’s Democrat predecessor, the
bristly Dannel Malloy who, following his exit as governor, had gotten a job in
Maine overseeing that state’s higher education ganglion. It is not at all unusual
for discarded politicians in Connecticut to find a soft berth, once leaving
office, on some cushy educational featherbed.
When the head of former Governor Lowell Weicker’s Office of
Policy Management, Bill Cibes – the godfather of Connecticut’s income tax – left
office, he fell on a featherbed prepared for him by Weicker, the father of Connecticut’s
income tax. Cibes became chancellor of Connecticut’s
state university system and rode out of office with plaudits from the state’s
various editorial departments ringing in his ears. Weicker himself was awarded
the prestigious John F. Kennedy Profile in Courage award for having saddled his
state with an income tax. Such divine courage!
Lamont, a Weicker protégé, looking for a stick with which he
might compel compliance from state employee unions – a threat of layoffs,
forced reductions in pay and benefits – found himself, largely because of
Malloy’s loving exertions on behalf of state unions, without stick or carrot in
hand.
All the carrots and sticks had been baked into state employee
contracts by Malloy —afterwards deeded to Lamont. With minor, unimportant
exceptions, Lamont CANNOT lay off seasoned state employees, and he must honor
the terms of the Malloy SEBAC contracts that award state employees salary, step
and COLA increases. The Malloy-SEBAC deal is sealed in contract concrete that cannot
be adjusted by the General Assembly, which has been forced into sleep-mode by Lamont’s
extraordinary emergency powers. Lamont’s near totalitarian powers will not
elapse until September.
Mercifully, one has not heard from Lamont the classic
complaint belched by Connecticut governors --that they had "inherited" from preceding
governors the ills they are now courageously facing. The governor who preceded
Lamont was not a Republican but a Democrat of Lamont’s own tribe. It is considered
unfriendly and ill-mannered in politics to foul one’s own nest.
Both Lamont and his predecessor, Malloy, who gleefully
marched on strike lines with union members, have an unresolved problem with
state unions, and it may be useful here to attempt a description of the problem.
Democrat and Republican governors use unions – always delighted
to be so used – to achieve reelection to office.
Qui bono? What is
the benefit returned by politicians to unions? The answer to the question is
dancing right under the noses of those whose business it is to issue accurate news
reports to the general public.
We all know by now that the state employee pension fund “lockbox”
was, to put it gently, a term of art among politicians ever since the fund had
been established. Far from being a lockbox inaccessible to greedy, campaign
conscious politicians, the state pension lockbox has been, over the years, a
slush fund used by spendthrift politicians to offset the inevitable consequences
of tax overloads. The state employee pension fund is to tax addicted
politicians what medically assisted detoxification is to heroin addiction, a temporary
relief that could, if the addiction is not squarely confronted, send the
patient back to mean streets for deeper immersion in an overmastering habit.
We’ve known for a good long time what the problems are – and
how to fix
them. Here in Connecticut, neither flesh nor spirit has been willing to
confront the union-state government complex.
Connecticut, we are told by the always watchful and reliable
Yankee
Institute has the “worst-funded pension system in the country,
maintaining its position from last year at the bottom of the list even as state
pension payments continue to increase.” The result of the unholy alliance might
make a laugh inducing comedy.
“UConn’s expected
deficit: 50M,” a recent Courant headline blared. UConn President Thomas Kafsouleas begged – on his knees? –
unions to assist him in reducing costs related to the Coronavirus infestation “a
week after Gov. Ned Lamont said he wanted state employees to forgo scheduled
3.5% raises” baked into their irrevocable contracts. The unions said no both
the UConn president and chief financial officer for the Connecticut State
Colleges and University system Ben Barns, who was – TA-DA! – Malloy’s Office of
Policy Management Director – the guy responsible, along with Malloy, for baking
salary and benefit preferments into the very same state contracts that now prevent
Lamont and Kafsouleas from achieving cost-saving cuts.
But all the politically interested parties, including
Malloy, are luxuriating on their post-political feather-beds – so, good on them,
right?
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