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| Lamont and unions |
The deal between Governor Ned Lamont and SEBAC, a union consortium representing state workers, is a tentative one, CTMirror’s tells us: “CT state workers to get $3,500 in bonuses under tentative deal with Lamont: Deal must be ratified by unions and legislature.”
The ratification of deals arranged by Democrat Connecticut
governors and SEBAC have not in the past been strenuously contested by the
General Assembly’s dominant Democrat Party. Surrenders on the part of
Connecticut Democrats to public employee unions have been commonplace for a
number of reasons, many of them political.
It is not politically profitable for state Democrats to resist
union demands. The state Democrat Party relies on union workers during campaign
seasons for “boots on the ground support” and money contributions.
So called “negotiations” between the two parties during the
tenure of former Governor Dannel Malloy have tended to be Kabuki theatre
performances in the course of which a Democrat governor and a Democrat majority
in the General Assembly appear to put up a valiant struggle, SEBAC making
demands on Connecticut taxpayers and Democrat leaders appearing to resist the
demands, both Kabuki contestants agreeing at last to a “compromise” deal that
clearly benefits union workers in the long run.
Following the deal, signed and sealed by the Democrat
majority in the General Assembly, everyone professes satisfaction, important
union demands are met, the bill for any additional cost is sent to Connecticut
taxpayers who have in the past uncomplainingly paid the tab, and life goes on
as usual.
Because union “deals” between Connecticut and SEBAC involve
multi-year contracts, the contracts may extend beyond the term of one governor
to his successor, allowing Governor Ned Lamont, for example, to argue that he
is legally obligated to fulfill the terms of a contract arranged by Governor
Dannel Malloy, his predecessor, and SEBAC.
Contracts are legal documents binding upon three signatories
-- the governor, the General Assembly and SEBAC. Most importantly, the terms of
the contracts affirmed by the Democrat dominated General Assembly are enforceable
by Connecticut courts. Having surrendered to the courts its constitutional birthright
– control over dollars spent and appropriated -- the General Assembly becomes
the prisoner of legally enforceable contracts. It has, to resort to a biblical
expression, given up its constitutional birthright for a mess of judicial
pottage.
This is a problem that Democrats in the General Assembly and
unionized state workers have “learned to live with” because the arrangement
benefits both parties. The third man out, unfortunately, is the Connecticut
taxpayer, who must bear the burden of increased taxes and apparently
unstoppable increased spending. A good portion of Connecticut budgets are
devoted to “fixed costs,” so called because legislators have consciously decide
not to fix them.
There are effective solutions to all these problems, but
solutions make their appearances only when the problems are acknowledged as
problems.
The General Assembly can recover its constitutional
prerogatives from highly politicized unions and governors by unilaterally
setting salary and benefit packages – no contracts, and no courts enforcing
upon Governor Lamont former Governor Dannel Malloy’s deals with SEBAC. Very
expensive “fixed costs” can be managed by unfixing the costs and resorting to
zero based budgeting, which would force the legislature to adopt economies of
scale every budget cycle. The state’s crushing debt load of some $57 billion
may be gradually reduced though a combination of tax reductions -- which will
spur economic growth and cause, former President John Kennedy once said, “a
rising tide that lifts all the boats” --
and spending reductions.
Facing massive retirements among state workers, the Lamont
administration now plans to purchase the compliance of state workers by awarding
each presumptive retiree a bonus of $3,500, if they forgo retirement and remain
on the job. Apparently, it has not occurred to either Lamont or Democrat
leaders in the General Assembly that this problem may be fixed by lengthening
the retirement age among state workers. However, this solution is possible only
if the General Assembly decides to set salary and benefits for state workers unilaterally,
and thereby recover its constitutional obligations from SEBAC – no contracts,
no court enforcement of contracts, no problems.
If the solutions to these nagging problems are so evident,
this writer is sometimes asked, why are the evident solutions never applied?
And here we come to the nub of the matter. Why do
legislators permit the tail, SEBAC, to wag the General Assembly dog?
The short answer to the question is: because effective
solutions to these problems may satisfy taxpayers footing the bills, but not politicians
who have become over-reliant on state workers to deliver political goods during
elections. Connecticut is full of entrenched politicians who prefer not to
solve problems and advance the public good, because in doing so they risk
alienating important constituencies. The solutions cited above, regarded by
status worshiping politicians as untenable, are certain to arouse the
antipathies of public employee unions who are the kept mistresses of such
ambitious politicians.
Politicians, up and coming politicians, their support sections in the media, are all firmly convinced that the General Assembly/SEBAC bordello, in which all the lights are always green, will not be shut down by the voting police any time soon.
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