They’re about to discover the high cost of Gov. Ned Lamont’s determination not to be Wisconsin
"Gov. Ned Lamont said in 2019 he wanted “an anti-Wisconsin moment,” a jab at Gov. Scott Walker’s sweeping fiscal reforms of 2011. Instead, Mr. Lamont said, he wanted to “show that collective bargaining works.”
When unions representing most of the state workforce wrapped up their first round of contract talks with Mr. Lamont last month, the anti-Wisconsin moment arrived. Connecticut taxpayers are getting a costly reminder of who the process “works” for.
If Hartford lawmakers consent, state employees will pocket $2,500 bonuses, back pay averaging nearly $2,000, and raises of 2.5% to 4.5%. Another $1,000 bonus and more raises await in July, around the time their unions will decide whether to offer Mr. Lamont’s re-election bid the same intense backing they delivered in 2018.
The contrast between Connecticut’s public and private sectors couldn’t be starker. As 1 in 6 private jobs disappeared in spring 2020, state employees were contractually shielded from layoffs. That summer, with unemployment still above 10% and state finances in tatters, automatic 3.5% raises negotiated by Mr. Lamont’s predecessor kicked in. Most employees also got seniority-based raises averaging 2% at the start of 2021.
This largesse appears affordable because Mr. Lamont and state lawmakers left in place tax hikes enacted between 2011 and 2015 to mend the state’s recession-dinged finances—while Wisconsin’s Mr. Walker was squeezing costs instead of taxpayers.
But the anti-Wisconsin push goes beyond spending. Leaked contract documents show the Lamont administration going to new extremes to help the unions pressure state employees into joining. That’s become a concern for labor since the U.S. Supreme Court said states couldn’t force workers to pay dues, as Connecticut had done for decades. Union rolls here have shrunk accordingly.
Mr. Lamont has agreed to keep state managers out of the room at orientation sessions where union representatives put the squeeze on new employees to join. Unions haven’t been shy about using questionable tactics to shame people into signing up. And if an employee has second thoughts about joining, Mr. Lamont’s deals would bar state payroll officers from letting him stop paying dues without union permission—putting state government squarely on the wrong side of the federal court rulings that struck down involuntary payments.
Worst of all, the state will be required to generate monthly lists of people who chose not to join, making it easier for unions to harass them at work and at home.
Supercharging labor’s coffers would give the unions a better chance of winning at the ballot box and getting their agenda enacted in Hartford, which historically has included measures such as the establishment of Connecticut’s personal income tax in 1991. Labor’s biggest target this year is “pandemic pay,” yet another $2,000 check for each “essential” full-time state worker.
When Mr. Walker reversed decades of union privileges in 2011, he helped erase a multibillion-dollar deficit and allowed Madison to deliver substantial tax relief. Connecticut taxpayers have good reason to wonder where racing in the opposite direction will take them.
Ms. Liebau is the president of Yankee Institute for Public Policy."
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