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A.F.L.-C.I.O. Pushes Back on Insurance Tax
14-December-2009
Organized labor has a new commercial urging centrist Democrats to eliminate the Senate’s proposed tax on so-called Cadillac health insurance plans.
The ad comes as Republicans prepare to offer amendments to eliminate the provision, putting the A.F.L.-C.I.O. at odds with its traditional Democratic allies.
The commercial splices together clips of various workers speaking to the camera. “Taxing our benefits will just make companies cut our health care,” one says. “And cost us more,” another adds. At another point, a worker says, “Fix health care? Absolutely,” followed by another who says: “Tax health care benefits? Don’t do it.”
The Senate health bill would impose an excise tax on health insurance plans with premiums of at least $8,500 for individuals and $23,000 for families. Proponents say the measure, which would raise $149 billion by 2019, would not only raise money to insure the uninsured but would help control costs by discouraging employers and insurance companies from offering overly generous plans.
But both labor and business oppose it. Business groups say it would shift the burden to employers, while organized labor says it would shift the burden to workers. Both agree that the end result would be lower wages and benefits.
The A.F.L.-C.I.O. prefers the House health care bill, which would not tax benefits but instead would raise money by taxing the wealthy.
The commercial was first shown in Washington during the Sunday talk shows and CBS’s “60 Minutes.” It is part of a $1.5-million television advertising buy that expanded on Monday to Delaware, Indiana and Virginia. Those states are home to Democratic senators — Thomas R. Carper in Delaware, Evan Bayh in Indiana, and Jim Webb and Mark Warner in Virginia — perceived to be potential allies with Republicans against the tax provision.
| | | Red Cross' blood-supply workers on strike - Philadelphia Inquirer
14-December-2009
More than 100 members of Teamsters Local 929 went on strike yesterday against the American Red Cross Penn-Jersey Blood Services Region when their contract expired at 12:01 a.m.
The members pack and store blood, load trucks, and deliver blood, said Rocky Bryan, the local's vice president.
The American Red Cross in Philadelphia says striking employees have blocked a blood delivery to a hospital.
Red Cross spokesman Anthony Tornetta says members of Teamsters Local 929 had to be told yesterday that a 2-year-old child's life depended on a blood delivery before they would get out of the way.
Bryan said the Red Cross had been asking the union to accept higher employee contributions for health insurance plus a pay freeze in the first year of a three-year contract. The union also is concerned that members are being required to work too many hours and that Red Cross. He said some employees have been "forced to work 50 and 60 days straight."
Bryan said strikers were protesting "unfair labor practices" that risk the safety of the blood supply and employees.
In a written statement posted on the local Red Cross Web site, Tornetta said the strike might lead to the cancellation of some blood drives.
| | | People against LPN cuts - News Channel 8
14-December-2009
Hartford (WTNH) - Several people are speaking out against plans to cut an affordable nursing program. The Licensed Practical Nursing [LPN] program runs at ten technical high schools and is being cut because of state budget problems. The controversy over Governor Rell's decision to close down the state's licensed practical nursing programs at ten technical schools spilled over at the State Capitol today.
LPN's, potential LPN's and instructors packed a state capitol hearing room Tuesday saying that the cost savings is short sighted and will make a nursing shortage in the state even worse.
"I feel like one part of my life is gone," said Chantal Kouoh of West Hartford. "As a single mother with very little income, I can't really afford a private school."
The Governor's office said tuition in the state program covers less than 20 percent of the cost. So the state loses money on every student. Between 400 and 450 people sign up for the courses every year.
Some lawmakers say the jobs created and the nursing services provided are worth the cost.
| | | Lawmakers Concerned About Gov. Rell's Proposed Cuts For Nursing Homes, Cities and Towns, Hospitals - Courant.Com
14-December-2009
From nursing home operators to the mentally ill, more than 300 people spoke at the state Capitol complex Wednesday on a snowy day to protest Rell's proposed budget cuts on a wide variety of services.
The crowd was so large that the budget-writing appropriations committee took the rare step of dividing the hearing into two separate rooms in order to hear testimony simultaneously. The diverse crowd ranged from those represented by high-powered lobbyists to unemployed citizens who were afraid that cuts could lead to the loss of their medication.
The nursing homes were out in force to protest a cut of 2 percent that would be imposed on a cash-strapped industry that has had no rate increases since 2007.
During the past two years alone, five nursing homes have closed, another five have filed for bankruptcy, and 10 have been placed under state receivership, said Matthew V. Barrett, who represents an association of 110 for-profit homes.
"You've got to look at [the proposed cut] in the context of coming on the heels of everything else,'' Barrett said in an interview. "A two percent additional cut translates into job losses in our industry. We're not an entity that has never been cut before.''
Stephen McPherson, president of Masonicare that operates homes in Wallingford and Newtown, said the non-profit homes have already been cutting expenses in an attempt to avoid layoffs and provide the best care in an already difficult financial environment.
"You may see less care provided,'' he said.
Ron Cretaro, executive director of the Hartford-based Connecticut Association of Nonprofits, said that an estimated $123 million - or 37 percent of the cuts - would impact the nonprofits that provide state services through a variety of agencies.
"These cuts are far-reaching, fall disproportionately on nonprofit contractors and will require layoffs,'' Cretaro said in written testimony.
While no final decisions have been announced, many insiders believe the Democratic-controlled legislature will not take any action on the cuts when the General Assembly meets in special session Tuesday. Rell has called lawmakers into session, but she lacks the authority to force them to approve her cuts. Spokesmen for the Democratic leaders said no final decisions will be made until after caucuses are held in the coming days.
The split hearings lasted more than five hours each Wednesday - meaning that a hearing held in the traditional fashion would have lasted more than 10 hours.
The budget deficit is currently projected by the state comptroller at nearly $550 million, but that number can change through the year with the ups-and-downs of Wall Street and changes in the unemployment rate.
In a Powerpoint presentation to legislators, Genuario said that the administration was flexible in attempting to solve the budget problem.
"The governor's proposal is a reasonable plan to address the deficit,'' Genuario said.
Rep. Linda Schofield, a moderate Democrat, said that towns have had their own problems in the economic downturn and would have trouble absorbing state-aid cuts. Officials had cut the budget in her hometown of Simsbury and the town still enacted a tax increase this year - although it was smaller than in other years.
"It's not as though the towns have been unscathed,'' Scofield said.
"I wouldn't suggest that,'' Genuario responded.
The hearing was held Wednesday to hear the details of Rell's proposed budget cuts, which were offered because of ongoing, weak tax collections. The two biggest drivers of state tax money - the state income tax and the sales tax - are generating less money than officials had originally hoped. Part of the reason is the ongoing problem with high unemployment - meaning that workers are earning less money, paying less taxes, and buying fewer items that generate sales tax.
In addition, state budget analysts are closely watching the Christmas shopping season because the state relies heavily on the sales tax. Last year's Christmas season was the worst in decades, and some economists say that this year should be the second worst. As such, it would be an improvement over last year but still way below the amounts generated in the boom years.
Sen. Jonathan Harris, a West Hartford Democrat, was concerned about recent closures of adult day care centers and proposed cuts for those centers. Some of the funding is from the state and some is federally funded. The 5 percent Medicaid cut, however, is not being imposed on adult day care, officials said.
Genuario said to one legislator that the Wall Street bond-rating agencies had recently enacted a negative "outlook'' for Connecticut, which could potentially lead to a negative rating.
"I'm not going to predict or project what they will do,'' Genuario said.
Nursing home operators have also complained about Rell's cuts, saying it comes against a backdrop of medical inflation that runs higher than the general inflation rate. For three years, the nursing homes have gotten a combined increase of 1 percent.
Under a state mandate, nursing homes must be heated to 75 degrees.
"Is that really necessary?'' Schofield asked, saying she feels warm when she visits her relatives in nursing homes.
| | | Union leaders step up fight against excise tax - The Washington Post
14-December-2009
Federal employee union leaders threw the second of a one-two punch at a Senate plan to tax health insurance premiums on Tuesday, saying it would mean significant benefit cuts and higher health costs for workers.
The presidents of the American Federation of Government Employees, the American Postal Workers Union and the National Association of Letter Carriers joined with the Communications Workers of America, which is leading organized labor's effort to defeat the proposed excise tax on premiums.
Their release of a report on the potential impact of the tax on federal employees with the Blue Cross/Blue Shield standard option comes one day after the Association of Federal Health Organizations issued a study with similar findings. That study, on the impact of the tax on federal health plans generally, was prepared for the Office of Personnel Management.
The tax is included in the Senate bill to overhaul the nation's health insurance system. Union leaders agree on the need for an overhaul and basically support the legislation. But the excise tax has become a prime target for labor leaders who say it will unduly burden their members.
Though the legislation would apply a 40 percent tax to any employer-provided plan over a certain price, the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program has become a focal point in recent days. Despite some problems, it is considered a model program. It is well-run and offers enrollees far greater insurance choices than those available to private-sector employees. The 8 million people covered, including current workers, retirees, dependents and survivors, are the largest group in the nation under a single health insurance program.
About half are covered by the Blues standard option, the big dog in FEHBP and the focus of the union leaders' report. It warns that federal employees could "get clobbered by the excise tax."
The tax would take effect in 2013 for total family premiums exceeding $23,000 and individual policies costing at least $8,500. These amounts include medical, dental and vision plans, and contributions to currently tax-free health savings accounts. Based on past performance, the report assumes premiums will rise 9 percent a year. With that assumption, the report says the annual tax hit for workers with the family plan would be $2,040 and $1,640 for singles.
"Such a tax will present the FEHBP with a major dilemma -- it will have to dramatically reduce health benefits in order to get the cost of its health plans below the threshold and avoid the tax, or pay the tax," according to the report. "Either way federal employees pay. They will lose benefits, have higher out-of-pocket health care costs, or face higher premiums -- or all of the above."
Though Democratic Senate staffers cast the report from the Association of Federal Health Organizations to OPM as one from a self-serving industry organization, that approach won't work with labor organizations that provided strong backing for Democratic members of Congress. Supporters of the tax on Capitol Hill say it is only one part of a larger legislative package that includes numerous provisions to reduce health-care costs while improving efficiency.
"When our health-care system is more efficient, it will be less costly for America's families and businesses, and that's the goal of the high-premium excise tax and many other policies in health reform, like increased focus on prevention and generic prescription drug research," said Erin Shields, press secretary of the Senate Finance Committee.
The political power of the unions was important in President Obama's election and the strong Democratic majority in Congress, which led to health reform being on the nation's agenda. But that power, and a newspaper advertisement against the tax, may not be enough to stop its passage in the Senate. Senate approval, however, is not the same as law.
Rep. Gerald E. Connolly (D-Va.), who participated in a conference call with the union presidents, predicted the tax in its present form will not be approved by Congress. "I can assure you that the excise tax contained in the Senate bill as currently formulated will not survive," he said.
No big raises
As federal employees wonder if they'll have to pay more for health insurance, they don't have to wonder if they'll get more than a 2 percent raise next year. The answer is no.
House and Senate members have agreed with President Obama's decision to limit the raise to that amount, with a national increase of 1.5 percent and an average 0.5 percent bump in locality pay.
Union leaders held out faint hope that Congress would provide more, but they learned Tuesday that will not happen. Congress still has to make the 2 percent official, but consider it a done deal.
| | | Derby’s dump to close a while - New Haven Register
14-December-2009
DERBY — The transfer station will be shut down indefinitely while the city works to resolve existing violations there, the Board of Aldermen unanimously decided Tuesday night.
This decision comes after a ruling by the state Board of Labor Relations that the city must remove Annex Associates, a private company it had contracted to run the transfer station, and return to negotiations with the Public Works union.
At a special meeting Tuesday, Corporation Counsel Joseph Coppola told the Board of Aldermen that while several of the violations at the transfer station had been corrected, others remained. The Department of Environmental Protection is aware of the problems, and could come in any day to fine the city and certified operators working there, he said.
The transfer station will close Friday at 3 p.m., Mayor Anthony Staffieri said. He planned to announce today an agreement with a neighboring municipality that will allow Derby residents to use its transfer station while Derby’s is closed.
Staffieri said residents won’t have to pay anything extra to use the neighboring town’s facilities. “Basically, nothing’s going to change except the location,” he said.
Meanwhile, curbside pick-up of trash and recycling will continue as usual for residents.
Staffieri said he hoped the transfer station would reopen in about six months. The city needs to conduct site engineering; construct a building for the dumping of garbage; correct other violations; obtain funding from the tax board and proceed with negotiations with the union representing Public Works employees.
The union and the city have been battling for more than a year over who will operate the transfer station. The city brought in Annex Associates in July 2008 after finding problems at the station. Two Public Works employees who had been operating the transfer station were assigned to other duties.
The union and city reached an agreement allowing Annex to run the transfer station for 90 days, but the city extended Annex’s contract for one year without union approval. The union filed a complaint with the state labor board in late 2008. In September 2009, the labor board ruled that the city had violated the agreement and ordered it to remove Annex.
“I don’t know why they’re shutting (the transfer station) down. It makes no sense, other than they’re just being vindictive. ... They’re politicking, that’s all they’re doing,” said Jim Castelot, a representative for the Public Works employees with Council 4 of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees.
At Tuesday’s meeting, several residents appealed to the aldermen not to shut down the transfer station.
| | | $700G schools deficit puts 70 jobs at risk - New haven Register
14-December-2009
SHELTON — Up to 70 certified and noncertified school board employees may find themselves without jobs after the new year, due to a nearly $700,000 deficit in the current budget.
On a recommendation from Superintendent of Schools Freeman Burr, the Board of Education Tuesday voted 6-0, with two members abstaining, to approve Burr’s mitigation strategy to eliminate the existing budget shortfall.
Board member Michael Pacowta summed up the feelings of the board, saying there are painful decisions that have to be made, and while nobody wants to see anyone lose their jobs, especially in this tough economy, the board is left with little choice but to eliminate staff, which comprises an estimated 85 percent of the board’s current $63 million budget.
The plan includes elimination of up to nine certified staff members, which include instructional coaches, facilitators and various support services personnel, which Burr said would result in a savings of $150,000; and elimination of up to 60 noncertified staff members, which include paraprofessionals, tutors, reading assistants and various other part-time positions, resulting in a savings of $540,000.
While Burr did not have an exact breakdown of which people would be laid off, or what schools they currently work at, he did say that the layoffs will affect the entire district, including those employed at the central office. Finance director Al Cameron said up to 20 reading assistants, 18 tutors and two or three paraprofessionals would be among the positions slated to be cut.
Burr met with all the different bargaining unions last month to discuss ways to reduce the deficit, and asked employees to consider taking a two-day work furlough. While the administrator’s union concurred with the furlough, the largest union, the teachers’ union with 410 members, voted 2-1 earlier this week against it. Had the teachers’ union agreed to the furlough, it would have resulted in a $400,000 savings, officials said.
If there are to be layoffs, Burr said, those workers would be notified by Jan. 15.
Union President Debbie Keller said union members primarily voted against the furlough because other options were not looked at, and there was no guarantee that if the teachers agreed to it, layoffs would be avoided.
Board Chairman Tim Walsh lauded the administrators’ union for agreeing to the furlough, but without the teachers’ union onboard, the board is faced with difficult decisions.
Walsh said he and Burr recently met with Mayor Mark A. Lauretti to discuss the dire situation, and apprise him of the pending layoffs. Walsh said Lauretti advised the board to “do what you have to do.” Walsh, however, said it’s worth a shot to sit down with Lauretti and the aldermen and see if the city can dole out any additional funds for the school board in an attempt to save jobs, for which the school board gave its blessing. “I’d like to ask the Board of Aldermen and the mayor to reconsider our budget request,” Walsh said.
Board member Paula Ellis concurred that turning to the city now is a must. “I think it’s absolutely essential that that happens,” she said. “I hope they take mercy on us, and help us with this terrible situation. ... We have to at least try.”
The school board had requested a budget of $64.5 million, which included a 2.3 percent increase to solely cover the spike in health insurance. The aldermen, however, ended up doling out $63 million to the school board when it approved the overall city budget in May.
Burr had planned to unveil his budget proposal for 2010-11 tonight at 5 p.m. at Shelton Intermediate School, but that was postponed because of the weather.
| | | Union claims decision already made on prison - New Haven Register
14-December-2009
CHESHIRE — Leaders of the union representing corrections officers at the Webster Correctional Institution said Tuesday that a decision has already been made to close the facility, despite claims to the contrary by state officials.
Moises Padilla, vice president of Local 387 of the American Federation of State County and Municipal Employees, said human resources officials with the state Department of Correction will be meeting today with union members who work at the Jarvis Street facility. The purpose of the visit, he said, is to begin providing details of how the process of closing the facility would play out.
Brian Garnett, a DOC spokesman, was not available for comment Tuesday concerning Padilla’s claim that the decision to close the facility has already been made. Rich Harris, a spokesman for Gov. M. Jodi Rell, said he had “not heard anything about a decision.”
Rell ordered the DOC last month to investigate the feasibility of closing correctional facilities because of a 1,600-inmate decline in the prison population statewide. The closing of Webster Correctional Institution is projected to save the state $3.4 million annually.
Padilla said the union is opposed to the closing of the facility because it will have a ripple effect at other DOC facilities that will put corrections officers at risk. DOC officials said last week, when they announced that the agency had recommended closing the facility, that the 220 inmates there would be moved to other minimum-security prisons in the state as well as other higher-security facilities if necessary.
“It’s a shell game,” Padilla said. “The Level 2 facilities are already over-crowded, so they (inmates currently at Webster) won’t necessarily end up there.”
Padilla said those prisons that are overcrowded use space that is not designed to house inmates, like offices and closets.
“They can’t have inmates sleep on the floor, so they put mattresses on what corrections officers call ‘banana boats’ — temporary plastic cots that have no legs or frames,” he said. “Conditions like that are ultimately going to put corrections officers’ safety at risk.”
There are about 120 staff members at Webster Correctional Institution, although not all of them are corrections officers. It is expected to take eight to 10 weeks to close the Jarvis Street facility, which opened in 1990.
Rell ordered acting corrections Commissioner Brian Murphy to review the feasibility of consolidating some facilities as a response to the state’s burgeoning deficit.
The state prison population is about 18,300, down from nearly 19,900 in February 2008. The DOC has closed two of the four housing units at Webster over the past year.
Luther Turmelle can be reached at lturmelle@nhregister.com or 203-789-5706.
| | | 14 city firefighters finally promoted - New Haven Register
08-December-2009
NEW HAVEN — His son was 11 when William Gambardella left his house in a snowstorm to take the oral portion of a 2003 civil service test for captain in the Fire Department. His daughter was 6.
“My son is now going into college, and my daughter is a teenager,” Gambardella, 52, a 15-year department member, said after his promotion to captain was approved Tuesday following a half-decade legal fight that ended in the U.S. Supreme Court. “That’s how long the process has taken.”
RECENT STORY: Firefighter promotion on front burner
MORE COVERAGE: The New Haven 20
Gambardella was among 14 firefighters whose promotions to captain or lieutenant were unanimously ratified by the Board of Fire Commissioners in accordance with a June Supreme Court ruling that the city had discriminated against them when it threw out the test results in 2004 because whites would have dominated the promotional pool.
The high court then kicked it back to the district court to enter judgment, which a federal judge did Nov. 24.
“I’d like to congratulate these men for their promotions,” said the Rev. Boise Kimber, an African-American minister and fire commissioner who had lobbied hard before the Civil Service Commission in 2004 to have the test results scrapped. “The highest court has spoken, and certainly we want to abide by what the court has said.”
The fire commission meeting lasted less than 10 minutes, but it took more than five years to get there. The exams were administered in 2003. In 2004, when it was learned no African-Americans scored high on the lists, the city held five public hearings and ultimately urged the Civil Service Commission to scrap the exams because, it argued, making the promotions could open the city up to a lawsuit from black firefighters. The concern, it said, was a potential “disparate impact” claim under the Civil Rights Act of 1964. In a 2-2 vote, the Civil Service Commission failed to certify the lists.
Instead, one Hispanic and 19 white firefighters sued, claiming “disparate treatment,” which also is banned under the landmark act, and after setbacks in U.S. District Court in 2006 and the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in 2008, the Supreme Court ruled the city had violated their rights.
George Longyear, another fire commissioner, maintained what happened Tuesday should have happened in 2004, and said he was “elated” that it finally did.
“Now we have to go forward.”
New fire Capt. Matt Marcarelli said he can best answer questions about how he feels after he formally receives his badge next week.
“But this is really an important day. It’s historic,” he said Tuesday outside fire headquarters. He scored highest on the captain list.
In reality, 15 firefighters advanced at the meeting. The promotion for Firefighter Todd Kornacki to fire investigator/fire inspector already was on the agenda, so he took his oath in front of a packed room of reporters and cameramen.
He’ll now be assigned to the fire marshal’s office, where he already has served nine months. But, he said, “It was a great life experience” for his son and daughter, who got to see first-hand municipal government at work.
A promotional ceremony is set for 3 p.m. Dec. 10, when the group will receive their new badges. “As far as I’m concerned, they’re promoted,” Fire Chief Michael Grant said, noting that while the 14 will remain in their current assignments until then, they will begin receiving pay at the higher grade today.
| | | No Place for Girls - Hartford Advocate
08-December-2009
The second time 15-year-old Kristi ran from Stepping Stone, a private residential facility for troubled adolescent girls in Waterbury, she was stopped by a fellow resident soon after she fled through a gated exit near the gymnasium.
"She tackled me down to the ground and told me she didn't want me to leave," said Kristi in a recent interview.
Vince Camarca, program director for Stepping Stone, explains his staff, according to state law, can't physically restrain minors unless they are a danger to themselves or to someone else. Fleeing into the streets of Waterbury doesn't qualify.
So instead of stopping her, Stepping Stone staff chased after Kristi — there have been at least 18 runners like her in the past two years — hoping to talk her into returning to the large Victorian mansion that houses the treatment program licensed and funded by the state Department of Children and Families. DCF has 22 delinquent girls in the Stepping Stone program, filling it to capacity. The agency, with a 2010 budget of $850 million, pays about $400 per day per girl, most of whom are on parole or under child protective services.
When I spoke to Kristi she was preparing to return home, where she will continue to receive counseling to help integrate her back into her family. She was going home just in time for Thanksgiving after more than two years in various treatment programs and detention centers. And even though the tackling incident proved pivotal in her recovery — she says she "felt great" that the girl cared enough to stop her from running — Camarca says it was nearly a disaster.
"Two girls are running, it added more chaos to a bad situation," he said.
Stepping Stone is a semi-secure facility. The doors lock, but will open after 15 seconds, or even sooner if you hit them hard enough, to comply with both fire safety code and federal regulations. The girls being treated there are well aware of this loophole in the security system.
Connecticut has two other privately run residential treatment facilities where DCF places girls: Touchstone in Litchfield, and Journey House at Natchaug Hospital in Mansfield Center. Touchstone is a "staff secure" facility with 16 beds, meaning it's an open campus. Staff is the only thing standing between the girls and escape. It's the first stop for girls who are having trouble, whether living at home or in a group or foster home, but who don't pose a serious flight risk. Journey House is a secure facility with 11 beds and locked doors, for girls who need intensive clinical services for substance abuse and other issues.
Kristi's story perfectly illustrates why the DCF needs a state-run secure facility for the most troubled juvenile girls in its care. The essential role of a secure facility is to calm a girl down by ensuring that she can't escape, and by "wrapping" her in the services she needs, according to Camarca.
"You have to stabilize girls first before they can get any therapy," explained Jeffrey Carr, a juvenile justice parole officer under DCF. "If they're out of control, you can't do anything for them."
Connecticut hasn't had a state-run secure facility for girls since 2003 when the Long Lane School, which housed both boys and girls, closed. In 1998, a girl named Tabatha committed suicide at Long Lane and in response the DCF opened the Connecticut Juvenile Training School in Middletown in 2001, a secure facility for boys. But the girls were left behind in Long Lane.
"They basically abandoned the girls," said Jeanne Milstein, the state's Child Advocate since 1995. "They weren't mowing the lawn. Some of the doors didn't lock."
Overall, conditions at Long Lane were "deplorable," Milstein says, and when the school was finally closed in 2003 on the orders of Gov. John Rowland, "once again it was the girls who lose, the girls who wait, the girls who are on hold."
While Journey House in Mansfield Center is secure, it's "very compact," according to Tammy Sneed, director of girls' services for DCF, and it doesn't provide the space for the more individualized services girls like Kristi need. Kristi was in and out of four programs and two detention centers before Stepping Stone was able to bring her to the point of returning home. She began drinking and smoking marijuana at the age of 12, she says, after her uncle died of a massive heart attack.
"My uncle took care of me while my father got locked up again," said Kristi. "My uncle was around me for the rest of my life before he passed away in 2006. Everything came apart for me. I felt like I had no support."
Soon Kristi was a familiar figure to police in her home town, where she was arrested for assault, breach of peace and disorderly conduct. On Nov. 7, 2007, she was taken from her home by DCF and hasn't been back since — until this Thanksgiving.
Sneed says two years was far too long for Kristi to be away from home, and that if there had been a secure state-run facility to send her to for those intensive services, she would have returned home much sooner. DCF is now trying to build the facility Sneed says Kristi needed — tentatively named Nob Hill Academy — for $15 million in a Bridgeport neighborhood.
"Nob Hill will be larger than Journey House. It will have more services and more program space," said Sneed.
But at a November "informational meeting" in Bridgeport, DCF ran into a buzz saw of opposition against Nob Hill. High-ranking officials from the agency, including Sneed, were shouted down in a replay of last summer's town hall meetings on health care. Bridgeport residents, tired of getting all the detention centers and halfway houses in their city, see Nob Hill as a jail — even if it doesn't look like one from the outside — smack in the middle of a residential neighborhood, plain and simple.
"You can hardly find a neighborhood [in Bridgeport] that doesn't have a group home or facilities other towns wouldn't accept," said Mayor Bill Finch. "We have bent over backward to provide regional facilities in an urban area. At some point you can't keep doing this to Bridgeport."
When it was his turn to speak, Rep. Chris Caruso, D-Bridgeport, held a sign saying "Brookfield not Bridgeport," explaining that Governor Rell lives in Brookfield and that he was sure her neighbors would welcome Nob Hill.
"Ladies and gentlemen, this is a jail. You are holding people against their will," said Caruso. "These girls have probably been involved in gang violence, assaults, maybe attempted murder. We don't know."
Marjorie Williams, who lives minutes away from the four-acre site where DCF wants to build Nob Hill, said after the raucous meeting at the carousel in Beardsley Zoo that she only learned of the planned facility a few weeks ago, when it was already slated for consideration by the bond commission.
"There's a stigma to Bridgeport already," said Williams. "There's strength in unity, we will do whatever it takes to stop this."
That's bad news for the DCF, which sees the Nob Hill neighborhood as the perfect location for its secure facility for girls, with Route 8 and bus lines nearby, making it easier for family to visit. It's also the logical spot to put the facility because DCF's two other programs, in Waterbury and Litchfield, are also along Route 8, said Leo Arnone, DCF's bureau chief for juvenile services.
No one knows whether Nob Hill Academy will go forward, as Gov. M. Jodi Rell removed it from the state Bond Commission agenda days before the meeting in Bridgeport, following pressure from both Caruso and Finch. If a bond is not authorized before the end of the year, the contract to build Nob Hill will have to be renegotiated and will go up by at least $1 million, according to Arnone.
Caruso and Sen. Anthony Musto, D-22nd District have requested a meeting with Rell during the first week of December to discuss their concerns about Nob Hill. They've also suggested that Mayor Finch and other city officials and residents attend.
When asked why DCF had not reached out to Bridgeport residents until after city leaders caught wind of the bond request and got it at least temporarily quashed, DCF officials blamed the oversight on the protracted budget process, which went into September. Spokesman Gary Kleeblatt said there was a "pretty short window" for a meeting between the legislature's approval of the facility and its appearance on the bond commission agenda. The facility was first authorized by the legislature in 2007 and would be completed by August 2011 if all goes according to plan.
"We regret that we didn't do this sooner," said Kleeblatt of the Bridgeport meeting.
Parole Officer Carr says he and others have been asking for a secure facility for girls since even before Long Lane closed. Carr claims DCF replied there was no need for a facility since the girls had "minor problems" that could be handled in group homes or foster homes.
"But us parole officers knew different," said Carr. "The girls are a lot tougher than the boys. They're even more aggressive and assaultive."
The problem with runaway girls has tripled since Long Lane was closed, according to Carr. Soon after the closing, he said parole officers found themselves driving around looking for places to put girls. If facilities like Stepping Stone couldn't keep them from running away and getting into more trouble, he said they often ended up sentenced by a judge to York Correctional Institution, the women's prison in Niantic. And the "real, real difficult girls ended up out of state," says Carr.
Kleeblatt confirmed that since September 2004, 491 children — boys and girls — have been sent to programs out of state. That number is down to 331 children as of this month, and Kleeblatt says it reached as low as 278 in March 2007. He could not provide a number for delinquent girls only.
"I don't think it was fair," said Carr. "It was a girl who took her life [at Long Lane] and they build CJTS for boys. The boys were taken care of and the girls were just cast aside."
Camarca said he had only one girl go to York this year, a big improvement over a disastrous year last year when 13 girls at Stepping Stone were arrested after escaping and committing various offenses. Six were sent to York by the adult criminal court.
York does its best to accommodate the girls, but it's not set up to handle juveniles. Roland Bishop, a teacher at the prison, says the girls can't go anywhere, including the bathroom, without an escort.
"We've never had any DCF training. These girls are coming out of DCF placement, how do they handle these things? We don't know," said Bishop. "We're taking the Department of Correction model and tweaking it."
Bishop is proud of the way the staff at York has tried to help the girls that come to them, but he says as a teacher he has no idea what happens to them after they leave York — whether or not they go on to get their GEDs, for example. And he says that although there have been no incidents involving the girls to date, if there was one — an adult prisoner attacking a juvenile girl, for instance — the consequences would be grave.
"If something happened we'd all be hung out to dry," says Bishop.
Camarca fights hard to not have any of his girls go to York. But the one he lost to York this year was unavoidable, he says.
"She wasn't doing well in treatment, she went in front of a judge and the judge said, 'I'm tired of seeing you. I told you that the last time you were here. Maybe York will straighten you out,'" said Camarca.
It took two and a half weeks of pleading with anyone who would listen, from the public defender to the prosecuting attorney to the clerk of the courts, but Camarca finally got the girl out of York and back to Stepping Stone, thanks to the same judge who had sent her away. He agreed to let her return.
"Some of my girls who have come back from York say it's the worst experience of their lives," says Camarca. "They're separate from the general population, but they still get a sense of being in prison."
Camarca says the shadow of York pushes him to keep girls in Stepping Stone even after they get in the "fight or flight" mode — running rather than facing their issues — because he doesn't have a good alternative. Nob Hill will provide the security of York without its risks, giving Camarca and others a place to put girls who need time to gather themselves, but who don't belong in prison.
"I think if we get this facility like we're talking about [in Bridgeport], then there's not the guilt factor in saying this girl's not making it here now, we need her to step away, and see what her needs are," said Camarca.
So why has it taken six years for DCF to launch its plan to build a secure facility for juvenile girls, and then only to find they have a tremendous fight on their hands from a neighborhood and a city that doesn't want it?
There doesn't appear to be a good answer. Sneed says the need for a secure facility has been under discussion since before 2003, but "everything happened very quickly with the closing of Long Lane and removing the girls."
"We never really caught up," she said. "We've been trying to look at designs, there were a lot of complicated steps. We put a lot of pressure on private providers to do what we need to do. That's what happened."
In a July 2008 briefing paper, the Office of the Child Advocate said that despite years of appeals to Governor Rell and the DCF, "None of the DCF-supported programs serving girls have met the expectations set forth in numerous reports by oversight agencies and DCF's own consultants."
That includes the absence of a secure facility for girls, a facility that is now ensnared in local politics and nightmarish public relations.
"Once again it's the girls who lose, the girls who wait, the girls who are on hold," said Milstein. "I don't care where [the secure facility] is, it just needs to happen fast. They need to stick to the time frame. The girls are the ones who lose."
| | | Rell: Close Minimum-Security Webster Prison In Cheshire; AFSCME Union Local 387 Opposes Plan As Ill-Advised - Courant.com
08-December-2009
In a highly unusual attempt to save money, the Rell administration is recommending the closure of a minimum-security prison in Cheshire.
Governor M. Jodi Rell announced Tuesday afternoon that the state's correction department is calling for closing the Webster Correctional Institution in Cheshire, which is known as a Level 2 facility on a scale where Level 5 is maximum security.
The closure would save an estimated $3.4 million a year at a time when the state deficit is hundreds of millions of dollars and growing.
The recommendation marks a sharp contrast from the days when Connecticut was building prisons and rapidly expanding the amount of space to house convicted criminals. No prisons have been closed in recent state history, and the potential closure in Cheshire is sure to raise controversy.
Rell had ordered the correction department to come up with a recommendation for potentially closing a prison - a highly controversial step because it potentially involves moving both convicted criminals and staff members that range from first-year union members to the warden.
"We face an extraordinarily difficult budget situation - a challenge unlike any we have known in modern memory," Rell said in a statement. "The state prison population is currently about 18,300, down from nearly 19,900 in February 2008. While other states - including states facing even more severe budget problems than our own - are being forced to build new prisons, we can make the most of our successes by building on these achievements.''
Rell continued, "Any decision such as this must always be made with public safety foremost in our minds. The recommendation from DOC notes that closing a minimum security facility is easier to accomplish because any inmates that need to be moved can be shifted to higher-security locations if necessary. The closure can also be accomplished without laying off any of the dedicated DOC staff, who perform one of the most dangerous - yet most necessary - tasks in state government."
The inmates will be moved to other prisons, rather than being released early.
"Governor Rell's decision to close a state prison in a system that is already overcrowded with inmates and understaffed with front-line workers does not make sense,'' said Dwayne Bickford, president of AFSCME Local 387. "We believe Connecticut's prison system was set up to handle 15,000 inmates but currently houses more than 18,000 inmates. Overcrowding is dangerous. It leads to higher incidents of assault on correctional staff and between inmates.''
Webster, which opened its doors at 111 Jarvis St. in Cheshire in October 1990, is already partially closed as the state has shut down two of the four units during the past year. As such, about 220 inmates will need to be transferred - rather than the full capacity.
The recommendation says that the prison should be closed except for a separate building that is called the Webster Annex. The annex would then be run in conjunction with the Cheshire Correctional Institution.
Even though the recommendation calls for the prison to be closed, Rell has said that it would be reopened if necessary - due to a jump in crime or a higher level of convictions.
The prison shutdown would be accomplished over eight to 10 weeks, according to the acting commissioner, Brian K. Murphy.
State Rep. Michael P. Lawlor, one of the legislature's leading authorities on criminal justice, said the shutdown should not be difficult.
"It's like four big, open rooms with bunk beds,'' Lawlor said in a telephone interview. "There are no cells in there. People find that hard to picture. No prison cells at all. No bars. No nothing. Minimum security. If [the supermax in Somers] is filled with the worst of the worst, Webster is filled with the least of the least.''
The closure is possible because the number of inmates has plummeted since a peak that followed the tragic murders of three members of the Pettit family in Cheshire on July 23, 2007.
The recommendation offers a budget-cutting option that Rell had once hoped to avoid. Such a move was never necessary during good economic times as the state was actually expanding its prisons. But as the inmate population has dropped and state tax collections remain weak, Rell ordered the Department of Correction more than three weeks ago to make its recommendation.
Closing a prison is a sensitive issue because it raises potential questions of safety for the inmates and a reshuffling of prison guards.
The state's prisons currently house about 18,350 inmates - about 1,600 below the peak in February 2008. The population exploded by about 1,200 after Rell froze the parole system following the triple homicide in Cheshire. Two longtime criminals who were out on parole at the time are now facing the death penalty if convicted in the slayings of three members of the Pettit family in a crime that shocked the state and caused the legislature to make changes in the state criminal justice system in a special session.
During budget deliberations earlier this year, Democratic legislators called for closing two prisons in an attempt to save as much as $200 million annually. But Republicans, including Rell, questioned the idea at the time, saying that crime was still too high in cities throughout the state.
Now, though, the state's full-time parole board is operating efficiently and some re-entry programs have permitted criminals to get out of prison and resume their lives, Rell said.
Lawlor, the longtime Democratic co-chairman of the judiciary committee, has said that Rell's move is part of a national trend as the number of inmates has decreased. Governors in California, Texas, and Kansas have moved to closed prisons, and New York State has shut down prisons in recent years.
In a large system with thousands of employees, the turnover is so high that no layoffs would be necessary in the shutdown, Lawlor said. The need for overtime would also be reduced with fewer inmates. The prison system has 18 facilities and a budget of about $700 million a year.
The all-time high population in the prisons was 19,894 inmates on Feb. 1, 2008, according to the correction department. That number has since fallen sharply, allowing the shutdown to be considered.
| | | UConn Leaders: Hospital Merger Not Viable - Courant.com
08-December-2009
University of Connecticut leaders have determined that a plan to merge the UConn Health Center with Hartford Hospital is not viable, and they are working with state lawmakers to consider other options, according to an e-mail UConn President Michael J. Hogan sent to employees Friday.
"After a review by the leadership of our Board of Trustees, they have concluded that we cannot marshal the support needed to win approval of our proposed partnership with Hartford Healthcare Corporation," Hogan wrote.
UConn officials had touted the proposed Hartford Hospital partnership as the best solution to the health center's financial woes and need for a new facility. The proposal called for building a new $475 million hospital with state funds on the health center's Farmington campus and turning that and Hartford Hospital into a two-campus "University Hospital."
The proposal failed to win support in the legislature this year. Gov. M. Jodi Rell opposed the plan, saying it was too expensive.
The plan also drew scrutiny from St. Francis Hospital and Medical Center in Hartford and Bristol Hospital, which criticized the idea of using state resources to help their competitors, and from the health center's unions, who raised concerns about labor issues and the merging of a state institution with a private hospital.
| | | Connecticut Unemployment Rate Hits 8.8 Percent - Courant.com
08-December-2009
Last month was a one-year anniversary of sorts for Tony Keldo of New Britain. But the father of three wasn't celebrating: October marked his 12th month of unemployment. Keldo has been jobless since October 2008 when his position at DHL US Express in West Hartford was eliminated.
A year later, layoffs remain common. Connecticut's unemployment rate jumped to 8.8 percent in October from 8.4 percent the month before, even though employers added 1,000 jobs last month, according to a report released Thursday by the state Department of Labor. Nationally, the unemployment rate is 10.2 percent.
The gain of 1,000 jobs is statistically insignificant and doesn't do much to erase September's revised job loss total, which was 6,200.
"October was a relatively warm month. Two of our big gainers last month were construction and recreation. Those kinds of companies were able to work much longer into the season," said Salvatore DiPillo, the state's labor statistics supervisor.
Since peaking in March 2008, the state's economy has lost 85,400 jobs, or 5 percent of its employment base, said Don Klepper-Smith of DataCore Partners Inc. in New Haven, chairman of the governor's economic advisory council.
Klepper-Smith expects the state will lose another 15,000 jobs, even though "technically, the recession is over because the gross domestic product numbers turned positive in the third quarter of this year."
"But you're not going to see any robust job growth any time soon," said Klepper-Smith. For the 12 months ending in October -- 12 long months since Keldo was laid off -- the state has lost 71,100 jobs, the Labor Department reported.
Since then, the former tractor-trailer driver has canvassed the help-wanted ads. "I've applied for everything," he said. "Nobody is hiring. It seems like most companies are afraid of hiring."
Keldo's situation is hardly unique. Of the 15.7 million Americans who are currently jobless, nearly 36 percent, or 5.6 million, are among the long-term unemployed, those who've been without work for six months or more.
University of Connecticut economists say if a strong national economy continues through the next six months, the state could soon post modest job gains. If America's recovery lags, the state could lose another 25,000 to 35,000 jobs
In its latest quarterly report, scheduled for release today, the Connecticut Center for Economic Analysis says that while economic growth will continue at a slow pace, national unemployment will continue to increase through the first half of next year.
The report (available at tinyurl.com/yf3mwjg) highlights a disturbing trend: While unemployment for production workers is slowing, the layoff rate for scientists and engineers who are typically responsible for the development of new products, is accelerating. Their diminishing presence in the workforce could compromise the nation's competitiveness, according to the report, titled "Will Job Losses End? A Thin Ray of Hope."
Keldo's unemployment benefits and his wife's job have kept the family together so far, Keldo said. The state's jobless workers are eligible to receive up to 93 weeks of unemployment benefits, under an extension approved by Congress earlier this month. But that could jump to 99 weeks. Under the extension, states whose jobless rate averages 8.5 percent over three consecutive months are eligible for an additional six weeks of benefits. The state's current three-month average is 8.43 percent, DiPillo said.
A ray of hope flashed next door and to the north Thursday when Massachusetts reported that its unemployment rate dropped for the first time in two years, from 9.3 percent in September to 8.9 percent last month.
"Looking across New England, you're starting to see fewer initial jobless claims -- that's usually an indication of the overall job trend," said Klepper-Smith, commenting on the decrease in Massachusett's jobless rate.
But Klepper-Smith predicts that Connecticut's unemployment rate will continue to climb.
"I expect we'll see 9 percent before this is over," he said.
| | | State, local budget cuts a "time bomb" for U.S. jobs - Yahoo
08-December-2009
NEW YORK (Reuters) – Budget shortfalls pose a direct threat to millions of U.S. jobs, many in the private sector, as state and local governments lay off workers and cut spending on contracts and other business services, a think tank said on Thursday.
State and local governments will have to raise taxes and cut spending in the current and next two fiscal years to cover shortfalls totaling $469 billion, according to an Economic Policy Institute report.
The think tank -- where White House adviser Jared Bernstein spent years developing ideas found in the $787 billion economic stimulus plan he oversees -- said the U.S. government must give states and cities $150 billion in direct budget relief to save between 1.1 million and 1.4 million jobs.
"Given the fragility of the economy, already high unemployment and the magnitude of the budget shortfalls, it is clear that we cannot afford inaction," the report said, calling the gaps "a ticking time bomb for the economy."
While many economists believe the worst recession in decades ended recently, cities' budget deficits are expected to continue at least through 2012.
"The low point for cities typically comes 18 months to 24 months after the low point for the recession," said Christopher Hoene, research director for the National League of Cities, at the Brookings Institution in Washington, D.C. on Thursday.
States, too, face future hardship, with the National Governors Association recently saying they are at the beginning of a "lost decade" of budget struggles.
Those struggles will trickle out to the private sector, EPI said. According to its estimates, for every dollar of budget cuts, more than half the jobs and economic activity lost will be in the private sector.
When asked at the Brookings meeting about the aid their cities need most, four mayors representing both political parties and cities large and small said the federal government must make credit more available to small businesses.
"I'm not looking for a sugar high," said Mayor Scott Smith, a Republican from Mesa, Arizona, about direct federal aid that could be withdrawn after a short time. "On Main Street the credit market is completely shut off."
If banks were to lend again to small businesses in her town of Bowling Green, Kentucky, then businesses would hire more people, increasing the city's income tax and job fee collection for years, said Democratic Mayor Elaine Walker.
SPENDING CUTS SLASH NUMBERS OF WORKERS
State governments, too, have had to lay off workers, shedding 26,000 jobs from October 2008 to last month, according to the Labor Department.
But nearly one-third of state spending goes to public provisions such as infrastructure, which is usually awarded to private contractors, said EPI, which says it is an independent nonprofit nonpartisan institute that researches the impact of economic trends and policies on workers.
Direct government services, such as fire departments and education, also affect the private sector through supply orders.
Bernstein, speaking at the Brookings meeting, said that without the stimulus plan passed in February, job losses would have been deeper. When indirect spending is taken into consideration -- on things such as equipment for the roads projects in the bill -- the stimulus was responsible for more than 1 million jobs, he said.
The plan has already allocated about $144 billion in relief to state and local governments, which has likely saved at least 360,000 jobs, EPI said.
Most of that money has gone to state governments and has yet to reach cities and counties. Cities have only seen direct help through community development block grants to combat blight and police force funding. They also will soon receive grants for energy efficiency.
And while they would like to see credit flowing, the mayors said they also need some direct stimulus.
"I have no complaints, other than I can't use a dime for budgetary challenges," said Philadelphia Mayor Michael Nutter, about the stimulus.
"On one day we could announce ... in the morning a new grant opportunity from the federal government and later that afternoon announce more layoffs and service cutbacks. The public is confused," he said.
(Reporting by Tom Ryan; Additional reporting by Lisa Lambert in Washington; Editing by James Dalgleish)
| | | U.S. Chamber Of Commerce Targets Murphy On Health Care Reform - Courant.com
08-December-2009
Last weekend, the U.S. Chamber of Congress, an aggressive opponent of the health reform bill passed by the House of Representatives on Nov. 7, began a flight of TV ads castigating U.S. Rep. Christopher Murphy, D-5th District, for voting in favor of the measure. Murphy is one of 11 representatives nationwide whose districts are being targeted with the ads, which assert that the health care reform bill will balloon the federal budget with "a trillion dollars in new government spending" and impose costly regulations on businesses that will wipe out jobs.
Pictures: Chris Murrphy
But Murphy has responded with a strongly worded attack accusing the insurance companies who financially support the chamber of blocking reform. The Association of Federal, State and Municipal Employees and a pro-health care reform group, Americans United for Change, have joined the fray, running their own ads praising Murphy and assailing the U.S. Chamber ads as "dishonest."
The media scrum in Hartford is significant because central Connecticut is home to health insurance giants such as CIGNA and Aetna. Murphy's 5th Congressional District, which includes the Farmington Valley, has one of the country's largest concentrations of insurance company employees.
State Republicans are vowing to make Murphy's advocacy of health care reform a major issue in his re-election contest next year.
The U.S. Chamber will not disclose what it is spending on the ads attacking Murphy, but Politico.com and other groups that track political advertising estimate its buy at $280,000. Over a picture of Murphy, the ad's voice-over says that Murphy's vote on the health care bill is a "yes" for "over a trillion dollars in new government spending" and "to new regulations on businesses that could wipe out Connecticut jobs."
The U.S. Chamber has spent more than $10 million nationally running ads against versions of the House reform bill. The ads running in Hartford substantially repeat the charges made in earlier ads.
Health care reform groups and the website FactCheck.org have questioned the accuracy of the chamber's statements. These groups cite economists and independent studies that show that, if the House health care bill is signed into law, many small businesses would spend less money on health care. The studies also show that estimates of job losses from the bill are probably inflated.
In an interview Tuesday, Murphy said that about 17,000 small businesses in his district would be eligible for tax breaks contained in the reform bill that would offset any new expenses they incur. He characterized the U.S. Chamber ad as a "scare tactic" supported by insurance companies.
"There's no doubt that I represent a lot of health care insurance industry workers, but I am going to call that industry out when they're wrong," Murphy said. "They've been wrong when they deny coverage to people with pre-existing conditions. Blue Cross-Blue Shield was wrong to pass along 20 percent rate increases to small businesses. The bill that I voted 'yes' on would stop that plain and simple. The health care industry is deeply invested in the status quo and obviously they oppose change."
As a state representative and state senator, Murphy's signature issue was health care, and he has won by large pluralities in the 5th District in 2006 and 2008 running on a platform of health care reform.
Republican leaders, who said that they had no prior knowledge of the chamber ads, nonetheless welcome them as an opening salvo for next year's 5th District campaign.
"The Democratic health care plan [passed by the House] is a huge, colossal seizure of wealth and health care, and that's going to be a major debate in Murphy's district in 2010," said Republican State Chairman Chris Healy. "The bill Murphy voted for is going to drive insurance costs higher for small businesses, and it's only appropriate for the U.S. Chamber to raise this issue."
But some small businesses support the health care reform bill. Kevin Galvin, a former president of the West Hartford Chamber of Commerce, owns a commercial maintenance company in West Hartford. He is also the chairman of a Connecticut group called Small Business for Health Care Reform.
Galvin said that he can't afford to provide health care insurance for his six employees now, but probably would be able to do so under the new bill. He said he believes that the House bill would help most small businesses in Connecticut and make them more competitive in national markets.
"Personally ... I am ashamed of the national chamber for taking out this ad," Galvin said. "The ad is erroneous and they have no right to come into a local market and broadcast something like this." | | | Labor Fight Ends in Win for Students - New York Times
08-December-2009
The anti-sweatshop movement at dozens of American universities, from Georgetown to U.C.L.A., has had plenty of idealism and energy, but not many victories.
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Isaac Steiner/United Students Against Sweatshops
In August, members of United Students Against Sweatshops picketed a Target store in Washington, to pressure the retailer to stop selling products made by Russell Athletic.
Until now.
The often raucous student movement announced on Tuesday that it had achieved its biggest victory by far. Its pressure tactics persuaded one of the nation’s leading sportswear companies, Russell Athletic, to agree to rehire 1,200 workers in Honduras who lost their jobs when Russell closed their factory soon after the workers had unionized.
From the time Russell shut the factory last January, the anti-sweatshop coalition orchestrated a nationwide campaign against the company. Most important, the coalition, United Students Against Sweatshops, persuaded the administrations of Boston College, Columbia, Harvard, New York University, Stanford, Michigan, North Carolina and 89 other colleges and universities to sever or suspend their licensing agreements with Russell. The agreements — some yielding more than $1 million in sales — allowed Russell to put university logos on T-shirts, sweatshirts and fleeces.
Going beyond their campuses, student activists picketed the N.B.A. finals in Orlando and Los Angeles this year to protest the league’s licensing agreement with Russell. They distributed fliers inside Sports Authority sporting goods stores and sent Twitter messages to customers of Dick’s Sporting Goods to urge them to boycott Russell products.
The students even sent activists to knock on Warren Buffett’s door in Omaha because his company, Berkshire Hathaway, owns Fruit of the Loom, Russell’s parent company.
“It’s a very important breakthrough,” said Mel Tenen, who oversees licensing agreements for the University of Miami, the first school to sever ties with Russell. “It’s not often that a major licensee will take such a necessary and drastic step to correct the injustices that affected its workers. This paves the way for us to seriously consider reopening our agreement with Russell.”
Other colleges are expected to do the same. Analysts say the college market occupies a significant part of Russell’s business. Because Fruit of the Loom does not detail Russell’s sales, it is not known how large a part.
In its agreement, not only did Russell agree to reinstate the dismissed workers and open a new plant in Honduras as a unionized factory, it also pledged not to fight unionization at its seven existing factories there.
Mike Powers, a Cornell official who is on the board of the Worker Rights Consortium, said Cornell had canceled its licensing agreement because it viewed Russell’s closing of the Honduras factory as a flagrant violation of the university’s code of conduct, which calls for honoring workers’ freedom of association. He applauded Russell’s agreement, which was reached with the consortium and union leaders in Honduras over the weekend.
“This is a landmark event in the history of workers’ rights and the codes of conduct that we expect our licensees to follow,” Mr. Powers said. “My hat is off to Russell.”
John Shivel, a spokesman for Russell and Fruit of the Loom, said, “We are very pleased with the agreement between Russell Athletic and the Workers Rights Consortium, and look forward to its implementation.”
He declined to discuss why Russell had adopted a friendlier attitude toward unionization after years of aggressively fighting unions.
In a statement Russell released jointly with the apparel workers’ union in Honduras, the company said the agreement was “intended to foster workers’ rights in Honduras and establish a harmonious” relationship.
“This agreement represents a significant achievement in the history of the apparel sector in Honduras and Central America,” the joint statement said.
In the past, the Honduran workers condemned Russell’s behavior, saying that it had fired 145 workers in 2007 for supporting a union. The union’s vice president, Norma Mejia, said at a Berkshire Hathaway shareholders’ meeting last May that she had received death threats for helping lead the union. Russell denied the assertion.
Union leaders in Honduras hailed the agreement, which would put hundreds of laid-off employees back to work in a country whose economy has been hit by a political crisis over who will lead it.
“For us, it was very important to receive the support of the universities,” Moises Alvarado, president of the union at the closed plant in Choloma, said by telephone on Tuesday. “We are impressed by the social conscience of the students in the United States.”
This was in no way an overnight victory — it came after 10 years of building a movement that persuaded scores of universities to adopt detailed codes of conduct for the factories used by licensees like Russell. In addition, the students, sometimes through lengthy sit-ins, pressured their officials to create and finance an independent monitoring group, the Worker Rights Consortium, that inspected factories to make sure they complied with the universities’ codes.
When the consortium issued a detailed report accusing Russell of violating workers’ rights, United Students Against Sweatshops began its nationwide campaign.
Scott Nova, executive director of the Worker Rights Consortium, which has more than 170 universities as members, said: “This represents the maturation of the universities’ codes of conduct. There’s a recognition by the universities of their ability to influence the actions of important brands and change outcomes for the better.”
He said the agreement was “unprecedented” in terms of scope and size and in “the transformative impact it can have in one of the hardest regions of the world to win respect for workers’ rights.”
Mr. Nova also praised Russell for changing course. “I think the executives at Russell recognized it was time for a new approach,” he said. “They decided it was important for the success of their company.”
As part of its campaign, United Students Against Sweatshops contacted students at more than 100 campuses where it did not have chapters, getting them involved, including at Western Kentucky University in Bowling Green, where Fruit of the Loom has its headquarters. The group helped arrange a letter signed by 65 members of Congress, who voiced “grave concern about reports of severe violations” of labor rights at Russell.
This time around, the students did not feel the need to resort to sit-ins to persuade university administrators.
“The schools remember our sit-ins of the past,” said Dida El-Sourady, a senior at the University of North Carolina. “There’s an institutional memory that students will escalate their tactics, and this could become a very big deal, a lot bigger than people holding signs.”
| | | Aetna To Lay Off 625, Including 160 Jobs In State - Courant.com
08-December-2009
As its customer base slips and health care reform looms, Aetna is laying off 625 employees now and will make a similar number of reductions early next year, the company said Wednesday.
The current cuts include 160 jobs in Connecticut, a spokesman said. No figure is available for Connecticut layoffs in the 2010 round.
The layoffs are across many areas of the company, and Aetna is not exiting any markets or businesses, the company said.
Aetna grew rapidly between March 2007 and September 2008, adding 5,700 jobs nationwide, including several hundred in Connecticut, where the company has 7,700 employees, mostly at its Hartford headquarters. The company had about 1,000 layoffs at the end of 2008 and no layoffs till now in 2009.
Aetna, which had 19 million insured medical members in the middle of this year, expects that number to drop to 18.7 million by the end of the year. It expects to lose between 600,000 and 650,000 in the first three months of 2010, spokesman Fred Laberge said.
The reasons for the decline: Aetna's customer companies have fewer employees as a result of the recession, and Aetna has been forced to set higher prices as a result of rising medical costs. Prices are rising across the industry, but Aetna in recent years had priced some of its plans aggressively to attract more members.
Besides the economic factors, said Ronald A. Williams, Aetna's chairman and chief executive officer, "we must prepare for the impact that health care reform and regulatory changes may have on our business. ... Streamlining our businesses now will enable us to improve our competitiveness and redirect resources to areas with a greater potential for future growth."
Many people have made predictions about the effect of health care reform on the employment and financial health of health insurers, as at least three versions of the reforms wend their way through the U.S. Senate and House. Health insurers, including Aetna, have warned that some measures — including a public health plan run by the government, and a weak version of universal coverage mandates, could hurt private health plans.
By partly attributing its current round of layoffs to the reforms, even indirectly, Aetna is likely to heighten the debate about how reforms will affect private insurers.
Aetna is moving about 3,000 workers from its Middletown location, which is closing, to Hartford. The layoffs are not related to that move. Aetna will take a $40 million charge against earnings in this quarter for severance costs, and expects to take a similar charge in the first quarter of 2010.
Aetna shares closed at $29.21 Wednesday, up 6 cents on the New York Stock Exchange before the late-afternoon announcement. | | | Union leader says ‘card check’ is on Senate’s back burner - Las Vegas Sun
08-December-2009
As unions continue to push for legislation that would make it easier for workers to organize, one of the labor movement’s most progressive leaders is sending a message to his colleagues: Don’t hold your breath.
John Wilhelm, president of Unite Here, the international hotel and casino workers union, told attendees at the Global Gaming Expo on Wednesday that the Employee Free Choice Act has dim legislative prospects — and that unions shouldn’t rely on it as a fix-all solution to labor’s decades-long membership slide.
“There is no possibility it comes up in the Senate this year,” said Wilhelm, also the onetime leader of the Culinary Union. “Whether it comes up next year is open to question, and whether it gets 60 votes in the Senate is open to question.”
He added: “I support it. But I don’t regard it as a magic bullet.”
The comments are in stark contrast to those of AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka, who has pledged to get “card check” legislation, along with health care reform, passed this year. But with Congress bogged down in the health care debate, labor law reform looks increasingly unlikely — at least in the short term.
Focusing on gaming, Wilhelm called for labor and management to renew their famously collaborative relationship and work together to “reinvent” the industry as it struggles to recover from the recession. Over the past two decades, he said that partnership led to unprecedented growth, both in union membership and gaming revenue.
The Culinary grew from about 18,000 members in 1987 to 60,000 in 2007. The organizing was done outside the secret-ballot election process governed by the National Labor Relations Board, which can pit unions against high-powered management lawyers in long, drawn-out campaigns and legal challenges.
Companies agreed to recognize the union and negotiate as soon as organizers collected union cards from a majority of a property’s workers.
“Do we want a highly adversarial relationship in an industry that depends on customers? I don’t think so,” he said. “We all rely on customers coming in every day and they have to feel good about that experience.”
Wilhelm noted that the union and the casino companies established an employee training academy to revolutionize food and beverage service in Las Vegas in the 1990s, turning the land of cheap buffets into a world-class dining destination.
“I think unions have an obligation to represent their members in the fullest possible sense, including and in particular what keeps the industry healthy,” he said. “We don’t do our job if the industry can’t prosper.”
To point, Wilhelm cited an agreement the Culinary struck with major Las Vegas casino operators over the summer. Sympathetic to the casinos’ tumbling revenue, the union agreed to reopen its contract, ultimately postponing a wage increase in exchange for, among other things, an extension of recall rights — a requirement that casinos call laid-off union workers back to work, by order of seniority, as soon as positions become available.
Likewise, the Culinary’s sister local in Atlantic City settled labor talks with six casinos last week by shortening the term of the contract — two years instead of five — and agreeing to wage freezes in the first year. In return, the companies agreed to maintain health and pension benefits.
Tribal representatives in the panel audience Thursday were not convinced.
Some were still burning from a 2007 federal appeals court ruling that unions have the right to organize workers at tribal-owned casinos. The court upheld a 2004 decision by the National Labor Relations Board, which reversed long-standing precedent when it deemed the San Manuel Band of Mission Indians an employer under the National Labor Relations Act.
Several tribal leaders described themselves as “not anti-union, but pro-sovereignty,” arguing that tribal governments, not the federal government, should draft legislation governing organizing. Some said they were pushing for an exemption from the Employee Free Choice Act.
| | | Branford teacher terminated - New Haven Register
08-December-2009
BRANFORD — The Board of Education made history of sorts Wednesday night, terminating 27-year veteran teacher Denise Farina.
The firing came after a rare open hearing process that stretched for dozens of hours over 10 days and included 35 witnesses and 300 exhibits.
The action, which approved a subcommittee’s recommendation by a unanimous voice vote with virtually no discussion, marked the first time a tenured teacher has been fired in Branford, those involved on both sides believe.
The decision is likely to end up in court. A related lawsuit filed months before the termination hearing began — and pending in federal court — alleges that school officials discriminated against Farina.
Farina’s termination came on her 50th birthday, according to her lead advocate, paralegal Mica Notz. Neither Farina nor Notz and her partner representing Farina, Woodbridge attorney Eugene Axelrod, attended Wednesday’s meeting.
Farina, reached at home afterward, said she was not at all surprised, and “I’m looking forward to my day in court.
“I just felt I was not in any way given a fair trial at all,” Farina said. “It was definitely one-sided. ... I know Ms. Notz put so much time into preparing. I just felt it was so unfair the way they constantly cut her off.
“That’s why I just have to go to court with my appeal, so I can receive a fair and honest decision by a judge,” she said.
Notz, also reached at home after the board meeting, said she wasn’t at all surprised.
“The matter will go before the Superior Court on appeal and that’s where the matter will be decided,” she said.
Farina had taught at Mary T. Murphy School for 27 years. She taught kindergarten until 2006-07, receiving satisfactory performance evaluations and no poor evaluations or disciplinary action during that time.
She taught fourth and second grades since then, and was put on teacher improvement plans several times, but never showed much in the way of improvement, administration witnesses testified during the hearing.
The hearing featured days of damning testimony from administrators and some parents, and fellow teachers who testified that after all that time as a teacher, Farina couldn’t put together a coherent lesson plan and did little in the way of actual teaching.
But a series of witnesses called by Notz over two days talked about the good she had done over the years.
While there was no discussion on the motion to terminate Farina, newly-re-elected board Chairman Frank Carrano, who also served as chairman of the subcommittee, spoke prior to the vote, outlining the 84 findings of fact that the panel accepted before making its recommendation.
“Based on all the testimony, the evidence, our own careful deliberation, we have come to the conclusion that this action is necessary,” Carrano said.
All told, the board’s consideration of the subcommittee’s recommendation took less than five minutes. The three-member subcommittee recommended on Nov. 3 that the board terminate Farina. Board members David Squires and Michael Krause also served on the panel.
It recommended Farina be terminated because of “inefficiency or incompetence based on evaluations of her using the Branford Public Schools Teacher Evaluation Instrument, known as the Professional Growth and Assessments Process,” and for “other due and sufficient cause, namely her inability or unwillingness to improve her professional practices, as directed.”
Farina, the daughter of former Branford High School football coach and athletic director Joe Farina, attended every day of the hearing except for the final deliberations when the panel made its recommendation.
The deliberations, like the hearing, were public at Farina’s request.
Ultimately, the panel approved a two-part motion suggested by its attorney and procedural adviser William Connon.
The motion directed Connon to compile the panel’s findings. Then, based on the findings, the panel voted to recommend Farina be terminated for incompetency and “other due and sufficient cause,” which included her failure to improve her teaching as directed.
In addition to being open, the hearing was also unusual in that Farina chose the Board of Education, rather than an independent arbitration panel, to hear the case.
Farina alleges in her federal lawsuit that the defendants, including Murphy School Principal Anthony Buono and then-Assistant Principal Monica Briggs, violated the federal Age Discrimination in Employment Act, the Americans with Disabilities Act, Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1991, the Connecticut Fair Employment Practices Act and state law. She seeks unspecified money damages and punitive damages, among other things.
The administration’s attorney, Michael J. Rose, alleged at several points during the hearing that Farina’s advocates were using the hearing to put things on the record to build their case for the federal lawsuit.
Farina’s disabilities include back problems that required two surgeries, thyroid cancer diagnosed in May 2005, and medically diagnosed extreme fatigue and insomnia, the lawsuit says.
It alleges the defendants failed to provide reasonable accommodation for her disabilities and instead discriminated against her. While neither was named as a defendant, the suit says Superintendent of Schools Kathleen Halligan never took action to stop the alleged discrimination, and the teachers’ union filed a grievance on Farina’s behalf only once, despite repeated complaints.
Union leaders on several occasions told Farina she “should just resign,” the suit says.
| | | UConn Health Center Faculty Vote To Unionize - Courant.Com
08-December-2009
FARMINGTON —
In a tight election, faculty members at the University of Connecticut Health Center have voted to form a union.
The pro-union side won by a two-vote margin — 223 to 221. Eighty-six percent of the 519 eligible faculty members voted in the two-day election, held Tuesday and Wednesday.
Members of the health center's teaching, research and clinical faculty will now form a chapter of the American Association of University Professors, which represents faculty on UConn's Storrs and regional campuses.
In two previous votes, in 1999 and 2000, faculty members voted against unionizing.
Stephen Schensul, a professor in the department of community medicine and health care and a union supporter, said this week's vote may reflect a greater sense of uncertainty among clinical faculty than in the past, with health reform and other potential changes looming, including a controversial proposal to merge the health center with Hartford Hospital.
In a statement, the UCHC-AAUP Faculty Association said it sought the involvement of all faculty, those who voted for and against the union. "Working together, our goal is to have the UConn Health Center become a top tier institution in research, education and patient care," it said.
In addition to negotiating on issues like compensation and working conditions, the union could also work with the health center administration toward common goals, possibly including an attempt to seek funds for a new hospital from the legislature," Schensul said.
"We don't see it as an adversarial relationship," he said.
The health center administration had opposed unionization. In a statement, the administration said: "As we enter into this new phase of our relationship with AAUP, we will continue our commitment to engage the faculty in decision-making, to understand and respond to its concerns, and to maintain two-way communications."
Mary Casey Jacob, senior associate dean for faculty affairs, said it was not yet clear what having a union would change, aside from collective bargaining.
"We'll make it work," she said.
The health center has about 5,000 employees, and before this week's vote, about 3,870 were unionized
| | | Why 'say on pay' won't work - CNN.com
16-November-2009
NEW YORK (Fortune) -- Waiting for investors to slam the brakes on runaway executive pay? Don't hold your breath. Although Congress may give shareholders more of a say on pay soon, big money managers seem content to keep their mouths shut.
Senate Banking Committee Chairman Chris Dodd, D.-Conn., unveiled a financial reform plan this month that would give investors in public companies an advisory vote on pay policies starting in 2011.
It's the latest boost for say-on-pay plans, which reformers have been pushing in recent years with some notable support. The idea is that shareholders, as the owners of public companies and the natural guardians of the corporate purse, will pressure directors to hold the line on pay -- particularly at underperforming firms.
President Obama has backed making say on pay mandatory. More than two dozen companies, including Verizon (VZ, Fortune 500) and Microsoft (MSFT, Fortune 500), have adopted the plans.
Say on pay seems particularly appealing now, as Wall Street firms prepare to pay out huge bonuses at a time of high unemployment and massive taxpayer-funded subsidies for the economy.
But there's a catch. The biggest investors -- institutions such as mutual funds and pension funds that hold more than half of all shares -- have shown little interest in playing pay watchdog. And it's not clear that will change even if the government mandates say on pay as part of the financial reform taking shape in Washington.
"We just haven't seen a huge amount of effort being put out by institutional shareholders to affect compensation levels," said Bernard Black, a law professor at the University of Texas. "Whether it's because they don't mind the pay practices or because the money managers are making millions themselves, you don't see them jumping up and down."
Black notes that institutions rarely try to elect their own candidates to boards or take other actions that might be classified as shareholder activism. But critics go further.
A recent study co-sponsored by a union pension fund and a top governance firm dubs many of the biggest mutual fund firms -- including Ameriprise (AMP, Fortune 500), AllianceBernstein (AB), Barclays (BCS) and MFS -- as "pay enablers" for supporting management pay proposals and opposing those by shareholders.
The report, co-sponsored by the Corporate Library and the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), chastised the funds for "failing to use their voting power in ways that would limit compensation excesses."
MFS disagreed with these findings. The closely held Boston-based firm said the study "did not truly reflect the firm's position on executive compensation." The fund firm added that since 2007, it "has determined excessive executive compensation at over 70 issuers and has not supported over 200 directors due to excessive executive compensation concerns."
MFS hasn't been a fixture on the pay enabler list. But Ameriprise, AllianceBernstein and Barclays have made it each of the last four years, the report said.
These firms didn't respond to requests for comment, but Richard Ferlauto, who directs corporate governance and pension investment at AFSCME, said it's clear they aren't looking out for their customers.
0:00 /4:21Activists demand a 'say on pay'
"The funds have an obligation to their investors to monitor the performance and the practices of their holdings," he said. "Had there been more rigor on the part of these funds in reviewing their investments, some of the worst problems of this downturn could have been avoided."
Eleanor Bloxham, who runs the Value Alliance corporate governance firm in Westerville, Ohio, said big shareholders don't tend to take an active role in overseeing pay because the industry is rife with conflicts of interest.
"Everyone is in the same boat in the financial services business, as suppliers and customers and 401(k) holders," she said. "There is no great will to stand up."
By the same token, researchers say cost-benefit analyses often make activism less attractive to institutional shareholders. Big firms often hold thousands of stocks in giant diversified portfolios, making intensive monitoring a major chore.
"I'm not one who believes corporate governance will solve our problems," said Margaret Blair, a law professor at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, Tenn. "Shareholders are not in position to address the main problem, which is the incentives we are giving to management."
Still, for all its limitations, say on pay is widely acknowledged to be better than one oft-mentioned alternative -- greater pay regulation.
"At most, say on pay might bring down some of the biggest paychecks. But I don't see how that's such a great threat to capitalism," Black said.
| | | AT&T Southwest reached a milestone last week when they ratified a new contract with the Communications Workers of America (CWA) union, but the Northeast region and AT&T continue to be miles apart. According to a report in the Waterbury Republican Ame - Roll Call
16-November-2009
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Downtown’s newest labor boss is making bold predictions during his first weeks on the job, assuring passage of a liberal health care overhaul by the 2010 State of the Union, followed by imminent consideration of contentious “card check” legislation.
Newly minted AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka also is not ruling out launching television advertisements or rallying his members against a Democratic-backed health care bill if it taxes benefits, does not include a public insurance option or if it does not force companies to cover their employees.
“I would take nothing off the table right now for what we are willing to do,” Trumka said last week. “We’re making hundreds of thousands of phone calls, [writing] hundreds of thousands of handwritten letters. We’re educating the general public, and we’re having meetings with legislators.”
Trumka’s comments came during a wide-ranging interview with Roll Call on Thursday, during which the third-generation coal miner also spoke about possible personnel shake-ups at the AFL-CIO, the still-fractured labor movement, and what his coalition has in store for the 2010 election.
For now, Trumka pledged that top AFL-CIO lobbyist Bill Samuel’s job is safe, but he declined to discuss the future of Samuel’s deputies or other employees in the government affairs office.
“Bill is not going anywhere, that’s what I’ll tell you,” Trumka said. “If not the best, he’s one of the best lobbyists in the city.”
Lines in the Sand
While somewhat coy about the AFL-CIO’s internal affairs, Trumka is outspoken about where his group stands on health care reform. He said the federation’s members are dead-set against legislation cleared by the Senate Finance Committee that would tax health care plans costing more than $21,000 per year, a proposal that could disproportionately affect generous union health insurance plans.
“We’ve already paid a lot, and we think it’s bad policy to tax our benefits to pay for people,” Trumka said. “The rich have gotten a free ride, and the model that’s created in the House side is a good model, and we think it’s the way to go.”
Trumka added that by taxing expensive health insurance plans, Members would hurt older, sicker workers the most because those are the employees who most need premium coverage. “It’s not because they’re luxurious plans or Cadillac plans,” he said.
“It puts the cost of reform on the middle class,” he continued.
“It actually puts it on the oldest and sickest and the small-business employees when the focus should be making the insurance companies compete differently.”
Once a health care reform bill has been sent to President Barack Obama’s desk before the State of the Union, Trumka pledged the Employee Free Choice Act will be next. The card check bill, which would make it easier for workers to unionize, continues to be the target of a multimillion-dollar advertising campaign by the measure’s opponents, including the U.S. Chamber of Commerce and other business groups.
Trumka confirmed that he spoke late last week with Democratic leaders in both chambers about the prospects for card check.
“We’re committed to getting health care done ... and then we’ll get to the Employee Free Choice Act in the wake of that,” he said. “I feel very confident that in the wake of health care, you’ll see that we’ll get the Employee Free Choice Act done.”
Trumka declined to address specifically whether his group would support a proposed EFCA compromise that strips the bill’s most contentious provision: an accelerated process for workers to form a union.
“The majority sign-up is front and center in the bill right now,” he said.
Appalachian Roots
The 60-year-old leader of the nation’s largest labor group grew up Appalachia, just miles from the West Virginia border in southwestern Pennsylvania. After high school, Trumka followed his grandparents, father, six uncles and a dozen cousins into the coal mines, where he recalls doing “virtually every job.”
The miners’ union eventually sent Trumka to college and later to law school. The Penn State alumnus went on to become the president of the AFL-affiliated United Mine Workers of America. Trumka became John Sweeney’s No. 2 at the federation 14 years ago and succeeded him as its president in September. He said the contemporary labor movement has a lot to learn from his years navigating through dark mine shafts.
“When you work underground, you depend on the people around you. You learn real solidarity, and you carry that with you,” he said. “You learn how insignificant you are and that things work best when you work from the bottom up, not the top down.”
Trumka said he continues to work with the Service Employees International Union and other former AFL-CIO affiliates that quit the group in 2005 to form the rival federation Change to Win. But Trumka said his contact with former Rep. David Bonior (D-Mich.), who has been tasked with brokering a possible reunification, is limited. Bonior’s son is an SEIU employee.
“They’re not interested in coming back,” Trumka said of the SEIU. But he’s not giving up on wooing other Change to Win affiliates.
“We’re working with everybody, all of the other unions, to figure out a way to bring them back,” he said.
SEIU spokeswoman Michelle Ringuette declined to discuss the state of the ongoing talks but said, “Rich Trumka has a long history standing up for workers.”
“We share his challenges and successes right now, and we’ll all be able to help workers navigate through a changing economy,” she said.
Kimberly Freeman Brown, executive director of the labor coalition American Rights at Work, said Trumka has a “very clear vision as to where he wants to take the AFL-CIO.” Brown’s group includes both AFL-CIO and Change to Win affiliates.
“He is a real tell-it-like-it-is person,” she said. “He’s the right leader at the right time for workers.”
Political Renovation
The AFL-CIO also is planning to launch a “major, major, major” jobs initiative and devote a $5 million budget surplus to retooling its political operations. Trumka explained that the federation’s political shop typically goes dormant in odd-numbered years, but it will soon be in operation full time. A key plank of the federation’s economic campaign will be encouraging lawmakers to pass a second stimulus package for small and medium-sized businesses.
“Nothing is going to change, and no one is going to believe it unless there are jobs being created,” he said. “That’s going to be the major focus of the federation and hopefully the entire country.”
| | | AT&T, Northeast union negotiations remain in a standstill - FierceTelecom.com
16-November-2009
AT&T Southwest reached a milestone last week when they ratified a new contract with the Communications Workers of America (CWA) union, but the Northeast region and AT&T continue to be miles apart. According to a report in the Waterbury Republican American, the CWA said that AT&T has refused to come to the bargaining table.
"We said, 'Look, we're bargaining with ourselves here. It takes two people to come to a contract,'" said William Henderson, president of Local 1298 of the CWA, which represents approximately 4,000 wireline employees in Connecticut. Henderson added that instead AT&T has been giving the union representatives "ultimatums."
One of the CWA's major concerns is job security. In the past two years, AT&T has either cut or relocated about 1,200 jobs out of its Connecticut region.
Last week's agreement with the Southwest region (District 6)--one that covers 26,000 employees--means that over 70 percent of AT&T's 120,000 wireline workers now have a contract. Now, the only two regions that don't have a contract are AT&T Southeast (CWA District 3) and AT&T East (CWA District 1).
| | | L&M Hospital, unions come to tentative terms on new contract - New London Day
16-November-2009
New London - Lawrence & Memorial Hospital and the two unions that represent its 700 nurses and technicians reached a tentative agreement late Thursday on a new contract.
The agreement, which will be voted on by union membership Monday, came after 12 hours of negotiations Thursday. If no agreement had been reached, the two sides would have had a final session on Monday, and if no resolution was brokered, the union would have gone on strike that evening.
On Thursday, the union withdrew its strike notice.
"This is good. We move forward now," said Eric Bailey, spokesman for Locals 5049 and 5051 of the AFT.
Details of the contract were not released by either party Thursday to give union members a chance to learn about the terms of the proposal first. Members will be given an information sheet detailing the proposal when they come to the union hall to vote on Monday, Bailey said. The voting will take place from 6 a.m. to 6 p.m., and the results announced after that.
"Both sides were willing to make adjustments and feel there is a fair and equitable package that members can consider," Kelly Anthony, hospital spokesman, said in a statement.
Earlier this week, the two sides resolved the main issue that had prompted the strike threat, over changes in sick-time policies the hospital sought.
Other issues of contention included a proposal by the hospital that would allow it to increase co-pay amounts on employee health insurance without negotiating first with the union.
There has never been a strike at L&M in the 40 years employees there have been represented by unions.
| | | Mayor: Government treatment of veterans 'just wrong' - The Bristol Press
12-November-2009
BRISTOL -- Mayor Art Ward told a crowd gathered for the city’s annual Veterans Day ceremony Wednesday at Memorial Boulevard School that was “very sobering” for him to read on the front page that morning how the U.S. Veterans Administration was failing some veterans.
Other news stories that talked about homeless veterans and the struggle to come to grips with the consequences of the Agent Orange sprayed in Vietnam also stung, the mayor said.
“That is just wrong,” said Ward, who served in the U.S. Marines in Vietnam and was wounded there.
The host of the city’s Veterans Day ceremony, Lori DeFillippi, who also served in the Marines, said, “Sometimes a veteran’s biggest battle is when he comes home and has to fight his own government.”
Ward said that for veterans “service is never over. It is always with us.”
But when the troops return to their communities, he said, the nation should follow through on its promises to the men and women it sent into harm’s way.
“It’s the country’s responsibility to honor its commitments to its veterans,” Ward said.
They shouldn’t have to keep fighting daily “to get the services and the benefits that they have truly, truly earned,” the mayor said.
All too often, Ward said, veterans return home only to find they still have to “stand up and fight” to get their due from the country they served.
Ward said people should read the stories in the papers and let them sink in.
Then, he said, they need to call their congressmen, pigeonhole their state lawmakers and tell those in power to make sure veterans are not ignored.
“There’s this voice out there that has to be heard -- and we’re bringing that forward,” the mayor said | | | State DOT Awards $1 Million Contract To Company Barred From Public Jobs In Massachusetts - Courant
12-November-2009
The state Department of Transportation has awarded a $1 million bridge contract to a Putnam-based contractor that was barred from working on public projects in Massachusetts and is under investigation by the Connecticut Department of Labor.
Complaints from a string of towns in two states have dogged Barr Inc. for the past three years.
Massachusetts regulators revoked the company's certification to do public work in the Bay State after Barr received failing evaluations on millions of dollars worth of work for four towns from 2006 to 2008.
Officials in Killingly, Conn., recently rejected a low bid from Barr on a bridge job, citing problems with two other town projects and the company's track record in Massachusetts.
And the state Department of Labor is investigating charges that Barr violated prevailing-wage laws at one of the previous Killingly projects.
But the DOT, despite Barr's disqualification in a neighboring state, recently accepted the company's low bid on the replacement of the covered pedestrian bridge over the Salmon River in East Hampton and awarded it the $1,083,000 contract last month.
"We sat down internally to evaluate their bid," said DOT spokesman Judd Everhart. "We were aware of the performance issues ... but concluded that they were qualified for this particular project and awarded the contract to them."When the state DOT bids were opened in August, the investigation of Barr in Massachusetts was still going on.
But on Sept. 4, Massachusetts formally decertified the company, meaning that it cannot do public building construction in the Bay State. The company may apply for reinstatement next spring.
"We have noted [the decertification] in their file. Should they be the apparent low bidder on a future Connecticut project, we would once again give them a careful review," Everhart said.
The loss of certification was based on failing evaluations submitted by four towns for which Barr built a public works facility and three libraries. After the Massachusetts investigation began, the company received a fifth failing evaluation in September on another library project, this one in Mattapoisett. Officials in Mattapoisett reported to regulators that the library came in 10 months behind the original completion date and that the project was plagued by safety and maintenance problems.
Barr's president, Robert Darrigan, said that the issues in Massachusetts and Killingly's rejection of its low bid were based on "half-truths and exaggerations" perpetrated by trade unions that do not like his company, which is a nonunion contractor.
Darrigan disputed the complaints outlined in a letter to his company from Bruce Benway, Killingly's town manager, and said he was confident that the company would be exonerated by the Department of Labor investigation. He said that Barr was an experienced company that does quality work.
Governments are generally obligated to accept the low bid from a contractor on public work unless it can be shown that the bidder is not responsible.
Benway told Darrigan in a letter dated Sept. 30 that the town based its rejection of Barr's bid on the company's performance on two other bridge projects in town, and that Massachusetts regulators took "the very serious step" or revoking Barr's certification.
Benway said the action "evidences the lack of confidence that the Massachusetts Division of Capital Asset Management has in Barr's ability to complete public projects in that state."
The town of Killingly, Benway said, remains "seriously concerned" about alleged payroll discrepancies and safety violations on two previous projects. The payroll issue led to the labor department's probe.
Paul Oates, a spokesman for the labor department, said that investigators met with representatives of Barr on Tuesday to discuss the review. He said that a report would be filed in a few days.
| | | Judge Approves Blumenthal's Request To Back Pratt Union - Courant.com
12-November-2009
By ERIC GERSHON
The Hartford Courant
November 11, 2009
A federal judge has approved Attorney General Richard Blumenthal's request to submit a brief in support of the Machinists union lawsuit attempting to keep Pratt & Whitney from closing operations in Connecticut.
Judge Janet C. Hall ruled in Bridgeport that U.S. District Courts have "broad discretion to grant or deny" friend-of-the-court briefs, such as Blumenthal wishes to submit, and said he has "demonstrated a sufficient interest in the litigation" to warrant it.
Lawyers for Pratt sought to block Blumenthal's brief, arguing that he would not provide anything the parties could not. They also suggested he should be disqualified because of his overt alliance with the union.
The suit seeks to bar Pratt from closing its Cheshire jet engine repair factory and a smaller unit in East Hartford, which together employ more than 1,000 people.
"This federal court decision promises a fairer fight and recognizes Connecticut's serious stake in protecting jobs and workers and our local economy," Blumenthal said in a statement issued Tuesday.
Hall said that he must submit his brief by Dec. 7 and that he will not be allowed to participate in hearings. The case is scheduled to go to trial next month. Hall issued her ruling Oct. 23.
In its own statement, Pratt said it believes that "the Court correctly ruled that the Attorney General is not allowed to participate in the case except for the filing of a brief. We will respond to the Attorney General's brief at the appropriate time."
| | | Women on pace to become majority of unionized workers within a decade - Courant.com
12-November-2009
WASHINGTON (AP) — Women are on track to become a majority of unionized workers in the next 10 years, signaling their growing clout in the labor movement.
The shift, outlined in a report Tuesday from the Center for Economic and Policy Research, could see organized labor focus more intensely on issues important to women as unions look to broaden their ranks and wield greater political strength in the next election cycle.
"When you have a majority of women in the labor movement, issues like work-family balance, paid sick days and paid parental leave become more important," said John Schmitt, an economist at the left-leaning think tank and one of the authors of the report.
The study tracks the growing diversity of the labor movement over the past quarter century, including a surge in Latino union members and the steep decline of unionized workers from the manufacturing sector.
Women now make up about 45 percent of union members, up from just 35 percent in 1983. That number is expected to move past 50 percent by 2020. White men now make up 38 percent of the union work force, down from 51.7 percent in 1983.
Latinos are the fastest-growing ethnic group in organized labor, more than doubling their representation from 5.8 percent to 12.2 percent over the past 25 years. Asian workers also saw their union ranks swell from 2.5 percent in 1989 to 4.6 percent in 2008.
Anna Burger, head of the union federation Change to Win, said women have changed the tenor of politics in the labor movement.
"Because of women, we don't just talk about raising wages, but about creating family friendly workplaces with sick leave, child care, and family and medical leave," Burger said. "We don't just talk about out-of-control insurance costs, but about the fact that women pay more than men strictly because of their gender."
After years of steady declines, union ranks have grown slightly over the past two years. Union members now represent 12.4 percent of the nation's work force, down from about 20 percent in 1983.
Much of the growth has come from the public sector, where women make up a greater percentage of employees than in private industry. About 49 percent of all unionized workers are government employees and 61 percent of unionized women come from the public sector.
Liz Shuler, the new secretary-treasurer of the AFL-CIO, said the numbers reflect an active push for diversity. It could translate into more political clout as well, as union voters make up 20 percent to 25 percent of the electorate.
"When we increase our representation with women and minorities, we know that's the fastest-growing segment of new voters as well," Shuler said.
| | | Norwalk court employees to meet with Duff about closure plan - Stamford Advocate
12-November-2009
NORWALK -- The proposed closing of state Superior Court in Norwalk has sparked a meeting with state Sen. Bob Duff to discuss concerns of some of the courthouse's 60 employees Thursday.
The courthouse's chief probation officer, Ed Conway, said the Judicial Branch's plan to move criminal, motor vehicle and housing cases to Stamford so the juvenile court can be moved into the building does not make sense.
Conway, president of the 1,200-person Judicial Professional Employees Union, said he is concerned some of the defendants who appear at the court from Westport, Wilton, Weston New Canaan and South Norwalk may have great difficulty getting to Stamford to make their appearance.
"We haven't heard what any plan is. Is the plan to bring Norwalk and Stamford juveniles over here and send everyone else to Stamford?" Conway asked. "The bottom line is no one can make sense of the plan. Why would it make sense to move the courthouse down to Stamford." Employees have also invited police and defense attorneys to attend Thursday's 1 p.m. meeting.
Chief Court Administrator Judge Barbara Quinn said she is considering closing the state's juvenile court on Commerce Street to save the $300,000 per year the state pays to lease the building.
A month ago after hearing from state Sen. Lawrence Cafero, Quinn said she is considering moving the juvenile court docket to Stamford.
Judicial Branch spokeswoman Rhonda Stearley-Hebert said the branch had no comment
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on the upcoming meeting.
"We are still reviewing all options regarding the Norwalk courthouse and no decision has been made," she said.
Duff said he was approached by Norwalk resident Peter Thor, director of Policy and Planning for Council 4 of the American Federation of State County and Municipal Employees, to talk with courthouse workers concerned about the closing.
"We are just trying to figure out how best we can solve a very difficult problem," said Duff, who wants the courthouse to remain open.
"I've just been told over and over again that the Stamford courthouse cannot absorb the Norwalk case load," he said.
Duff said he has had conference calls with Quinn and other officials concerned about a possible shutdown of the courthouse.
Thor said he talked to Duff because he sees the closure as an "effrontery" to Norwalk, the state's sixth largest city.
"It will hurt a lot of citizens," Thor said.
Staff Writer John Nickerson can be reached at 203-964-2320 or john.nickerson@scni.com
| | | Union chief says prison closure would cause problems
12-November-2009
HARTFORD — Closing one state prison in an already overcrowded system would cause a host of problems for guards, inmates, and their families, the head of the correction officers union said.
Jon T. Pepe, president of the Connecticut State Prison Employees Union, also said in an interview Tuesday that he fears a closure would escalate overtime costs and eat into much of the potential savings.
“We’re going to do everything we can to make things safe under any circumstances,” said Pepe, whose union represents 1,900 guards, treatment officers, counselors, and maintenance workers. “But I don’t see closing a prison now as creating the best environment.”
Gov. M. Jodi Rell last week directed Department of Correction Commissioner Brian K. Murphy to explore the possibility of closing one of the state’s 18 prisons, citing both a declining inmate population and a growing state budget deficit.
The prison population, which had peaked at about 19,900 in February 2008, has declined steadily since then to 18,500, due in part to expanded re-entry programs.
Rell and lawmakers also overhauled the parole process in late 2008 and early 2009. That overhaul included establishment of an expanded Board of Pardons and Paroles with five full-time members with professional experience in criminal justice or psychology. That has enabled the board to more closely review parole cases without slowing down processing of the overall caseload.
But while a detailed analysis of prison capacity never has been presented to the legislature, lawmakers frequently have said in recent years that the system was designed to house about 17,000 inmates.
Connecticut prisons now have about 1,700 inmates assigned across various facilities to temporary beds in nonresidential areas, such as program space. Pepe said closing another facility, even a low-security site, simply will force the reassignment of inmates into other areas where the limits already are being tested.
And the strain wouldn’t just involve sleeping space, but everything from toilets and other facilities to counseling, treatment, and other support services, he said.
According to the union, the recent retirement incentive program and an ongoing state hiring freeze, coupled with attrition, have combined to lower guard ranks by about 400 posts. A new class of correction officers just added about 125 people to the ranks, but staffing remains tight, he said.
“I’m sure there would be some savings” if one prison is closed, but with many key positions already vacant, more overtime assignments likely would be needed, Pepe said. “I don’t know how long that savings would last.”
The prison guard just was one of just two state employee unions that refused to provide wage concessions, such as canceling raises or accepting furlough days, during negotiations last spring with the Rell administration. That means its members aren’t exempt from layoffs.
“I would hope nobody would play with people’s lives” to exact some political payback, Pepe said. “I can’t see layoffs working well.”
This fiscal year’s $18.64 billion state budget is running $624 million in deficit according to Comptroller Nancy Wyman.
Democrats, who control both the state House and the Senate, had argued last spring that state government could achieve big savings within its prison system.
One budget bill adopted by lawmakers yet vetoed by Rell last summer would have closed two prisons. The estimated annual savings by 2010-11 was about $10 million. | | | Lieberman’s threat of filibuster looms large - Boston Globe
09-November-2009
WASHINGTON - When a recent conversation among Senate centrists turned to insurance company antitrust concerns, Joe Lieberman boasted of his bona fides: As Connecticut attorney general in the 1980s, he sued the industry.
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“Joe,’’ drawled Mary Landrieu, a Senator from Louisiana and one of Lieberman’s closest Democratic allies, “that’s when you were a liberal.’’
Lieberman’s mercurial ideology has amused, confounded, and frustrated Democrats for years. As the health care spotlight now moves from the US House to the Senate, the shape-shifting independent Connecticut senator and former vice presidential candidate is again aggravating his former party.
His vow to support a Republican filibuster of health care legislation if it contains a public health insurance option makes him a pivotal player and, he says, a spokesman for a silent minority-within-the-majority.
“Although I’ve spoken out a little more explicitly about this, it’s clear there are a number of moderate Democrats who are not happy with the public option,’’ Lieberman said recently. “I’d say the number not happy with the way Senator Reid has framed it is in double figures, which may surprise people. That’s in different levels of intensity.’’
After House passage Saturday of a health care bill with a public insurance plan, focus turns more intensely to the Senate and Lieberman’s pivotal role.
Other Senate Democrats, including Indiana’s Evan Bayh, Nebraska’s Ben Nelson, and Landrieu, have expressed doubts about a public insurance plan, but none has been as direct in threatening to join Republicans looking to kill it. Lieberman said he did because he worried that majority leader Harry Reid wasn’t “ready to negotiate on a public option now.’’
“I have the greatest confidence in Joe Lieberman’s ability as a legislator,’’ Reid said. “And he will work with us when this gets on the floor, and I’m sure he’ll have some interesting things to do in the way of an amendment. But Joe Lieberman is the least of Harry Reid’s problems.’’
Among Democrats chafing against Reid’s proposal, Lieberman cuts an unusual profile. He is the only one from a reliably blue state - with the most to lose politically from impeding President Obama’s agenda - yet was elected to his seat despite opposition from much of the Democratic establishment.
“I’ve always felt that I was an independent-minded Democrat, and I was,’’ Lieberman said. “Nonetheless, I do feel more fully independent being elected an independent. It’s just a fact of life.’’
Lieberman eagerly rebuffed claims made by liberal activists that his approach to health care has been shaped by insurance interests, more densely packed in Connecticut than any other state. He has received about $800,000 since 2000 from insurance industry sources, and industry-affiliated political action committees have given more generously to his campaign fund than those from any other sector.
“I’m not taking the positions I am to protect the health insurance companies in the state,’’ Lieberman said. “I’m thinking about the economy of the state and the people of the state.’’
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The coming health care votes will be the latest stops on a long journey of partisan self-discovery for Lieberman, who was Al Gore’s running mate on the Democratic ticket in 2000 and John McCain’s sentimental favorite to be the Republican vice presidential nominee eight years later.
In between, Lieberman sought and failed to win the Democratic presidential nomination and renomination to his Senate seat. When he was reelected in 2006, it was on the “Connecticut for Lieberman’’ ballot line.
“Senator Lieberman has always prided himself on being an independent person, but I certainly think that losing the primary and going on to win the election clearly defined a change for him from a party perspective,’’ said Nancy DiNardo, chairwoman of the Connecticut Democratic Party.
Today, Lieberman is a registered Democrat who attaches himself to the party in the Senate. He likes to refer to himself as an “independent Democrat,’’ although he chose not to cast a ballot in his party’s presidential primary last year and was denied his right to vote as a convention superdelegate because he had endorsed McCain, a close friend.
After the election, Democrats agitated to expel Lieberman from their ranks. Reid, at Obama’s direction, rebuffed an effort to remove Lieberman from a committee chairmanship.
“There was a lot of pressure on Lieberman because of his position in Iraq,’’ said Dan Gerstein, a former Lieberman aide. “Reid just didn’t buy that litmus-test politics.’’
Lieberman has since voted overwhelmingly with Democrats as he aligns himself with hawkish Republicans on foreign-policy issues. This winter, he made himself a central player in negotiations that secured two crucial Republican votes for Obama’s stimulus package.
“The reality is that everything we’ve asked for this year or lobbied on behalf of, he has been pretty good on,’’ said John Olsen, president of the Connecticut AFL-CIO. “This is the first big thing coming out.’’
Yet Lieberman acknowledges it was unlikely he would be able to sustain such goodwill from Democrats. He is drawn to conflict - he celebrates “Inglourious Basterds,’’ Quentin Tarantino’s fantasy World War II film, as “cathartic’’ - and recalls the times he went against his party with the nostalgia some save for summer flings. Just thinking about a long-ago crossover vote for a capital gains tax cut brightens Lieberman’s worried countenance.
“I feel good, it’s been a good chapter in my career, I’m doing my independent thing but I feel I’m out of the crossfire,’’ he recalls telling his wife last month. “Then, Hadassah said: ‘Knowing you, you’ll be back in the crossfire some time soon.’ ’’
Lieberman used to place himself in the mainstream of Democratic thinking on health care, campaigning for president with a promise to deliver “universal’’ coverage. Today he describes himself as “a very strong supporter of health care reform’’ who supports stronger regulation of insurance companies and elimination of their federal antitrust exemption.
But he uses the Republicans’ preferred language when dismissing any public insurance plan, calling it an “entitlement’’ that is “probably being advocated by some people who really want a totally government controlled single-payer system.’’
The so-called public option, he says, is a “harmful appendage on the body of health care moving forward, but it’s a late addition to the body. If you look back over the discussions of health care reform over the years, there’s nothing like this. This became another litmus test, and I think a really unnecessary one.’’
Connecticut Democrats and unions are lobbying their junior senator to support the bill, although some concede that they are girding for disappointment.
“What we want at the end of the day is for this to pass,’’ said Olsen, who said his membership was less concerned about Lieberman’s position on a final bill than about his backing of a Republican filibuster. “We’d be disappointed in Senator Lieberman but appreciative that he allows us to have the vote.’’
| | | Documents Subpoenaed From UConn-Rell Study - Courant.com
09-November-2009
At least one subpoena has been issued — and others "almost certainly will be" — for scores of documents in an investigation of whether a University of Connecticut professor's $223,000, taxpayer-funded study on government efficiency was misused to provide political advice to Gov. M. Jodi Rell, Attorney General Richard Blumenthal says. The legal maneuver is intended to guarantee production of all relevant documents — e-mails, memos and other records — by the Rell administration and UConn in the month-old probe conducted jointly by him and the bipartisan state auditors of public accounts.
"We have already issued demand letters" to recipients including Rell's office and UConn, Blumenthal said in an interview Saturday. "They are the equivalent of subpoenas in the substance of documents and information that we are seeking," he said, and "can easily be converted to a subpoena" if anyone balks.
So far, no one is refusing cooperation, he said. But one subpoena already has been served on a recipient whom he would not name. In addition, he said, other subpoenas are already prepared — and "almost certainly will be issued" on people for either documents or sworn testimony in the next few weeks.
"We do have a game plan," he said.
The Democratic state attorney general's probe with the auditors is one of three formal inquiries now pending into the study that UConn professor and polling expert Kenneth Dautrich has been conducting since mid-2008 under a $223,000 contract between UConn and Rell's budget office, which is known as the Office of Policy and Management.
In the other two: UConn is investigating whether Dautrich violated any ethics rules, at least one of which bans political activity on the job; and the State Elections Enforcement Commission is looking into a complaint that Rell and her exploratory 2010 campaign committee violated state laws in connection with the study.
The study is scheduled to run through Aug.
30, 2010, but the Republican governor says it has been put "on hold" since mid-October with roughly half of the $223,000 already spent. That suspension came after newspaper revelations that Dautrich had conducted a "focus group" as part of the study in December 2008 that elicited nine citizens' comments on the leadership qualities of Rell and Blumenthal. At the time, he was viewed by some as a potential Democratic opponent in 2010, but he since has ruled that out.
Many of the documents now being demanded have been released to reporters through recent freedom of information requests — including e-mails showing that in 2008 and 2009, Dautrich continually e-mailed Rell's chief of staff, M. Lisa Moody, with advice about political polling and strategies for how the Republican governor could outmaneuver legislative Democrats. Dautrich even helped Rell's 2010 exploratory campaign committee prepare questions for a $6,000 private political poll last spring, e-mails show, and he set her up with a New Jersey polling firm that he has used in his own past research.
Such political communications flowed freely between Dautrich and Rell's aides before and during the study. Rell and Dautrich contend, however, that such interactions were not part of the study, which has produced a thick draft of a report and, they say, already has saved the state money.
The documents that investigators will examine deal not only with the conduct of the study, but also the ways in which Rell's office has tried to control political damage since it came under public criticism in early October.
For example, governor's office e-mails contain "daily issues briefings" to arm Rell with answers to questions that she might be asked at public appearances on various issues. The governor first answered reporters' questions about the Dautrich revelations in person on Oct. 9, when she appeared at the Torrington Fire Department for an unrelated event — and the briefing prepared for that day included what are called "talking points" for her on the subject.
Here are a few:
>> "Let me be clear: We worked very hard to ensure that the work Ken Dautrich did and the questions he asked were policy-based."
>> " We went out of our way to avoid the possibility that his work could be perceived as somehow related to election politics."
>> " And his work was invaluable — he helped us to find ways to save taxpayers money."
>> " The University of Connecticut was paid for the work — not Ken directly."
Rell covered several of those points during that Oct. 9 appearance — and continued to do so in later encounters with reporters. Finally, more than a week ago, she said that she would no longer answer questions about apparent contradictions between her administration's version of events and what has been surfacing in e-mails obtained by reporters. Rell says she first wants the investigations to sort things out.
There is much for them to sort out, because the documents are full of complicated and sometimes contradictory information.
For example, while Rell had stressed in recent weeks that UConn, not Dautrich, was paid for the study, she also acknowledged that the study had paid "a portion of his salary."
And that was different from what Rell's budget chief, Robert Genuario, said in an Oct.
14, 2008, e-mail to another state official when the study was about 4 months old: "Ken is not being paid any amounts in excess of his normal salary to complete this assignment."
Here are some new details on that issue, provided by UConn in answer to Courant questions. UConn spokesman Michael Kirk said Dautrich got $13,462 this year for "work on the OPM project over the summer that was in addition to his regular nine-month UConn salary" of $121,162.
A professor can be paid up to three months' extra "summer salary" at his regular monthly rate — $13,462 in Dautrich's case — if he has a project to justify it. His study for Rell justified one month's pay of $13,462 for Dautrich, from May 23 to June 22, while an unrelated project paid him $26,925 for two months from June 23 to Aug. 22.
Dautrich also stands to make a potential $40,000 next summer from UConn by virtue of the Rell study, Kirk said, if the study is revived from its "on-hold" status and he works on it for all three summer months.
It would not have been possible for him to be paid anything extra for the study in 2010 under the original plan, because OPM's agreement with UConn called for a $123,406 study lasting from June of 2008 through late summer of 2009. But within a month, an additional $100,000 and another year were added. There wasn't much written explanation for the change, which apparently had been discussed in person or on the phone: "It turns out that the Governor and Ken had discussions about expanding the scope and timeline to the project. Unbeknownst to Ken, the Governor authorized $100K more," a UConn employee wrote to a part-time student worker in an e-mail June 20, 2008.
One last bit of news on the Dautrich study: UConn said at first that its inquiry would include participation by Rachel Rubin, who now is UConn's director of compliance after initially serving as Rell's ethics counsel. But now, Kirk said last week, "because of her past work in the governor's office, Rachel is not taking part is this case in order to avoid the appearance of bias. Michael Walker, the head of our office of audit, compliance and ethics, is handling it."
>> Jon Lender is a reporter on The Courant's investigative desk, with a focus on government and politics. Contact him at jlender@courant.com, 860-241-6524, or c/o The Hartford Courant, 285 Broad St., Hartford, CT 06115.
| | | Rell Considers Closing One Prison - CT News Junkie
09-November-2009
A decline in the inmate population coupled with the need to find $63.4 million in savings over the next two years, has prompted Gov. M. Jodi Rell to ask the Department of Corrections to consider closing a prison.
According to the Department of Corrections, the inmate population is currently about 18,500, down from a record high of nearly 19,900 in February 2008. The agency attributed the decrease, in part, to the success of some re-entry programs and a full-time parole board.
Meanwhile, the state budget deficit has ballooned to $624 million and it has everyone in state government scrambling to find savings anywhere they can.
“Because of the agency’s efforts and re-entry initiatives, comprehensive and timely reviews by a full-time Board of Pardons and Parole and a new class of 125 Correction Officer graduates, we have an opportunity to build on those successes,” Rell said in a letterto Acting Corrections Commissioner Brian Murphy. “However, consolidating operations must be done - first and foremost - with the safety of the staff, the public and the inmates as a priority.”
While he understands the position the governor is in, Sen. John Kissel, R-Enfield, said he’s concerned about consolidation.
Kissel, who has six prisons in his senate district, said it wasn’t that long ago he toured the prisons and “we’re still at or above population levels in a lot of these facilities.” He said he thinks the population is still higher than what the facilities were designed to accommodate.
He said he sees a higher number of incidents happening at Northern Correctional Institute, where some of the state’s most dangerous offenders are housed.
“I think there are a higher number of incidents and the types of incidents have escalated,” he said Friday.
Rell asked the Corrections Department to study the feasibility of closing a prison and make its recommendation to her by Nov. 27.
| | | City Scenes: A 21-Year-Old Finds A Job, And A Mentor - Courant
09-November-2009
There's a gaping hole in the road where Albany Avenue and Edgewood Street meet, a 16-foot-deep pit lined with steel that keeps the earthen walls intact as contractors work below.
Kewayn Hudson, wearing a hard hat, stands and watches.
He does a lot of that. His 30-hour-a-week, $8-an-hour training job with the Metropolitan District Commission begins most days by keeping track of equipment and people.
But he's not certified to do the MDC's sewer work, and he doesn't belong to the union. So he watches and asks questions of his boss, Joseph Mancini, who calls him "Key."
What began as a summer job training program through the Blue Hills Civic Association and Capital Workforce Partners has expanded to take Hudson, 21, through next September.
When he's done, he'll try for a $20-an-hour laborer's job. That's one payoff. Pride is another.
"A lot of people older than me, probably around Joe's age, say, 'How'd you get in there?'" Hudson said, as an excavator worked a few feet away earlier this fall. A short distance away, two unspent cartridges litter the street. "And these people, they hang around the package stores and hang out on corners all day. They see me; I get out of the MDC truck with a badge and a hard hat." He smiled and pulled his safety vest tight like a suit coat. "I feel good."
It didn't have to go this way. Hudson left home when he was 16 and got into trouble. "When I met him," Mancini said, "he said, 'Joe, I see the path I'm going and it leads to nowhere.'"
Hudson, of East Hartford, now lives on Barbour Street with his grandmother and great-grandmother. He decided to make money the "right way."
"That's when I signed up for this program and met Joe," he said. "Ever since then, I've been on a roll."
It's one they're on together.
"I don't have any kids," Mancini said. "My parents emigrated from Italy. My older brother was born in Italy. I had a rough bringing up, but I always had people that I looked up to, they always gave me helping hands, words of encouragement. That's what I told Key. ... You're going to be under my wing for a couple of months and I'll do the best I can."
"Joe is really like a father figure to me," Hudson said. "He takes care of me. He lets me borrow money when I need to, you know what I'm saying? Not a lot of people going to let you borrow money." | | | Union Elects New Leaders - New Haven Independent
09-November-2009
As they head into contract negotiations in a bleak economy, city workers chose a familiar face to carry on the legacy of an outgoing union president.
Cherlyn Poindexter (pictured) was elected Thursday as president of AFSCME Local 3144, the city’s management union, after a heated campaign.
Poindexter, who’s currently the union vice president, beat out city investigator Rich Bayer by a vote of 183 to 132. (Click here for background on the race.)
She ran with the full support of outgoing president Larry Amendola, who recently retired and is stepping down as president after 23 years.
“I’m glad for her,” said Amendola after the vote. “She’ll do a great job.”
The election took place two days after a citywide election with anemic voter turnout. By contrast, voter turnout Thursday was high: 78 percent of the union, or 315 of 406 members, cast ballots in the basement of the Hall of Records.
Poindexter, who’s 43, works as a security analyst in the fire department. She’s worked for the city for 25 years and has been active in the union for the past 12.
Earlier in the day, Poindexter and the other candidates greeted voters as they went into the Hall of Records at 200 Orange St. Rather than talk about the past and the layoffs the union suffered, she focused on the upcoming contract negotiations that begin in January. She said her union experience prepares her to lead that fight.
“It’s a new day,” she said. “We’ve got to start working real soon.” (She couldn’t be reached for comment after the vote.)
Among her supporters was Mae Ola Reddick, who’s worked for the city since 1965. Reddick, a former alderwoman, said Poindexter earned her support when she stuck with her in a recent battle over pay. Reddick added that she’s especially proud to see the first African-American person in her memory elected to the union’s highest seat — “and she’s a woman, too.”
Elaine Braffman, a neighborhood specialist for the Livable City Initiative, won a three-way race for union vice president.
Braffman got 139 votes, Richard “Dickie” Bell got 89 and Thomas Verderame got 81.
Bell conceded the race to Braffman, avoiding a runoff vote. Braffman has worked for the city for 13 years. Before that, she served as alderwoman in Beaver Hill’s Ward 28 from 1988 to 1996.
“I want to humbly thank the members of the union for supporting me. I will not disappoint them,” Braffman said after the vote. She turned her attention to uniting the rank and file to prepare for the next round of negotiations.
“We have a huge job ahead of us,” she said. “Now we have to all come together.”
| | | Conn. American Red Cross Announces Layoffs - WFSB TV
09-November-2009
HARTFORD, Conn. -- The American Red Cross in Connecticut announced Friday that it is laying off 22.
The organization blamed the layoffs on declining blood donations, but the union said the layoffs put public safety at risk.
The union said it has been negotiating a new contract since April. Union spokesman Larry Dorman said they layoffs are part of a hard line stance the Red Cross is taking with negotiations across the country.
The local union has been without a contract since April, and has been rallying for the last six months.
“This makes no sense, cutting workers in this economic time and with the need for blood so great … and is clearly designed to be cruel and gratuitous and hurt the public, not help the public,” Dorman said.
The Red Cross said the layoffs will not affect public safety.
The organization has suspended a specific red-cell program, and said that’s part of the reason why it’s seen 10 percent fewer donations that it normally would this time of year.
“We had to make a very difficult business decision based on declining donations, and we don’t take that lightly,” said Donna Morrissey of the American Red Cross.
That program was suspended because Department Of Public Health concerns over unlicensed workers performing the procedures, a concern the union said it shares.
Morrissey said the concerns are based on an outdated statute and the organization will try to get an exemption to get the program back up and running. In the meantime, she said the layoffs had nothing to do with union negotiations.
“It’s a sad day at the Red Cross and our hope is that people will continue to give blood and support us and our inventory needs over the holiday time period,” Morrissey said.
More union negotiations are scheduled for mid-November. | | | Donations in decline, Red Cross lays off 20 - Herald Press
09-November-2009
FARMINGTON — Citing “a significant decline in blood donations,” the American Red Cross Connecticut Blood Services Region said Friday it will eliminate 20 positions in the Connecticut Region.
“We cannot maintain current staffing levels and layoffs are necessary,” said Donna M. Morrissey, director of communications, American Red Cross Blood Services.
Two additional positions are being eliminated in an effort to consolidate operations. Morrissey said every consideration will be given to affected employees in terms of open positions in the region.
“This is a sad day at the Red Cross,” she said. “We regret that our colleagues are being laid off due to declining blood collections. We recognize that this is a very difficult time for them and their families.”
Since July the Connecticut Region has collected 5,000 fewer blood donations than anticipated.
Morrissey warned that more layoffs may be necessary if collections continue to decline. Friday’s layoffs involved nursing technicians and equipment workers. Both union and nonunion workers were affected.
She also announced that the Double Red Cell program has been discontinued and the Platelet Pheresis Program operations have been modified due to an outdated state statute. The Red Cross is pursuing an exemption from this statute. The Double Red Cells procedure enables donors to donate twice as many red cells during one visit while spending less time at the center.
“The Red Cross’s decision to lay off front-line workers has left us speechless considering the dire need for blood,” said Christine Holschlag, president of AFSCME Local 3245.
“It also leads us to question management’s decision-making process when the organization is currently working under an FDA consent decree for safety violations,” said Holschalg, a phlebotomist at the Connecticut Blood Services Region.
Holschlag said Red Cross workers are sent out to blood drives that are short-staffed every day. Employees are frequently called to work overtime and double shifts.
“When the organization’s main concern is providing a safe blood product, cutting front-line workers is never the answer,” she said. “The Red Cross is putting the community at risk by cutting the jobs of responsible, competent and caring employees.”
“Red Cross management made a conscious decision to use unlicensed personnel for the double red cell procedure,” said Larry Dorman, AFSCME Council 4 spokesperson. Referring to management’s decision to discontinue the Double Red Cell program Dorman said, “Now they’re punishing our workers for having done the right thing by raising concerns with the state and insisting that the most stringent safety precautions be taken.”
To ensure adequate availability of blood products for Connecticut’s hospitals and patients, Morrissey said the Red Cross will rely on blood being brought in from other states to make up the shortfall.
Further labor negotiations are scheduled for later this month. The union has been working without a contract since its collective bargaining agreement expired on April 26.
The Red Cross is asking eligible donors to give blood to maintain inventory levels and ensure that blood is readily available during the holidays.
| | | On election anniversary, Obama dismisses polls snub - AFP
05-November-2009
WASHINGTON (AFP) – President Barack Obama Wednesday brushed aside a sharp polls rebuke as he marked the first anniversary of his historic election saying his administration had saved the nation from economic ruin.
Just hours after rival Republicans gleefully ousted Democratic candidates in two key gubernatorial races, the White House dismissed suggestions that the results were a referendum on Obama and his policies.
A year to the day after Obama vowed before a tumultuous crowd in Chicago that change had come to America, Republicans were trumpeting Tuesday's victories in New Jersey and Virginia.
But Obama sought to remind a school audience in northern Wisconsin -- one of the states that swept him to victory over Senator John McCain on November 4, 2008 -- of the political landscape and economic outlook 12 months ago.
"One year ago, Americans all across this country went to the polls and cast ballots for the future they wanted to see," he told the crowd in the Madison school, which leapt to its feet in a standing ovation.
"Election day was a day of hope, it was a day of possibility, but it was also a sobering one because we knew even then that we faced an array of challenges that would test us as a country."
Republicans are hoping that Tuesday's victories could help turn the tide after their 2008 polls drubbing, as they look ahead to key mid-term elections in 2010.
"The Republican Party's overwhelming victory in Virginia is a blow to President Obama and the Democrat Party," Republican National Committee chairman Michael Steele said.
"It sends a clear signal that voters have had enough of the president's liberal agenda."
Obama was swept to power on a promise of change just as the United States was confronting its worst economic crisis in decades, and with US troops fighting two wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
And he made it clear Wednesday that he would not be diverted from his program. "The work continues, but we are moving in the right direction," he pledged.
"And we are going to keep on fulfilling our obligation to do every single thing we possibly can to pull this economy out of the ditch and to make sure that people can find jobs that pay good wages. That's our top priority."
And White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said Republicans should not presume Tuesday's triumphs will translate into victory next year when all the House of Representatives and a third of the Senate is up for election.
"If you look at the exit polling, which is pretty clear on this, people went to the polls and voted on local issues, not to even register support for or opposition to the president," Gibbs said.
Obama's favored candidates lost the battle for the governor's mansion to Chris Christie in New Jersey and Bob McDonnell in Virginia even though he had campaigned for them.
Christie pulled off an upset victory over Jon Corzine with a 49-45 percent margin according to preliminary results, while McDonnell defeated Creigh Deeds by 59-41 percent in Virginia, with almost all precincts reporting.
But on Tuesday, for the first time in more than a century, a Democrat, Bill Owens, narrowly won a seat in a strong Republican congressional district of upstate New York.
Owens narrowly defeated conservative Republican challenger Doug Hoffman, who pulled back from behind in a surge by the conservative rightwing of the party which caused a more moderate Republican candidate to drop out.
Obama said his administration, sworn in after his inauguration on January 20, had had "two fundamental obligations."
"The first was to rescue the economy from imminent collapse. And while we still have a long way to go, we have made meaningful progress toward achieving that goal."
The actions taken by his administration such as implementing a 787-billion-dollar stimulus plan and introducing tax cuts "contributed to the first quarter of economic growth that we've had as a nation in over a year," he said.
The second obligation was "to tackle problems that had been festering, that had been kicked down the road year after year, decade after decade."
In other elections, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg was re-elected to a third term in a surprisingly close contest after he poured millions of his own money into the campaign and changed the rules so he could stand again.
And in Maine, voters soundly rejected a law to allow same-sex marriage, in a blow to gay rights advocates hoping the northeastern US state would become the first in the country where voters directly approve gay unions.
| | | Congress set to pass economic package helping jobless, homebuyers - Associated Press
05-November-2009
WASHINGTON (AP) — The House is poised to send the White House a bill extending aid to over a million people in danger of exhausting jobless benefits and additional tax credits for prospective homebuyers crucial to rejuvenating the housing market.
The $24 billion package also contains tax credits aimed at struggling businesses. The House is scheduled to vote on the legislation Thursday, a day after the Senate passed it 98-0.
With some 7,000 people running out of unemployment benefits every day and the current $8,000 tax credit for first-time home buyers set to expire at the end of the month, President Barack Obama is expected to quickly sign the measure into law.
House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md., said the bill was "vital to Americans who have lost their jobs as a result of the deepest recession in over three-quarters of a century."
The bill would provide every American running out of unemployment insurance benefits this year with an additional 14 weeks. The out-of-work in states with jobless rates at 8.5 percent or greater would get six weeks on top of that.
It would also extend for seven months the $8,000 tax credit for first-time homebuyers that was enacted as part of the $787 billion stimulus package passed last February. The program would be expanded with a $6,500 credit for homebuyers who have lived in their current residences for five years.
Finally, it would allow businesses that have incurred losses in 2008 and 2009 to seek refunds for taxes paid on profits over the past five years.
The package, said Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., a leader on the unemployment issue, will "help nearly 2 million Americans who are still unable to find work, protect small businesses struggling in this challenging economic climate and stimulate economic activity to help create jobs and grow our economy."
The extension would be the fourth since June of last year and could result in giving an out-of-work person in one of the harder-hit states up to 99 weeks of benefits, well above the previous record of 65 during the 1970s.
Supporters argued that this help was necessary when 15 million unemployed are competing for about 3 million jobs and the unemployment rate continues to inch up despite some signs of economic recovery.
"There is no place today in the United States that does not see a serious crisis in unemployment," said Democratic Sen. Jack Reed of Rhode Island, where the 13 percent unemployment rate exceeds the national rate of 9.8 percent.
The $2.4 billion cost of extending unemployment benefits is offset by extending through June 2011 the federal unemployment tax that employers pay for each employee.
The two tax credits, each costing more than $10 billion over 10 years, are paid for by delaying enactment of a law giving international companies more leeway in how they allocate interest expenses between U.S. and foreign sources in determining tax liabilities.
___
| | | AP: Dem Health bill to get AARP backing - Associated Press
05-November-2009
WASHINGTON (AP) — In a coup for House Democrats, AARP will endorse sweeping health care overhaul legislation headed for a history-making floor vote, officials told The Associated Press on Wednesday.
An endorsement from the seniors' lobby was critical when then-President George W. Bush pushed the Medicare prescription drug benefit through a closely divided Congress in 2003. House Democratic leaders are hoping it will work the same political magic for them as they strive to deliver on President Barack Obama's signature issue.
An announcement from the 40-million member group is expected Thursday, said officials with knowledge of the group's decision. They spoke on condition of anonymity because the endorsement is not official yet.
Backing the 10-year, $1.2 trillion House bill is a tricky move for AARP. Many retirees are concerned about cuts in Medicare payments to medical providers, which will be used to finance an expansion of health insurance coverage to millions of working families who now lack it. Also, AARP says its membership is about evenly divided among Democrats, Republicans and independents, meaning its endorsement in today's highly politicized atmosphere could anger many members.
Floor votes on the House bill could come as early as this weekend. Obama planned to visit the Capitol on Friday, according to congressional officials. They spoke on condition of anonymity because the meetings have not been announced.
Asked Wednesday if Democratic leaders had the 218 needed for passage, House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer, D-Md., responded: "We're counting. We're counting."
House leaders moved on Wednesday to shore up support for the measure among the Democratic rank-and-file, even as they sharpened their fight with the health insurance industry.
Last-minute changes to the legislation, released late Tuesday night, started a 72-hour legislative clock and cleared the way for votes as early as Saturday.
In a move aimed directly at health insurance companies, the revised House bill would launch a federal-state crackdown on what it terms "unjustified premium increases." Insurers have sought above all to block creation of a government insurance plan, which happens to be the top legislative goal for liberals.
Under the bill, insurance companies would have to publicly disclose the justification for premium increases before they go into effect. The federal Health and Human Services department would monitor patterns of premium increases, and could take action if the price hikes are out of line. The bill would also provide $1 billion to state insurance commissioners, allowing them to ramp up their own enforcement.
Democrats also strengthened a provision that would strip the industry of its decades-old exemption from federal antitrust laws.
Supporters said the tougher approach is needed to keep insurance companies from artificially boosting premiums in advance of the major reforms taking effect in 2013.
Other late changes to the bill, such as enhanced status for the government's office of minority health, were intended as sweeteners for supportive lawmakers, including members of the Congressional Black Caucus.
With no Republican backing for the measure, Democrats will need overwhelming support from their own. A festering intra-party disagreement over how to prevent federal funds from being used to pay for abortion remained unresolved Wednesday morning.
The House bill is estimated to expand coverage to about 96% of eligible Americans. Beginning in 2013, it would provide government subsidies to extend coverage to tens of millions who now lack it, and ban insurance company practices such as denying coverage to people with pre-existing medical problems.
For the three years before the federal aid starts flowing, the bill would set up a temporary "high-risk pool" through which people who have been denied coverage because of poor health could obtain a government-subsidized policy.
The bill would set up health insurance "exchanges" through which self-employed people and small businesses could buy coverage, either from a private insurer or a new government plan that would compete. All the plans sold through the exchange would have to follow basic consumer protection rules, making it easier to shop and compare among them.
The majority of middle-class Americans covered under big employer plans would not see dramatic changes. But coverage for the poor through Medicaid would be significantly expanded.
Seniors in traditional Medicare would get improved preventive benefits. Also, the prescription coverage gap known as the "doughnut hole" would be gradually closed. However, seniors signed up for private insurance plans through Medicare could lose some benefits, as the bill scales back extra payments that the plans have been getting.
In addition to raising money by cutting payments to hospitals and other medical providers, the House bill boosts taxes on upper-income earners. Democrats also moved Tuesday to close a biofuel tax credit loophole, raising about $23 billion to help pay for the legislation.
| | | State Officials Look To End Electric Deregulation - WFSB TV 3
05-November-2009
HARTFORD, Conn. -- Connecticut pays the highest electricity rates in the continental United States. The only state that pays higher electricity rates is the island state of Hawaii.
Close to half the payments you make to Connecticut Light and Power or United Illuminating do not end up going to those companies. The payments go to wholesale electricity producers. And some state leaders said wholesalers are profiting handsomely from a system that is not working.
It’s hard to live without electric power. However, it seems to be getting harder and harder to pay for it here in Connecticut and the prices seem to skyrocket during certain months of the year.
Figures from the United States Energy Information said in 2007, the average retail price of electricity in Connecticut for residential customers was almost $150 a month.
The only places in the continental United States that come close to what Connecticut pays were Texas at $140 a month and Maryland at $129 a month.
Consumers like Robert Santerre are not sure how much more they can afford.
Santerre said, “You have to take a whole check, a whole paycheck, just to pay a month of heat."
State leaders, like Rep. Vickie Nardello, Chairwoman of Connecticut’s Energy and Technology Committee, admit that decade ago they supported the deregulation of the electricity industry as part of an effort to lower prices.
Deregulation meant ending the monopolies held by electric utilities.
Connecticut Light and Power and United Illuminating had to get out of the business of making electricity and sell off their power plants. That left them to only deliver electricity on their power lines.
The idea was that other companies would make the electricity, and people could choose where they bought it.
Connecticut Attorney General Richard Blumenthal, who admits 10 years ago he supported electric deregulation, believes prices skyrocketed because of the way power is now sold.
Part of the way that it’s done involves daily electricity auctions overseen by Independent System Operator New England.
Blumenthal said, “This system is so broken. The least efficient, most costly source of power is the one that sets the price for everyone."
The nonprofit corporation set up to make sure the region has an ample supply of power holds regular wholesale auctions. The real problem, critics added, was that in these auctions, the price of the electricity is often pegged to the bid offered by one of the most expensive power plants, which is usually fueled by natural gas, with coal and nuclear power plants costing a lot less.
Nardello said, "Nuclear plants are paid as if they're gas plants, coal plants are paid as if they're gas plants, and what happens is you create windfall profits for those particular owners of those plants because of the fact they're getting paid much more than the cost of producing the electricity."
So when natural gas costs were surging before the recession, Millstone, a producer of low-cost nuclear power, made an annual windfall profit in 2008 of more than $500 million, according to documents obtained from industry consultant Robert McCullough who has written research critical of ISO-New England pricing method.
Natural gas prices are down because of the global recession, so the profits are not big. Millstone owner Dominion Resources questioned McCullough’s figures and pointed out it is just working within the rules set up by ISO-New England.
Dominion said, “We are operating within the system that we didn't create, we had no say whatsoever when deregulation was passed.”
The attorney general placed most of the blame on ISO-New England, whom he said made the electricity auction rules.
Blumenthal said, "For consumers, this system has been a catastrophe."
Channel 3 Eyewitness News I-Team Reporter Len Besthoff asked ISO-New England why its auction pegs the wholesale price of power to the more expensive bids. Vice president of marketing development Bob Eithier said the profits electricity producers make give them an incentive to build even more power plants in the region.
Eithier said, “I think the bottom line in Connecticut is, they're in the best position they've been in as far as energy future for decades. They have a robust transmission system, they have adequate resources, they have a great deal of new resources entering the market that are much cleaner than the old resources."
Several moves were made at the Capitol to give the state more control over electricity markets. Nardello tried several times to get a bill passed that would end retail electric choice, set up a state power authority to buy wholesale power directly from power generators at minimal markup and tax any profit generators made over that amount. That is something she believed could reduce electric bills by as much as 20 percent in the short term.
Nardello said, “So the idea is you want to get out from under the ISO New England rules. We realize that they're skewed to benefit generators."
This would, in effect, turn back the clock on significant chunk of electric deregulation in Connecticut. The Energy Information Administration said that of the 22 states that deregulated their electricity markets and allowed retail choice, a third have backtracked and suspended their programs.
State Rep. Terry Backer, who used to be the chairman of the Energy and Technology Committee, said even if Connecticut suspended electric deregulation and lowered everyone’s bills, it would not solve anything because people will use more power.
Backer said, “In the end of it, we need to help people use less energy.”
Meanwhile, hundreds of Connecticut businesses are taking advantage of the choice electric deregulation has brought to Connecticut.
Prospect Machine Products participates in a bulk purchasing program that The Connecticut Business and Industry Association offers, getting Rich Laurenzi 10 to 20 percent off retail electric prices.
Nardello said that while her bill attempting to roll back electric deregulation failed during the last legislative session, it was the closest she has come so far, and she and others plan to try to introduce a similar bill soon.
| | | Lamont joins crowded field for governor - New London Day
05-November-2009
Files papers for an exploratory committee; Rell still silent about her plans for 2010
Hartford - Ned Lamont, the Greenwich cable executive who rose to national prominence when he knocked off Sen. Joe Lieberman in a 2006 primary campaign, has set his sights on the governor's office.
Lamont, a Democrat, confirmed Wednesday that he has filed papers to form an exploratory committee for a statehouse run in 2010, jumping into an increasingly crowded field of Democrats vying for the nomination.
Across the aisle, Republican Gov. M. Jodi Rell remains mum about her plans, with a spokesman saying she would reveal "by the end of the month" if she intends to run for re-election next year.
In an interview, Lamont said his reasons for entering the gubernatorial contest are economic. The recent Moody's report warning of a potential downgrade of the state's bond rating described "a fiscal train wreck in slow motion," Lamont said, adding that he thought neither Rell nor the legislature had shown seriousness in attempting to generate job growth or to balance the 2010 budget.
"They borrowed $3 billion, used a lot of one-shot (revenues) and kicked the can down the road," Lamont said of the General Assembly and Rell.
"Look, I'm somebody who's devoted his life to creating jobs, and I think I bring that perspective, an entrepreneur's perspective, to the political discourse," he said. "I'm going to challenge the political class. We've got to reform the way we do business in the state of Connecticut. And we've got to get an honest budget."
Lamont's entry into the race brought initial gestures of welcome from potential Democratic rivals.
"We are facing an extremely challenging time and I welcome Ned into the debate about how we can get Connecticut back onto the road to recovery," said Secretary of the State Susan L. Bysiewicz, who has also formed an exploratory committee, in a statement supplied by a spokeswoman.
Stamford Mayor Dan Malloy and First Selectman Rudy Marconi of Ridgefield also released statements saying they welcome Lamont into the contest. The field also includes former House Speaker James A. Amann of Milford, still the only declared Democratic candidate in the race, and state Sen. Gary LeBeau of East Hartford.
But potential front-runners like Malloy and Bysiewicz will soon move to draw distinctions with Lamont, still seen as fresh political face despite the fleeting victory over Lieberman. (Lieberman stayed in the race in 2006, cobbling together a coalition of Republicans, independents and Democrats to win as a petitioning candidate.)
"I've been assuming for some time that he would be (jumping into the race) and it changes nothing," said Roy Occhiogrosso, a consultant to Malloy. "Dan is still the only potential candidate for the job who has actually done the job that a governor has to do. Dan Malloy has proposed and balanced budgets, managed a bureaucracy, created thousands of jobs and built affordable housing across an entire city. I didn't know that cable companies did that."
Amann, who backed Lieberman in the Senate primary, had harsher things to say about Lamont and his backers at the time.
"Shame on all of us if we allow a shrieking minority in this party to hijack this primary," Amann declared in 2006, as he and Democratic luminaries, including former President Bill Clinton, rallied to try to save Lieberman's primary campaign.
In an interview, Lamont said his exploratory committee would comply with the terms of those already raising money for the other candidates. But he said a decision on whether or not to participate in the state's public financing program after formally declaring his candidacy would wait until next year. The question is not academic for Lamont or his opponents; the businessman piled roughly $14 million of his own money into the 2006 Senate race.
Other campaigns will seemingly be watching Lamont's moves.
"I think Dan has shown that all of the potential candidates will compete within the same system," was all Occhiogrosso, the Malloy adviser, would say.
| | | Rell Still Mum On Re-Election Plans - CT News Junkie
05-November-2009
On the same day Ned Lamont announced that he would join a handful of other Democratic candidates in exploring a run for governor in 2010, Republican Gov. M. Jodi Rell remained mum on her re-election plans.
In a brief phone interview, Rell said she would make her intentions about whether she would seek another term, known by the end of the month.
For weeks now Rell has said she would talk about her plans after Tuesday’s municipal elections, but decided to leave her opponents and supporters in guessing for just a little while longer.
“I think she is going to run again,” Republican Party Chairman Chris Healy said Wednesday. “She just wants to take her time.”
When Rell was told what Healy said her response was “we’ll see.”
As for Lamont, Rell said anytime somebody thinks they have something to offer they should get involved.
| | | L&M nurses, technicians vote to authorize strike - New London Day
05-November-2009
New London – Lawrence & Memorial Hospital nurses and technicians voted overwhelmingly Wednesday to go on strike at 10:45 p.m. Nov. 16 unless key issues regarding sick time can be worked out and a new contract signed by then.
"We did not get a strike authorization – we got a strike demand," said Katherine Martin, president of one of the two unions involved in the contract talks with the hospital.
Neither AFT Local 5051, which represents licensed practical nurses and technicians, nor AFT Local 5049, which represents registered nurses, would release specific numbers from the vote, other than to say that turnout far exceeded the 75 percent of membership required for a the strike vote, and that a "supermajority" approved the strike. There are about 700 workers in the two unions.
"We're in the middle of an H1N1 pandemic and we're going to fight for what's right," said Lisa D'Abrosca, president of Local 5049. "The hospital stripping away our sick time will force nurses to come to work when they're ill."
Three more negotiating sessions are scheduled before Nov. 16. Union leaders acknowledged that the strike vote will give them new leverage at the bargaining table.
Hospital spokesman Kelly Anthony said the strike vote is "part of the negotiating process" and that the hospital is prepared to hire replacement nurses to keep the hospital running during a strike.
"The hospital needs to save money and we need to provide better care at a lower cost," he said. Current sick time policies, which would be scaled back dramatically under the hospital's proposal to the unions, "are costing the hospital money."
"We are hopeful we can find a compromise," Anthony said. "This is a very difficult time to go on strike." | | | Reid reassures left Lieberman on board - The Hill
04-November-2009
Sen. Joe Lieberman has reached a private understanding with Majority Leader Harry Reid that he will not block a final vote on healthcare reform, according to two sources briefed on the matter.
The unpredictable Democrat-turned-Independent last week publicly stated he would join Republicans in filibustering the Democratic legislation after Reid (D-Nev.) announced he had included a government-run health insurance plan in the bill.
But sources said Reid’s staff is telling liberal interest groups that Lieberman (Conn.) has assured Reid he will vote with Democrats in the necessary procedural vote to end debate, perhaps with intentions to change the bill.
“Lieberman keeps assuring Reid that he’s OK,” said one source. “But he’s one of those characters — you never know with Joe.
“Maybe he’s talking tough to get the public option watered down or he’s trying to get some stuff for himself on other topics or on other sections of the legislation,” the source added. “He’s basically trying to be a senator.”
Lieberman’s spokesman said Monday that nothing has changed from last week, when the senator said he would support calling up the bill but would block a final vote.
“Sen. Lieberman has made it clear that he will vote for the motion to proceed to the healthcare bill but will oppose cloture on a final bill if it contains a public option because he believes that it would worsen our national debt problem,” said Lieberman aide Marshall Wittmann.
A spokesman for Reid declined to comment.
Lieberman’s vote is crucial because he likely represents the 60th vote needed to end debate in the Senate. Without him, Reid would be forced to fish on the other side of the aisle for a vote, something that has not come easily this Congress.
Sen. Olympia Snowe (Maine), the only Republican to vote for any healthcare reform bill in this Congress, has signaled she will likely join Republicans in filibustering the bill because Reid included a public option.
Reid’s staff has told anxious liberals that Lieberman has given the Democratic leader assurances that he will not wreck the reform bill because of Reid’s decision to include the public option, according to two sources briefed on the issue.
As a result, well-connected liberals inside the Beltway who are in touch with Reid’s office have taken a more optimistic view of Lieberman’s position, while activists and bloggers outside the loop have seethed over his statements from last week.
“To put this government-created, government-run insurance company on top of everything else is just asking for trouble for the taxpayer, for the premium payer and for the national debt. I don’t think we need it now,” Lieberman said on Oct. 27, one day after Reid announced he would include a public option in the bill.
Lieberman would still be free to vote against the bill on final passage, as only a simple majority of the chamber is needed and Democrats could afford to lose a few votes in their conference.
Sources attribute Lieberman’s public declaration of opposition as an effort to win concessions for his constituents, which include several major insurance companies based in the state.
Lieberman’s private assurances may explain Reid’s confidence that the maverick lawmaker will support his former party’s bid to pass its signature domestic initiative.
When asked about Lieberman’s threats of opposition last week, Reid praised his colleague.
“I have the greatest confidence in Joe Lieberman’s ability as a legislator,” said Reid. “And he will work with us when this gets on the floor and I’m sure he’ll have some interesting things to do in the way of amendment. But Joe Lieberman is the least of Harry Reid’s problems.”
Liberal leaders who support the public option say they are confident Lieberman, who caucuses with Democrats, will not sink healthcare reform.
“At the end of the day Sen. Lieberman will vote to cut off debate,” said Richard Kirsch, national campaign manager of Healthcare for America Now, a coalition of liberal and labor groups. “He’ll do what he has to do. He’s making a lot of noise.”
Even without the understanding, Lieberman’s liberal colleagues say the healthcare reform legislation will gain a lot of momentum once it lands on the Senate floor and that it would be difficult for any centrist Democrat — even a former Democrat — to block it.
“There will be a different kind of momentum and urgency once this bill is on the floor,” said Sen. Bob Casey Jr. (D-Pa.), a strong supporter of the public option, in an interview.
“I hope that any senator in our caucus wouldn’t draw a line in the sand,” Casey added. “There are a lot of parts to this bill and a lot of ways to get to a final vote where someone votes in favor even though up to this point they have been saying they are not on board.
Reid announced last week that he would insert into the healthcare reform bill a government-run insurance program that states could opt out of. The opt-out version of the program was intended to lure balky centrist Democrats. But Lieberman and Snowe quickly declared their opposition.
That stirred speculation that Democrats might have to resort to voting for a government health plan set to a trigger, which would not go into effect unless insurance companies failed to meet certain benchmarks.
But liberal senators and their allies have panned the idea, essentially taking it off the table.
“The insurance companies have had six decades to do this right,” said Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio), who has led the fight in the Senate for a strong government insurance program. “Why do they need time to abuse the public trust? I don’t know why we should give them more time to get this right.”
Hilary Shelton, the director of the Washington bureau of the NAACP, which is part of a coalition of liberal and labor groups fighting for the public option, said he hoped Lieberman would not stand in the way of reform.
“I hope that he would see what most of us see, that the options on the table, which include the public option, would help millions of Americans, and in the final analysis he’ll do the right thing,” said Shelton.
Senate observers note that Reid stood up for Lieberman at a crucial point last year when Democratic colleagues wanted to strip his chairmanship of the Homeland Security Committee. Just before Democratic senators voted on the issue at a closed-door meeting last November, Reid came to Lieberman’s defense.
When reporters later asked Reid whether he could trust Lieberman in the 111th Congress, Reid said: “The answer is yes, I trust Sen. Joe Lieberman.”
| | | Connecticut's Health Care Advocate Calls For Federal Protections On Health Insurance - Courant
04-November-2009
November 3, 2009
As health care reform gains momentum in Congress, Connecticut's health care advocate Monday called for federal standards to protect consumers in their dealings with health insurance plans.
Connecticut has made significant inroads in recent years in strengthening consumer protections, including instituting independent reviews when a health plan denies coverage of a treatment or procedures.
But Kevin Lembo, Connecticut's health care advocate, said that isn't the case in many states. Federal standards would create a "floor" that individual states could then build on, given their specific needs.
"It is an opportunity to spread those consumer protections to states that wouldn't get them any other way," Lembo said after a conference call sponsored by Health Care for America Now, a national network of community organizations and advocacy groups that supports health care reform.
The conference call was designed to draw attention to the lack of competition in the health insurance industry and the need for a health plan offered by federal and state governments.
Federal consumer protections have been included in the various reform bills in Congress.
While Connecticut has been progressive in protecting consumers, more still needs to be done, Lembo said.
The dispute over proposed premium increases on individual plans by Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield earlier this year highlighted the need for Lembo's office and the attorney general to have the right to intervene in rate cases if either sees it as necessary, Lembo said.
Similar rights would fit well in federal standards, he said.
| | | State Budget $624 Million In The Red - CT News Junkie
04-November-2009
Last month the governor’s budget office projected a $388.5 million budget deficit, but projections released Monday by state Comptroller Nancy Wyman forecast a deficit almost twice that size.
In her monthly letter to Republican Gov. M. Jodi Rell, Wyman pegged the state budget deficit at $624 million. She said this is mainly due to the continued weak income tax receipts.
“Although I see a slight improvement in revenues occurring toward the end of the fiscal year, my projection takes into account the accelerating job losses, high unemployment and decline in personal income that Connecticut residents are seeing now and can expect to see in the near future,” Wyman said in a press release.
In this letter Wyman also told Rell that she doesn’t believe the state will be able to reduce the state’s sales tax by a half percent on Jan. 1 because total revenue for the year is down by $407.6 million. That is more than double the revenue drop that would trigger the cancellation of a planned reduction in the sales tax.
“I wish I had better news about the revenues and the implications for a sales tax cut,” Wyman said, “but my projection is based on actual tax collections and underlying economic trends that cannot be ignored.”
Aside from the revenue shortfall the state is also spending $212.5 million more than it has budgeted, which also figured into Wyman’s deficit estimate.
The governor, who let the budget go into effect without her signature, and lawmakers in both parties used the news of the deficit projections to put their own spin on the situation.
“The Legislature’s budget contained numerous structural deficiencies that have begun revealing themselves in the analyses from both OPM and the Comptroller,” Rell said in an emailed statement.
“It is significant and troubling to have such high deficit estimates so early in the fiscal year - which again points to the need for prompt action,” Rell said. “While we may disagree on the specific estimates, we should all agree that we cannot wait for the regular Legislative session to take remedial measures.”
Rell announced last month, even before Wyman certified the deficit, that she has been working on a deficit mitigation plan to present to the legislature. Rell is required to submit a plan to the legislature when the deficit is greater than one percent of the general fund, but she has the power to reduce agency budgets by five percent without legislative approval.
“I am also prepared to exercise my authority to begin making rescissions perhaps as early as this week.,” Rell added. Rell’s statement did not address the possibility that a sales tax reduction may be off the table.
“What will it take to convince legislative leaders that continued spending at the state level threatens to make Connecticut insolvent?” House Minority Leader Lawrence Cafero Jr.,R-Norwalk, said.
The legislature must be prepared to act starting later this month in a special session, Cafero said. He blamed the Democrats for their inability to take significant steps to mitigate the budget deficit beginning in the spring of 2008. He said neglecting the problem drove the deficit higher on a monthly basis.
“Republican leaders again stand ready, willing and able to work with Democrats to finally do the difficult, but necessary work to reduce the size and cost of state government,” Senate Minority Leader John McKinney, R-Southport, said. ” We need the Democrat majority to stop ignoring reality and join us at the table.”
In a phone interview Monday evening, McKinney said the legislature needs to use the only tools it has left, which is spending less. He said Democrats need to own up to their mistakes and make the spending cuts they failed to make for more than a year.
While Republican lawmakers and the governor blame the legislature’s Democratic majority for the budget deficit, Democratic lawmakers blame the governor for not cutting enough.
“Connecticut is getting hit with a powerful one-two punch right now,” Sen Majority Leader Martin Looney, D-New Haven, said in a statement.”Not only do revenues continue to drop, but the governor is failing to make the spending cuts called for in the budget.”
“As the Comptroller states, about one third of the deficit is due to increased spending in the executive branch,” Looney pointed out. “It is critical that the governor not only follow through on cuts included in the budget, but also begin responsibly exercising her rescission authority.”
House Speaker Chris Donovan, D-Meriden, maintained a fairly optimistic tone after learning about the state’s deficit Monday.
“The Governor has not achieved tens of millions of dollars in anticipated state spending cuts from the Executive branch — in middle management and layers of bureaucracy, as well as a reduction in managed care rates which the Comptroller cites,” Donovan said in an emailed statement. “At the same time, revenue projections and the strength of the recovery that some economists see are highly unpredictable this early in the year
| | | High court to decide NLRB case - Associated Press
04-November-2009
The Supreme Court said Monday that it will decide whether two people can do the work of five when it comes to resolving labor-management disputes in the workplace.
The National Labor Relations Board, which for decades has had the responsibility of policing similar disputes, has operated with two members -- and three vacancies -- for more than a year. The reason for this is that Democrats who retook control of Congress in 2006 objected to President George W. Bush's labor policies and thus refused to confirm his nominees.
But the two NLRB members still in place have continued to issue decisions, making about 400 in the past 16 months.
Federal appeals courts have split on whether decisions made by two board members are legal. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit said an NLRB decision handed down last year was invalid because it was made by two members.
The U.S. Court of Appeals for the 7th Circuit in Chicago took the opposite position. It ruled that a vote by the two members was appropriate and binding.
The NLRB is an independent federal agency created by Congress in 1935.
The case is New Process Steel v. NLRB.
The court on Monday also left in place a judge's ruling that allowed prosecutors to charge a reputed Ku Klux Klansman with kidnapping more than 40 years after two black men were abducted and killed in rural Mississippi.
The justices rejected a plea from the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 5th Circuit to rule on whether too much time had elapsed for the case against James Ford Seale to go forward. The action leaves in place a lower court's ruling that the statute of limitations had not expired for a federal kidnapping charge against Seale in the 1964 disappearance of the two 19-year-old friends.
Seale was convicted in 2007 of abducting the men. Authorities said they were beaten, weighted down and thrown, possibly still alive, into a Mississippi River backwater.
Disagreeing with their colleagues, Justices John Paul Stevens and Antonin Scalia said the high court should have agreed to hear the case because it raises an important issue that potentially affects similar prosecutions.
The case is U.S. v. Seale.
| | | L&M nurses weigh strike over benefits for sick time - New London Day
04-November-2009
New London - Lawrence & Memorial Hospital registered nurses, licensed practical nurses and technicians will vote Wednesday on whether to go on strike Nov. 16 if a contract dispute over sick-time benefits remains unresolved.
In a news conference Monday, union leaders said more than two months of negotiations on a new three-year contract have broken down over a few key issues, adding that the most crucial disagreement is over sick time.
The hospital is seeking major changes in sick-time policies that now allow nurses and technicians 12 paid sick days per year that can be carried over to the next year if unused. The hospital, they said, would change that to five paid sick days per year that would not accumulate. Employees who need more than five days would then receive 60 percent pay per sick day through a short-term disability insurance system that would be administered by a third-party company, but it wouldn't take effect until seven days after the same illness.
Leaders of the two AFT unions that represent about 700 LPNs, RNs and technicians said the sick-time change would be a threat to patient and worker health and safety, potentially driving hospital workers to come into work when they are ill.
"Our sick time will not be taken away," said Katherine Martin, president of Local 5051 of the AFT, the union representing LPNs and technicians. "It's not like we're arguing over wages. We're arguing over the safety of our patients."
She said the unions are fighting to preserve the sick-time benefits at the direction of membership based on the results of polls about their chief concerns in the contract negotiations.
"They made it very clear to us that this issue is very important," Martin said.
Three more negotiating sessions are scheduled before the current contract expires Nov. 16. By law, the union has to give the hospital 10 days' notice before a strike. If the members approve a strike with the vote Wednesday, the union would have the option to call a strike, but it could reach a resolution with the hospital before a strike occurs.
There has never been a strike at L&M in the 40 years its workers have been represented by unions. In 2005, union membership authorized a strike, but it was averted with a contract agreement.
In response to the union's statements, the hospital said Monday it is taking the strike threat seriously. It would not comment on its sick-time proposal or other specifics of the contract negotiations.
"We are preparing strike contingency plans accordingly," Kelly Anthony, hospital spokesman, said in a statement. "We will continue to bargain in good faith with the union in the hope that both sides can achieve their goals without economic hardship to our employees and their families."
Greg Kotecki, field representative for AFT Connecticut, said L&M's proposal is "unprecedented" among its peer hospitals and would strip some dedicated, longtime employees of thousands of accumulated hours of sick time they had earned.
"These are people who are exposed to all types of illnesses all the time," Kotecki said. L&M "hasn't been able to demonstrate that it (the sick time policy) has been a problem."
The hospital, Kotecki said, is financially strong compared to many of its peer hospitals and can afford to maintain current sick-time policies. Sick time taken by nurses and other patient-care workers forces the hospital in many cases to have to find and pay for substitutes to fill those shifts.
The hospital is contending the sick policy change would save $2.5 million per year, Kotecki said, but he added that that equals only 2 percent of L&M's entire payroll.
Kotecki also said hospital negotiators have not provided the union with essential details about how the new sick-time policy would work. He laid the blame for the breakdown in talks on Peter Fraser, L&M's vice president of human relations, who was hired by L&M 2 1/2 years ago. Anthony said Fraser would not respond.
Kotecki said other unresolved issues in the contract talks include the length of the new contract and health insurance benefits. The union is seeking another three-year contract while the hospital wants a two-year agreement.
Also, the hospital wants to be able to change health insurance co-pay amounts and prescription drug benefits without negotiating with the union. The union, Kotecki said, understands that with spiraling health insurance costs, the hospital may have to charge employees more for their health coverage, but that the union doesn't want to forfeit the right to bargain over those issues.
About 40 members of both unions flanked Martin, Kotecki and Lisa D'Abrosca, president of the RN union, at the news conference outside the hospital's main entrance. Kotecki said about 200 members have sat in on negotiation sessions, the most recent of which concluded at about 4:15 p.m. Monday, a few minutes before the news conference began. He added that he still hopes an agreement can be reached.
"We hope calmer heads will prevail and we'll get an agreement," he said.
| | | Economic downturn quiets labor unions - Washington Times
04-November-2009
Labor peace has broken out across the country, and all it took was the nastiest recession since the end of World War II to spawn it.
Bureau of Labor Statistics numbers show major work stoppages — defined as those when 1,000 workers or more go on strike or are locked out — dropped 95 percent this year compared with last year and are at their lowest level since the government began keeping a tally in the 1940s.
"It is the economy. Right now, people are just desperately holding onto their jobs," said Charles B. Craver, a labor law professor at George Washington University.
Labor unions have been in decline for decades as a percentage of the work force and have been losing power over that time, but they had hoped an Obama presidency could help them recover lost ground. For now, though, it appears that test will have to wait until after the economy rebounds and employers and employees are ready to start sparring again.
"I think you can say that everybody's anxious to keep labor peace right now with the economy being where it is and employment where it is," said Gordon Pavy, the AFL-CIO's director of collective bargaining.
Previous recessions saw drops in work stoppages, but nothing like the complete halt of this current recession.
From November 2008 through May, BLS didn't record a single major work stoppage, and since May, there have been just three. Altogether, just 73,500 workdays have been lost to major stoppages through September. In the first nine months of 2008, there had been 14 major strikes or lockouts, costing 1.4 million workdays.
Mr. Pavy said not to draw long-term conclusions about the health of collective bargaining from these numbers. He said stoppages go in cycles and part of the explanation for the current drop is that there aren't many big contracts up this year.
He also said most of the big stoppages usually occur in manufacturing, such as the automobile industry. But workers at General Motors Co. and Chrysler Group LLC agreed to no-strike clauses through 2015 as part of the government bailout.
Another complication is that unions are doing best among government workers at the federal, state and local levels, where 36.8 percent are unionized, according to BLS statistics for 2008. In the private sector, just 7.6 percent are. Indeed, unions in 2008 experienced a rare overall membership uptick, primarily because of an increase in public-sector unionization.
However, many government employees, such as police and firefighters, are prevented from striking because they are deemed essential public safety employees.
Patrick Semmens, legal information director for the National Right to Work Foundation, which defends workers' freedom not to join unions, said unions' tactics have changed as well. He said members want to shy away from confrontational stoppages, and the organizers have listened.
As a result, picket lines more often are for unions trying to get new businesses organized and add new members, rather than lines of workers on strike against an employer.
"There's basically zero incentive for unions maybe to call these types of strikes over wages and things like that. That just means they're not going to collect dues if the workers go out on strike, versus the way to keep the ATM paying is workers keep working," Mr. Semmens said.
Mr. Craver also sees a broader trend in underlying balances of power. The numbers bear it out: In the 1970s, more than 250 million workdays were lost to work stoppages. That dropped to less than 120 million work days in the 1980s, about 46 million in the 1990s, and to about 37 million nearing the end of this decade.
"What it really demonstrates to me is the tremendous shift in power from what used to be the power unions had, and the workers, to the power of the employer," Mr. Craver said.
He said that balance-of-power debate is spilling into Congress in the fight over the Employee Free Choice Act, a bill unions have deemed their top priority because it would make it easier for unions to form.
| | | Board at odds on labor ruling - Torrington Register Citizen
04-November-2009
NEW HARTFORD — Selectmen disagreed on whether a former town employee who was fired last year should be reinstated to his former job as a state labor board decided, during its meeting on Monday night.Steven Joseph worked for the Town of New Hartford as a full-time highway maintainer from July 2, 2007, until he was fired on Oct. 30, 2008, according to the Connecticut State Board of Mediation and Arbitration Labor Department.Joseph was fired because he used a sick day from his municipal job and then worked in a private capacity on that same day, the arbitration labor department said.Joseph appealed his termination to that department on Nov. 5, 2008.The arbitration labor department found Joseph guilty of misconduct, but also found that the Town of New Hartford was overly harsh in firing him.The arbitration labor department’s ruling stated that Joseph was to be reinstated to his municipal job, assignment and shift, and should be considered a probationary employee for 90 days.
In its report, the department wrote that on Oct. 21, 2008, Joseph reported to work.Shortly after arriving, he told his supervisor Dan LeGeyt that he was sick and wanted to use a sick day. LeGeyt permitted Joseph to use a sick day.Later in the day, LeGeyt drove by a house in Barkhamsted three times and saw Joseph there, operating a woodchipper.
It was for this reason that he was fired.
On Monday night, First Selectman Earl MacInnes and Selectman Bill Marchand voted in favor of a motion to have the town labor attorney David Ryan begin appealing an arbitration award dated Oct. 21, regarding former New Hartford employee Steven Joseph.
Selectman Phyllis Webb voted in opposition to the motion, and voiced her opposition during the public part of the meeting.
"I do not support this at all," Webb said.
The three elected officials met in executive session for about 25 minutes before returning to the public part of the meeting to vote on the matter.
After the meeting Monday night, MacInnes said that Joseph is not currently employed by the Town of New Hartford.When he was asked open-ended questions about the matter, MacInnes declined to answer them.
| | | The Hartford Courant - Associated Press
02-November-2009
CHICAGO (Nov. 1) - For millions of Americans the rule is simple: If you don't come to work, you don't get paid.
That idea drives an untold numbers of carpenters, day care workers, servers, shopkeepers and small-business owners to their jobs each day. Sniffles or not.
As the swine flu spreads across the nation — and public health officials plead with the ill to, please, stay home in bed for several days until the fever goes away — a large segment of the American work force will face a tough choice about whether to call in sick or simply muddle through. That's because when skipping work means skipping food on the table or missing a rent payment, staying in bed isn't as simple as it sounds.
Kara Knoche, 28, is worried about getting swine flu and the money she would lose by missing a week of work. The Atlanta waitress is downing Vitamin C supplements, going out of her way to eat immune system-boosting foods and avoiding friends with the sniffles or hacking coughs.
"If you don't save up, you're basically behind and you're broke. Every dollar you make after that is probably going to go to bills," she said. "That makes for a very hard month. A person has to eat."
Across the country employers of all sizes are making contingency plans for a hard-hitting flu season.
Some business owners are cross-training employees to fill in for absent colleagues. Others are relaxing sick leave policies that require a doctor's note. (Many doctors' offices are advising swine flu patients to stay away unless their symptoms are severe to prevent overwhelming the health care system. )
Some corporations are heeding advice from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Among their tips: moving desks farther apart, creating more shifts to have fewer people on duty at a time and reducing employee travel.
But that advice doesn't do much for many companies — particularly small businesses or those in the service industry where sick leave is almost unheard of or too costly for owners to afford.
"We don't have a real good contingency plan in place right now," said Gordon Weitzel, owner of Dayton's Chicken & Seafood in Salisbury, Md. His staff of 36 does not have sick leave.
"I've got some servers who cook, and I've got a lot of different people I can flip-flop. But it most certainly would be a hardship if 20 or 25 percent of my staff had swine flu" and stayed home, he said.
About a third of the nation's workers don't have paid sick leave, according to the U.S. Department of Labor. But even some workers who do don't take it because they fear retribution from their bosses if they don't show up.
The problem can be worse for parents who worry not just about their own health, but their children's. After all, a sick kid who got the flu from Mom or Dad can mean even more time off the job.
Kevin Huigens, 52, knows calling in sick means bringing home a smaller paycheck, or possibly none at all. As a technology contractor in suburban Chicago, his job doesn't come with sick leave or vacation time.
So what will he do if he gets sick this winter?
"If I'm well enough to sit up in bed with a laptop, I can still work," he said. "I can work from home somehow, some way. It may not even be a full eight hours, but I can get a few hours a day."
Even that might not be doable for some particularly ill patients.
Last year, Chicago real estate agent Jen Sanders was felled for five days by the seasonal flu after forgoing a flu shot for the first time in a decade. Stuck at home, she had to call other real estate agents to attend everything from home inspections to showing listings to potential buyers so she wouldn't risk losing her commission.
"It's horrible when you feel so crappy and you realize that you are losing money at the same time," she said.
This year, she made sure to get a flu shot. She'll also continue her strategy of keeping her gloves on during the height of the winter flu season when she's shaking hands.
"Every time I do a showing, I greet people," the 35-year-old said. "I try to do what I can without making other people feel awkward."
| | | Anthem Details Premium Increases It Says Would Result From Health Reform - Courant.com
02-November-2009
The Hartford Courant
October 30, 2009
As health care reform gains traction in Congress, a major insurer in Connecticut is warning that premiums in individual and small-employer plans could skyrocket if there isn't a strong mandate for getting coverage for all Americans.
WellPoint Inc., which owns Anthem Blue Cross and Blue Shield in Connecticut, has issued a report that says proposed changes to the health care system could more than double monthly premiums on some individual plans in Connecticut.
Anthem is the first insurer to detail specific price changes in Connecticut and other states that it says would result from reform, a claim made generally by the industry.
Critics say the arguments are scare tactics. But David R. Fusco, president of Anthem in Connecticut, said that the penalties contemplated by reform measures aren't strict enough to ensure that all people seek out coverage — driving up the cost of coverage for those who have it.
"The reality is that the penalty could be less than the cost of participating," Fusco said. "Young individuals may make the decision to pay the penalty rather than participate in the program."
Insurance company critics say that the WellPoint report, the third in recent weeks from the insurance industry, is designed to derail reform and protect profits. It also ignores caps on premium increases written into proposed legislation, they say, as well as grandfathering that prohibits stiff increases if a person doesn't change policies.
Anthem, they say, has come under fire for seeking large rate increases, notably in Connecticut this summer.
"This is the third phony bought-and-paid-for 'study' the defenders of the status quo have trotted out in an attempt to protect their profits. Three strikes — and they're out," said Bryan DeAngelis, a spokesman for U.S. Sen. Christopher Dodd.
Kevin Lembo, Connecticut's health care advocate, said he views the report as an attempt to subvert a public option plan.
"Any reading of the document should occur with that as a backdrop," Lembo said.
Fusco defended the report, saying that it used actual underwriting standards and real-life scenarios. Anthem's strong market share in Connecticut and 13 other states covered by the study paints an accurate picture, he said.
"We wanted to move this discussion beyond averages and broad projections," Fusco said.
In the study, health insurance premiums for the young and healthy in individual plans would get hit especially hard in Connecticut.
One proposed change would prevent insurers from setting premiums based on how frequently certain groups seek medical care. That, Fusco said, would shift more premium costs to those who are younger.
Combined with other factors, a younger, healthier, 25-year-old man in Hartford in an individual plan could see his monthly premium rise from $166 to $350, a 111 percent increase.
But that doesn't necessarily mean older and less healthy people would get a break, the report said. Guaranteeing coverage without a strong mandate would help push up the monthly premium for a 60-year-old, less healthy couple in an individual plan by as much as 61 percent, to $2,013 a month — although a small firm with older workers could see an increase of just 2 percent.
Fusco said that a public option and rising medical costs could raise premiums even more, but that subsidies would lower the burden on some low- and modest-income people.
| | | Federal aid saves thousands of Conn. teaching jobs - Associated Press
02-November-2009
HARTFORD, Conn. (AP) -- Connecticut officials say federal stimulus funding has helped save about 5,200 teaching jobs across the state.
State records show Connecticut has received about $612 million for education from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act so far.
The state has used the money to shore up education aid to cities and towns, which softened the blow of budget deficits caused by the recession.
But federal officials in a recent report, however, singled out Connecticut and other states for using stimulus money to plug budget holes instead of increasing aid to schools.
Local school officials say the stimulus funding they have received has saved many teaching jobs. Waterbury officials, for example, say 320 of the city's 1,450 teaching jobs were spared because of the aid.
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| | | Police, city settle complaint on contract concessions - Stamford Advocate
02-November-2009
STAMFORD -- The police officers' union and the city on Thursday settled an unfair labor practice complaint filed by the union this fall that alleged the city misled the officers about being in dire financial straits during contract talks earlier this year.
The complaint was settled Thursday before a mediator during a meeting at the Government Center at which each union member got back one of the two personal days given up as concessions during contract negotiations this spring. The union initially asked the city to return $800 each member gave up from a clothing allowance, said Sgt. Joseph Kennedy, president of the police union.
Peter Privitera, city director of policy and management, referred questions about the complaint settlement to Bob Murray, the city director of human resources. Murray did not return phone messages left Friday seeking comment.
The union filed the complaint with the state Department of Labor after learning the city planned to hire two police officers months after it threatened to lay off 20 officers, Kennedy said. He said he felt the city was being untruthful about the impact of the global financial crisis on its ability to fund raises for officers.
"Lo and behold, once they get our money, they go and hire two more police officers," Kennedy said. "We're not against hiring more police officers; we're against being misled in negotiations."
Only one police officer was hired, police have said. Another candidate dropped
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out before being hired, citing personal reasons, a police department spokesman said.
With Thursday's settlement, the union withdrew its complaint.
To lessen a tax hike in Mayor Dannel Malloy's proposed budget for the 2009-10 fiscal year, elected officials cut $800,000 from salary accounts of municipal employees and asked for concessions from 10 of the unions of city employees. The police union was the last of the unions to strike a deal with the city. It gave up two personal days and halved its $1,600-per-member clothing allowance, amounting to $330,000 in savings.
In exchange, police officers kept pay raises and secured a no-layoff clause in a two-year contract. The city told the union it needed to find $400,000 in savings or it would be forced to lay off 20 officers.
Kennedy said the negotiations were in bad faith. Shortly after striking a deal with the city, Kennedy said he did not trust the city's numbers.
Staff Writer Jeff Morganteen can be reached at jeff.morganteen@scni.com or (203) 964-2215.
| | | Small businesses gather to talk about big issues - New Britian Herald
02-November-2009
HARTFORD — Connecticut small business owners met at the state Capitol Thursday to “set the record straight.”
“We are not against health care reform,” said Andy Markowski, state director of the National Federation of Independent Business. “We support reform, but we’re against bad reform. In our mind that’s government takeover of Connecticut’s free-market system.”
NFIB is the nation’s largest network of small businesses. Its mission is to promote and protect the right of its members to own, operate and grow their businesses.
Guest speaker, Fergus Cullen, executive director of the Yankee Institute for Public Policy, a Connecticut free-market think tank, attacked the current state legislature for contributing to Connecticut’s out-migration problem and how this affects state tax revenue. Specifically, the fact that from 1991 to 2008 Connecticut lost a net of 325,526 residents to other states or about one in 10 residents.
“That’s the equivalent of losing the entire population of a town like Berlin every year,” Cullen said.
The top states people are moving to are Florida, North Carolina, Georgia, Virginia and South Carolina. There the weather is warmer, taxes, union membership, population density and the cost of housing are all lower. Over 12 years Connecticut has lost $31.2 billion in net income and $3.5 billion in state and local tax revenue due to out-migration to these states, said Cullen. An August poll conducted by the Yankee Institute found that 45 percent of state residents have considered moving out of Connecticut due to high taxes.
He urged business people in the state to work toward reducing the state and local tax burden via reductions in the income tax which he said “will encourage both people and income to stay in Connecticut or move into the state.”
As a further action, Cullen announced Connecticut Sunlight Project. In January the institute will make public a Web site which will name all state employees, their salaries and the amount of their pensions. He said a similar project had been successfully introduced in Maine.
“This will put downward pressure on state taxes,” Cullen explained.
Asked to comment by The Herald, Sal Luciano, executive director of New Britain-based Council 4 AFSCME said, “They’re shining sunlight where there already is sunlight. Connecticut knows how much money they are paying government employees and their pensions. They don’t have a handle on what they’re paying private contractors. If you don’t know what you’re paying, how do you know what you’re paying for?”
Connecticut’s largest AFL-CIO union, Council 4 represents 35,000 state and local government employees, board of education and private sector workers.
Luciano said public-service workers are already accountable as are their paychecks.
“Anybody can find that [information] out,” he said. “But businesses and corporations aren’t subject to FOI [Freedom of Information] rules. They’ll tell you it’s proprietary.”
Luciano added that people used to regard a pension as “being able to retire with dignity. Now that fewer people have them people are saying, ‘I don’t have a pension. So, why should they have one?’”
The union leader also had biting criticism for the Yankee Institute.
“The Yankee Institute is neither an institute, nor does it have any Yankee ingenuity,” he said. “It’s yet another way to generate anger and hatred toward government employees, which is dangerous — especially now when people are having trouble putting food on the table.”
Cullen responded, “We believe transparency and disclosure put downward pressure on spending. That in turn, keeps taxes down. No one should be opposed to transparency and disclosure.”
Scott Whipple can be reached at swhipple@centralctcommunications.com or by calling (860) 225-4601, ext. 319.
Champion Award to Bernacki
Mark Bernacki, owner of Sir Speedy Press of New Britain, was presented with the 2009 Small Business Champion Award Thursday at the state capitol by Andy Markowski, state director of the National Federation of Independent Business. Each year, NFIB singles out a small business owner in all 50 states for special recognition and honors him or her with its prestigious Small Business Champion of the Year award.
Markowski said Bernacki, a New Britain alderman and a small business owner for more than 20 years, is a force for the free-enterprise system. Bernacki said because of the economy, regulations and higher taxes, he has had to reduce his own work force.
“Thank goodness NFIB is the voice of small business,” he said. “Unions, lawyers, the national chamber of commerce — they all have lobbies; for us, NFIB is truly the voice of small business owners.”
| | | Not Enough Supplies to Fight Flu: Hartford Custodians - NBC 30 News
02-November-2009
Getty Images Emmary Izquierdo's 5-year-old daughter brought home a letter from Hartford Public Schools on Thursday, warning about an increase in "flu-like" symptoms in several schools.
On the same day, she received a letter stating that six Hartford school custodians held a news conference outside McDonough Elementary School because they were concerned about a lack of supplies and staff to clean the schools.
"They just want us to leave them home 24 hours, until the virus goes away," Izquierdo said.
"We're not able to get in there with disinfectant and wash the walls and wash the furniture down the way that we need to do it, because we just don't have the manpower," said AFSCME Local 566 President Levey Kardulis, who is also the head custodian at Burns Elementary School.
Union officials said 60 workers have been laid off over the past two year, causing staffing shortages, but they claim it's a different scenario at the city's magnet schools.
"My school, we have money and we have supplies and manpower and we see 18 other schools that doesn't have nobody but one head custodian," said Rich Deschenes, the head custodian at Classical Magnet School.
McDonough Elementary is down to one head custodian during the day and a second custodian comes in at night. The union says that means they can only clean each classroom every nine to 10 days.
"I think, with the swine flu, it's dangerous. There have been cases of people dying," Hanniyah Welborn, of Hartford, said when she heard about the custodians' concerns.
A spokesperson for Hartford Public Schools said the district has not received any complaints about supply shortages.
"The district has a sufficient amount of cleaning supplies for its schools. The district also keeps an additional $50,000 in cleaning supplies as an emergency back up," said David Medina, the External Communications Director for Hartford Public Schools.
Izquierdo said that, if that's the case, she wants to make sure her daughter's school, Maria Sanchez Elementary, has what it needs.
"I think every school should be equal, so they should have more custodians everywhere," said Izquierdo.
| | | HHS' Sebelius: Ample flu vaccine will be available - Associated Press
27-October-2009
WASHINGTON – Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said Monday the swine flu vaccine "is coming out the door as fast as it comes off the production line."
But at the same time, she acknowledged delays in getting a sufficient supply for all those demanding it.
"We were relying on the manufacturers to give us their numbers and as soon as we got numbers we put them out to the public. It does appear now that those numbers were overly rosy," Sebelius said in one interview. "We do have a vaccine that works," she said. Sebelius said the immune response is working faster than officials anticipated.
Appearing Monday morning on nationally broadcast news shows, she said officials now have a supply of about 16.5 million doses of the vaccine, while conceding that's millions of doses below the amount needed.
Sebelius said she couldn't predict just how widespread the virus will be. Roughly a thousand people have died from it so far in the United States. But she also said officials do not believe there is yet any cause to close down schools and cease other daily activities.
President Barack Obama declared a health emergency over the weekend to give hospitals and health professionals more leeway from federal regulations to respond to the illness. And on Sunday, Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell of Kentucky said Congress would be happy to provide additional support and money on a bipartisan basis, if the need arises.
Said Sebelius: "If we had found the virus a little earlier we could have started a little earlier."
Asked what advice she would give to people who have waited futilely in line for shots, the secretary replied, "I want them to come back."
"I hope that people aren't discouraged," she said. "I know it's frustrating to wait in line and particularly if you end up with no vaccine. We wish this could have been smoother, that we had a larger supply. We knew it would come in waves."
Sebelius sought to assure people that eventually there will be enough supplies "for everyone."
Dr. Anne Schuchat, who heads the Immunization and Respiratory Diseases Division of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, said it's hard to predict how long the H1N1 wave will continue, so even getting vaccinated a few months from now — when vaccine supplies are more plentiful — won't be too late.
"It wouldn't be too late," she said. "We don't know how long this increase will go on. ... We might see another wave after the first of the year. I think it's important for people to take steps to protect themselves."
Sebelius appeared on ABC's "Good Morning America," CBS's "The Early Show" and NBC's "Today" show. Schuchat was interviewed on CNN.
| | | Democrats Are Optimistic That Public Option Will Be Approved - New York Times
27-October-2009
Several Democratic senators voiced optimism on Sunday that Congress would pass a health care bill containing at least the germ of a government-run insurance program. Their expectations were grudgingly seconded by Senator John McCain, the Republican presidential candidate in 2008.
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Sen. John McCain spoke after appearing on CBS's "Face the Nation" in Washington on Sunday.
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Times Topics: Health Care Reform“I think the Democrats have the votes, and in the House, Blue Dogs bark but never bite,” Mr. McCain said on CBS’s “Face the Nation,” using the nickname for conservative Democrats . “So I don’t think they have a problem over in the House side. In the Senate I think the Democrats are very aware that they don’t want a repeat of the Clinton failure in 1994. So I think it’s very likely they will get something through. But it’s not clear to me what it is.”
Mr. McCain of Arizona was among the senators appearing on the Sunday morning television talk shows, which again focused on health care and Afghanistan. The senators’ remarks came after Harry Reid, the Senate majority leader, told President Obama on Thursday that he would try to press for a government-run insurance program. With five health care bills under consideration in both branches of Congress, Speaker Nancy Pelosi has already said that the House version of the legislation would include the so-called public option, but other key senators have previously said it would be difficult to round up 60 votes needed to guarantee that the legislation would not be blocked by a likely Republican filibuster.
One question is what kind of public option — a full-blown government-insurance plan, or something like a “trigger” provision, which would create a government-run or nonprofit plan if insurance companies did not cut costs within a set period of time or under certain conditions.
Speaking on ABC’s “This Week with George Stephanopoulos,” Senator Claire McCaskill of Missouri took note of various alternatives that could pass, including the trigger mechanism or a bill that would allow states a choice to “opt in” to a federal government plan.
“I remain pretty optimistic,” she said. “I think it gets done this year and I think we end up with some opportunity to go to some kind of nonprofit.”
Similarly Senator Charles E. Schumer, the New York Democrat, said on NBC’s “Meet the Press” that he thought the Democrats were close to 60 votes in the Senate.
And Senator Russ Feingold of Wisconsin said that he was “frankly getting excited that we may have some momentum for something very positive,” adding that there is “a good chance” that it will “create some competition for the abuses of the insurance industry.”
Senator Ben Nelson of Nebraska, a centrist who has previously resisted a uniform nationwide public insurance program, said on CNN’s “State of the Union” that he was willing to take a look at a provision for a government plan “where states could opt in if they make the decision themselves.”
But Republicans continued to voice their criticism of a new government health insurance program. Senator McCain said he could not support any of the public-options proposal he has seen.
“I think that a fundamental difference we have is whether we think government does a good job at administering health care in America or providing health insurance for the American people,” he said. “I don’t think they do.”
Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the minority leader, said on “This Week” that “100 percent of Republicans have indicated that they don’t think having government in the insurance business is a good idea.” He said that even includes Olympia J. Snowe of Maine, who has voiced her support for a health-care overhaul but not for the public option. She has said she would consider a ”trigger” that would establish a government plan as a fallback either in a certain time period or in states where at least 5 percent of residents lacked access to affordable care.
“Congress is acting like a teenager with their parents’ credit card and now worried over who’s going to pay the bill,” Senator McConnell said on Sunday.
On the topic of Afghanistan, Senator McCain urged President Obama to move quickly toward a decision on whether to send as many as 40,000 additional troops on top of 68,000 Americans already there as part of a revised counterinsurgency strategy. General Stanley McChrystal, the top commander in Afghanistan, has requested the additional troops, and President Obama has been meeting with advisers to determine how to respond.
“”Every day we delay will be a delay in this strategy,” Mr. McCain said. “General McChrystal has stated that the situation is deteriorating so it argues for a rapid decision as possible.”
However, Senator McCain distanced himself from language used last week by former Vice President Dick Cheney, who accused the president of “dithering” and “waffling” on the decision and endangering troops.
“I wouldn’t use that language,” Mr. McCain said. “The president when he makes his decision — and again I believe he will — will have trouble with the base of his own party. And so the more united we can be behind him, I think the more the chances of success and American public support.”
“I would never want to call my president dithering,” Senator Orrin Hatch, the Republican from Utah, said on “State of the Union.”
But Senator Feingold said he would fight any effort to increase the American presence in Afghanistan. “I’d say there’s a broad majority in this country that thinks it’s a very bad idea to put in 40,000 new troops on top of the 60,000 or 70,000 we have now,” he said. “So that’s the issue. It’s what the American people and frankly what the Afghan people feel about this policy that I think needs to change.”
He argued that “the idea that the Taliban is going to see it in their interest to have the world headquarters of Al Qaeda back in Afghanistan I think is very dubious.”
“And to send our troops, men and women, to their deaths in some cases, to terrible injury, to send huge amounts of money into Afghanistan when the leaders of Al Qaeda are in Pakistan and likely to go other places as well, strikes me as a very odd response,” he added
| | | Swine flu shuts down Guilford H.S. - New Haven Register
27-October-2009
GUILFORD — School officials concerned about an apparent outbreak of the H1N1 flu virus ordered Guilford High School closed Monday and Tuesday.
The action was taken as a way to contain the apparent spread of a “flu-like illness” after the absentee rate rose from 29 percent Thursday to 42.5 percent Friday. The typical absentee rate at the school is 2 to 3 percent.
Guilford High, which has 1,115 students, is the first school in the state to close this fall as a result of swine flu.
“After careful consideration we believe that closing Guilford High School on Monday and Tuesday is the sensible decision to address the situation,” Superintendent of Schools Thomas A. Forcella wrote in a letter to parents and staff Friday.
Guilford’s four elementary schools and two middle schools will remain open Monday and Tuesday, Forcella said.
Absentee rates at those schools were considerably lower than at the high school Friday — in the single digits in most cases.
“We have experienced a significant rise in the absentee rate at the high school throughout the week,” Forcella said.
School officials “cannot confirm how many of our students out ill have contracted the H1N1 flu,” he said. “However, local health officials believe that, due to the rapid spread of symptoms and the known presence of influenza A (H1N1), the majority of these students likely have the virus.”
School officials hope that by closing the high school Monday and Tuesday and canceling all extracurricular activities, they can provide “an uninterrupted four-day recovery period and significantly deter the transmission of the virus to additional students and staff,” he said.
Students were being asked to avoid group gatherings and populated public places.
According to town Health Director Dennis Johnson, students should stay home if they show any symptoms of the H1N1 virus, including a fever of between 100 and 102 degrees, a scratchy, sore throat, aches and pains, fatigue, vomiting and diarrhea, though fevers are present in only about 60 percent of H1N1 patients. The swine flu lasts only a few days depending on its severity, while the seasonal flu typically lasts five to seven days, Johnson has said.
School board Chairman William Bloss said the decision to close the high school Monday and Tuesday “was the only responsible one, in light of the facts. I promise you that the decision was not made lightly. With the weekend and two days of closing, we hope it will let the virus run its course. We need to get everyone healthy again.”
Bloss stressed that school officials consulted both state and local health authorities before taking the action. “It’s obviously an unprecedented situation,” he said.
Friday’s unusual decision to close the school followed a decision Thursday to cancel before- and after-school activities as a precaution.
Prior to Friday, no schools in the state had closed as a result the swine flu this school year, according to Department of Education spokesman Thomas Murphy.
The virus appeared to begin spreading at Guilford High after last weekend’s homecoming dance, which more than 600 students attended, Forcella has said.
Custodians at each school are spending significant time each day wiping down common areas students touch, such as doorknobs, railings and computer stations, Forcella said. There have been low numbers of absences among faculty and staff, he said.
On Friday, the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported 17,108 cases of swine flu nationwide as of Oct. 17. For additional information or updates on the swine flu, consult the following Web sites:
| | | Hundreds Come Out To Dump Dodd, Support Health Care Reform - CT News Junkie
27-October-2009
Tea Party Patriots and Dump Dodd enthusiasts came to protest President Obama’s pit stop Friday for U.S. Sen. Chris Dodd at the Stamford Hilton. Expected to turn out in the thousands, they numbered about 200.
Expected to put on a loud, lively show like they did in Hartford and Bridgeport in September, they were more subdued in Friday’s rainy, windy weather.
Sharon Bass photo
Nicola Graziosi, 5, of Stamford
Gathered on Greenwich Avenue just down the hill from the hotel, people from across Connecticut came to protest Dodd’s re-election bid. They were met by a slightly bigger crowd of Dodd supporters. However, the real topic du jour was health-care reform.
“I wanted them (Obama and Dodd) to hear our voice,” said Kristin Ingram of Windsor. Asked what she wanted them to hear, she said “they need to go back to the Constitution and give us our liberties back.” She and her fellow demonstrators are part of the loosely affiliated grassroots group, Hartford Tea Party Patriots.
Ingram said she’s against government taking over health care, which is what she believes to be the Democrats’ agenda. And she said she agrees with corporate insurers that folks with medical problems should pay more for their coverage.
Sharon Bass photo
The Dump Dodd crew stands on one side of Greenwich Avenue
“I’m against the redistribution of wealth,” said Cathy Grippi of Wilton. “I’m against it because it’s not the American way. Capitalism is the American way.”
Across the street were members of Health Care for America Now, Organizing for America, and labor groups. John Murphy, lead organizer for HCAN’s Connecticut operation, and Rich Sivel, health-care organizer for Council 4, AFSCME, stood together in support of Dodd and a government-run public insurance option.
Sharon Bass photo
Jeff and Kristin Ingram of Windsor
“I’m glad they’re (tea partiers) here, because they’ve made Dodd a better legislator,” Murphy said. “The more they act up, the better (Dodd) gets.”
Elsa Peterson Obuchowski of Norwalk stood with the two men. She had a personal reason to be there — her late husband.
While he laid in a hospital bed dying of a rare form of cancer, Obuchowski said her husband’s health insurer, United Health Care, was the boss of what treatments he would and wouldn’t get. According to Obuchowski, those choices were made for her husband regardless of medical need.
“There were fights in the hospital every day about whether he could stay. All the doctors have their hands tied, day in and day out, because the nurse case manager (at the hospital) has to constantly negotiate with the insurers about what each patient is allowed,” she said.
Sharon Bass photo
Health care crowd
A week before he died, Obuchowski said, United Health won. She said her husband had to leave the hospital despite being too sick to go home. The next day, she said, he was sent back to die.
“His health was compromised in many ways because of his insurance,” Obuchowski said Friday afternoon as it began to rain on the demonstrators. “What I have learned from all this is (the importance of) having Medicare for everyone
| | | Southington Teachers To Forgo Pay Raise - Courant
27-October-2009
SOUTHINGTON —
Teachers in the town schools will go without a pay raise during the 2010-11 school year, according to a new three-year contract.
That agreement is a key part of the deal that the teachers union has reached with the school board. The board of education approved the contract when it met on Thursday.
"Getting a pay freeze was a top priority for the board," said Superintendent Joseph Erardi. "We are predicting that the upcoming year will be even harder than this one, but getting a wage freeze is an enormous step forward."
Erardi said the savings from the wage freeze will be central as school officials formulate a budget for the next school year, a process that has already started.
"So far we have been cutting around the edges of programs, but if we had come in with a bit of an increase in salaries next year, we would have been looking at eliminating programs entirely," Erardi said.
The union's agreement is in contrast to last spring, when members refused requests from town leaders to accept a wage freeze for the current fiscal year. The teachers' contract gave them a 5 percent salary increase for the current year.
The new contract goes into effect July 1. After the wage freeze in the first year, salaries will go up by 2.5 percent the following year and 3.5 percent in the third year. The contract also requires teachers to pay a greater share of their health insurance premiums.
| | | Take a can to the polls when voting next week - The Day
27-October-2009
New London - Vote AND do a neighbor a favor.
The city's Public Works Union, Local 1378, is sponsoring an Election Day food drive to benefit the Gemma E. Moran United Way Labor Food Center.
The drive opens along with polls at 6 a.m. on Election Day, Nov. 3, and ends when the polls close at 8 p.m. Each polling site (New London High School, Nathan Hale School, and Harbor School) will have a collection box.
People who are not New London voters but wish to participate can contact Bill Barlow at (860) 941-8261, Deb Sommers at (860) 449-4248 or Marianna McGuirkat
(860) 235-9299 and make arrangements to pick up items ahead of time.
The Gemma E. Moran center assists many in the community that are in need of food.
| | | Ledyard union urges rejection of charter changes - The Day
27-October-2009
Official says revisions add to management after jobs were cut
Ledyard - The union that represents Ledyard municipal employees is urging its members to vote down revisions to the town charter, saying the changes add management positions just months after nine jobs were slashed.
Though union officials say they specifically oppose two issues on the charter revision - the creation of two new management positions and a move toward more regionalization of town services - they are urging "No" votes on all five charter questions.
"Overall, the questions (on the ballot) aren't particularly clear as to the specific concerns we're raised," said Larry Dorman, a spokesman for Council 4 of the American Federation of State, County & Municipal Employees, which has about 160 members in Ledyard. "The straight answer is we're asking all our AFSCME members to vote no."
The charter revisions, on the ballot for the Nov. 3 election, creates two new positions to oversee the town's public safety agencies, which presently operate autonomously under the direction of the mayor. The jobs, a director of public safety and an administrator of public safety, would be filled by a new employee or the mayor could take over the job responsibilities, according to the charter revisions.
In a letter to Ledyard Mayor Fred Allyn and the town council, Kevin Murphy, the director of collective bargaining and arbitration for the union, wrote that those positions would cost about $200,000, roughly the total salaries of the nine employees who were terminated at the start of the fiscal year.
The town has not said how much those jobs would cost to staff and would have to add the jobs to its budget before hiring anyone.
Council 4 officials are skeptical that the new positions would be able to do much, arguing that Connecticut law and Ledyard ordinances already direct policies and procedures.
"This in effect will cause the two new positions to be powerless figureheads with no true responsibilities," Murphy wrote. "If the goal is to provide improved services, the best place to start would be the reinstatement of front-line positions that were cut, not the establishment of Director-level positions."
| | | Private firm stays at transfer station - New Haven Register
27-October-2009
DERBY — The city’s contract with a private company brought in to run the transfer station in July 2008 expired Friday, but the company will continue to operate for now.
Meanwhile, negotiations continue between the city and the union representing Public Works Department employees, which filed a complaint with the state Board of Labor Relations after the employees were replaced at the transfer station by Annex Associates LLC of New Haven. Both sides say little progress was made at their first negotiating session Oct. 6.
On Sept. 2, the state Board of Labor Relations issued a decision siding with the union in a complaint it filed against the city in November 2008. The decision ordered the city to return to talks with the union regarding a settlement agreement involving Annex Associates doing bargaining unit work at the transfer station.
Jim Castelot, a representative for the public works employees with Council 4, American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, said the decision also ordered the city to cease using Annex Associates to run the transfer station. He said that labor board officers explained this to the city Oct. 6. But city attorney Joseph Coppola said the language in the decision was unclear, and that he had filed a request for clarification with the labor board.
Labor board spokesman Paul Oates said Friday he couldn’t comment, as negotiations are continuing.
The city brought in Annex Associates in July 2008 to run the transfer station for 90 days, after the state notified city officials that paperwork concerning materials left at the station was not being recorded properly.
After the union filed a complaint with the labor board alleging the city had unlawfully subcontracted bargaining unit work, the city and the union reached a settlement Aug. 8, 2008. It said that the union would allow the city to have Annex Associates do the work at the transfer station for 90 days, and any extension would have to be approved by the union.
But in October 2008, the Board of Aldermen, without union approval, extended Annex contract at the transfer station until Oct. 23, 2009. This came after Annex gave the city a report on the transfer station, outlining a litany of state and federal law violations. The union filed its complaint the next month.
At the Oct. 6 meeting, the parties failed to reach a consensus.
Coppola said at the meeting that the city offered to compensate the employees for income they may have lost by not working at the transfer station — proposing first $500 per employee, then $1,000 — but the union rejected both offers.
Castelot said the union had proposed working with Annex Associates — by having the company manage the transfer station and the public works employees run it — something he said has been done in several other cases. Castelot said the city refused this proposal.
Coppola said the city must request funding from the tax board to rectify the remaining violations at the transfer station. If it receives the funds and fixes the problems, “really it doesn’t matter if it’s an independent contractor or employees” running the station, he said. But if the problems are not fixed, the city would go out to bid for a private company to run it, he said.
The next hearing is scheduled Nov. 4, the day after the elections.
The Board of Aldermen held a special meeting Thursday, but did not address the expiration of Annex Associates’ contract.
On Friday, aldermanic President Kenneth Hughes said it’s Annex Associates’ choice if it wants to continue working without a contract.
“We haven’t discussed it yet, to be honest with you,” he said. Hughes added, “Annex has done an amazing job up there (at the transfer station). They like working with the city.”
| | | U.S. to Order Pay Cuts at Firms That Got Most Aid - New York Times
22-October-2009
WASHINGTON — Responding to the furor over executive pay at companies bailed out with taxpayer money, the Obama administration will order the firms that received the most aid to slash compensation to their highest-paid employees, an official involved in the decision said on Wednesday.
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Kenneth R. Feinberg, the Obama administration's pay czar, faced resistance from executives over compensation.
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Reining In Pay for Some Executives
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Today's Business: White House's Plan for Pay Cuts
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Who Gets Paid What (October 22, 2009)
A New Challenge for 2 Ailing Banks (October 22, 2009)
Times Topics: Kenneth R. Feinberg | Executive PayReaders' Comments
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Post a Comment »Read All Comments (794) »The plan, for the 25 top earners at seven companies that received exceptional help, will on average cut total compensation this year by about 50 percent. The companies are Citigroup, Bank of America, American International Group, General Motors, Chrysler and the financing arms of the two automakers.
Some executives, like the top traders at A.I.G., will face tight limits on their pay. In addition, the top-paid employees at all the affected companies will face new limits on their perks.
The plan will also change the form of the pay to align the personal interests of the executives with the longer-term financial health of the companies. For instance, the cash portion of the executives’ salaries will be slashed on average by 90 percent, and the rest will be replaced by stock that cannot be sold for years.
But while the plan would pare compensation substantially from what the highest-paid people at the companies might have received under normal circumstances, it would still permit multimillion-dollar pay packages.
In addition, it would have no direct impact on firms that did not receive government bailouts or that have already repaid loans they received from Washington. Therefore, it is unclear how much effect, if any, the plan will have on the broader issues relating to executive compensation, income inequality and the populist animosity toward Wall Street and corporate America.
The plan, which was written by Kenneth R. Feinberg, the official at the Treasury Department in charge of setting compensation for bailed-out companies, will be made public in a few days. The official who described the plan’s basic components did not disclose the particular impact on specific employees of the firms.
Wall Street is facing criticism and anger over the large year-end bonuses at many firms.
Firms like Goldman Sachs, JPMorgan Chase and Morgan Stanley received tens of billions of dollars in loans and loan guarantees from the government but because they have returned the loans, they are no longer under any pay restrictions. With the financial markets and their profits recovering after the huge government assistance program last year, the three are expected to make huge payouts this year even as unemployment continues to rise.
The administration and regulators at the Federal Reserve have been preparing new guidelines to align executive pay scales at banks with appropriate risk-taking. But the White House, which has come under attack from conservatives for giving the government what they consider too large and intrusive a role in the economy, has also made clear that it has no intention of seeking to impose any broad-based caps on executive pay.
Instead the administration is seeking to influence pay decisions through several changes in the way corporations govern themselves. The White House has proposed, for instance, giving shareholders a nonbinding vote on the pay of top executives.
It has also proposed that compensation committees of boards, as well as compensation consultants, be more independent.
And it will propose that the companies under review divide the function of chairman and chief executive between two executives. Many of these proposals have been introduced in legislation by Senator Charles E. Schumer, Democrat of New York.
The cuts described for the seven companies that received the most assistance may present an incomplete picture because the Treasury Department has already addressed a handful of very highly paid executives. Under pressure from Mr. Feinberg, Citigroup agreed to sell its Phibro trading unit, which is headed by Andrew Hall, the trader whose pay last year was almost $100 million.
And as a result of Mr. Feinberg’s discussions, Kenneth D. Lewis, the head of Bank of America, who said he would resign by the end of the year, agreed to forgo his salary and bonus for 2009. (He will still receive a pension of $53.2 million, although Mr. Feinberg can issue an advisory opinion challenging it.).
The plan will hit executives at some companies harder than others. At the financial products division of A.I.G., the locus of problems that plagued the insurer and forced its rescue with more than $180 billion in taxpayer assistance, no top executive will receive more than $200,000 in total compensation, and officials in that unit will not receive any other compensation, like stocks or stock options. Some bonuses previously promised will be paid in the coming year, and it is not clear how much of those will be awarded.
But at other companies, the cuts may mean less. Many executives at Bank of America and Citigroup are expected to reap multimillion-dollar pay packages.
For executives at all seven companies, new restraints will also be imposed on perks. Any executive seeking more than $25,000 in special perks — like country club memberships, private planes, limousines or company-issued cars — will have to apply to the government for permission.
The administration will also warn A.I.G. that it must fulfill a commitment it made to significantly cut the $198 million in bonuses still promised to employees in the financial products division.
A former employee of A.I.G.’s financial products unit, who left during the uproar over bonuses last March, said he did not see how the Treasury could make the new recommendations stick.
Earlier this year, he recalled, A.I.G. obtained an outside legal opinion explaining why it had to fulfill its two-year contract to pay bonuses. If the company reversed itself now, said the former employee, who asked not to be named because he no longer wanted to be associated with the company, the employees “could sue A.I.G., using A.I.G.’s own argument. They’ve painted themselves into a box.”
A report last week by the inspector general for the Troubled Asset Relief Program found that the insurance company had recovered only $19 million of the $45 million it had asked the recipients to repay from earlier bonuses.
The pay restrictions illustrate the humbling downfall of the once-proud giants, now wards of the state whose leaders’ compensation is being set by a Washington paymaster.
They also show how Washington in the last year has become increasingly powerful in setting corporate policies as more companies turned to the government for money to survive.
The compensation schedules set by Mr. Feinberg come as many other banks that received smaller but significant taxpayer assistance in the last year have been reporting huge year-end bonuses, setting off a new round of recrimination in Washington about the bailout of Wall Street.
| | | Liberals increase pressure for public insurance plan in health bill
22-October-2009
Senate Majority Leader Harry M. Reid is facing intensifying pressure from liberal lawmakers to revive a proposed government insurance plan before health-care reform legislation reaches the Senate floor, amid signs that moderate Democrats may be warming to the idea.
Two versions of the "public option" were rejected by the Senate Finance Committee as potentially too great a threat to the insurance industry and the coverage it provides to millions of families and individuals. But the idea has gained momentum in recent weeks as Democrats look to ensure that the policies Americans would be required to buy would be affordable.
A small team of Senate negotiators, led by Reid (D-Nev.), is crafting a blueprint for reform that combines the finance panel's legislation with a more liberal Senate health committee bill that includes a government plan. The House measure, now under negotiation in that chamber, also includes a public option.
On Tuesday night, in a closed-door session with rank-and-file Democrats, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (Calif.) said she is close to counting 218 votes for a public plan linked to Medicare rates, the version preferred by liberals in both chambers, according to Democrats attending the meeting. But Pelosi said a final decision will not be made until Democrats meet again Wednesday. New estimates show that the House could construct a package with a "robust" public option for about $871 billion over the next decade, according to a Democratic source.
Senate liberals are seeking to convince Reid that the public option has more support than the Finance Committee's votes suggested. And as the majority leader prepares to release a combined bill as soon as Friday, he is canvassing moderate Democrats to determine how much leeway he may have.
Sen. Kent Conrad (D-N.D.), a senior member of the finance panel, was so opposed to a public option during deliberations that he devised an alternative coverage model, a network of nonprofit cooperatives that ended up in the committee's bill. Conrad said the public option many liberals want is a non-starter, because it would align its reimbursement rates with Medicare's. Because the Medicare rates his state pays are among the country's lowest, such a plan would drive hospitals there out of business, he said.
But Conrad said other approaches -- including a public option with rates negotiated directly with health-care providers, as is done by private insurers -- could pass. "I can see the potential for a compromise," he said.
Sen. Ben Nelson (D-Neb.) has discussed various provisions with Reid this week, including the public option. He said a mechanism that would create a public option if private insurers do not offer affordable coverage "is not a deal-killer." And Nelson said he is intrigued by an approach advocated by Sen. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) that would let states opt out of a public plan.
"There's a balance here that has to be created, and the leader, I know, is doing his level best to find that balance," Nelson said.
For Reid, the challenge is finding middle ground that accommodates moderates such as Conrad and Nelson and Sen. Olympia J. Snowe (Maine) -- the only Republican to vote for the finance panel's bill -- but that also assuages his colleagues on the left, some of whom have threatened to vote against a measure that does not contain a public option.
Sen. Benjamin L. Cardin (D-Md.), a strong supporter of a public option, said his conversations with Reid suggest that "he is trying to figure out a way that he can bring that forward without jeopardizing the ability of getting the necessary votes for this bill."
Reid told reporters Tuesday that talks are ongoing. "I've had a number of meetings in my office dealing with Democrats and Republicans on the public option," he said. When the negotiations conclude in the coming days, "I will have made a decision as to what we're going to do with the public option. It's not done yet."
Meanwhile, Senate Democrats were still trying to rally support to end scheduled pay cuts for doctors who serve Medicare patients. Since 1997, doctors have faced the prospect of having the payments cut to match inflation under the sustainable growth rate. In January, that formula would require the payments to be cut by more than 21 percent.
| | | 6,600 Jobs Lost In Connecticut In September - Courant.com
22-October-2009
6,600 Jobs Lost In Connecticut In September
By DAN HAAR, KENNETH R. GOSSELIN and ERIC GERSHON
The Hartford Courant
October 21, 2009
With stocks in a solid bull market, manufacturers seeing more orders, corporate earnings on the upswing and more houses selling, there was hope this fall that Connecticut's deep job losses were easing.
The state had posted a couple of months of smaller declines, and even an uptick, in May.
But optimism was dashed Tuesday with a report showing the state's employers shed 6,600 jobs in September, and the unemployment rate leaped to 8.4 percent from 8.1 percent. Steep losses in education, administrative work, retail trade, transportation and utilities paced a month that hearkened back to the huge declines of last winter.
If the new numbers weren't bad enough, job losses for August, previously reported at 3,700, were revised up to 4,800.
"This is a swift kick in the pants," said economist Donald L. Klepper-Smith of DataCore Partners Inc. in New Haven, chairman of the governor's economic advisory council. He was among the forecasters expecting fewer job losses.
Connecticut remains well below the national unemployment rate of 9.8 percent, but the increase in September, 0.3 percent, is considered large.
Salvatore DiPillo, the state's labor statistics supervisor, noted that the unemployment rate is now at a 33-year high. But he added, "There is a bright spot, with construction adding 1,200 jobs — the largest monthly gain in nearly two years of job losses."
Another potential bright spot, ironically, comes from the jump in the unemployment rate. Because the three-month average of the rate now stands above 8 percent, Connecticut is expected to qualify for seven weeks of extended benefits for unemployed workers, up to a maximum of 79 weeks.
The federal government must still make the final determination, but the added coverage could be worth $30 million to the state and its out-of-work residents. Initially, 16,000 unemployed workers could be eligible for those benefits, the labor department said.
Cuts And Consolidation
Although the depth of losses in September took economists by surprise, it's typical for jobs to remain scarce when a recovery is nascent, and it's typical for recoveries to emerge in fits and starts. Most experts predict Connecticut will not begin adding jobs consistently until well into 2010, perhaps even as late as 2011, because employers don't start hiring in earnest until their confidence is restored.
A survey by the Connecticut Business and Industry Association released Tuesday shows a slight increase in confidence among business executives.
"The bad news is payments are being made late and credit is still tight," said Peter M. Gioia, who tracks the economy for the CBIA. "Until that turns around, we can expect more of the same."
As a result, for the time being at least, there is still pressure for employers to cut costs and consolidate.
That's the case with Pentron Clinical Technologies, a dental products manufacturer with production facilities and corporate offices in Wallingford.
In September, the company notified the state labor department that its new owner plans to close its local facility and lay off 58 workers — consolidating operations in California.
Pentron did not return calls seeking comment. But an Oct. 13 letter to customers posted on its website says the company is moving production from Wallingford to Orange, Calif., starting in November.
The move follows the August 2008 acquisition of Pentron by Sybron Dental Specialties, which has its headquarters in Orange, Calif. Pentron had been a Connecticut success story. According to its website, Pentron and its affiliates have been making and selling dental products since 1967. Its Wallingford manufacturing facility covers 40,000 square feet.
In the 1970s, Jeneric/Pentron, a predecessor company, pioneered the widespread use of nickel alloys for dental work, using material developed for the aerospace industry.
In the late 1990s, the company was working with UConn to develop new materials for use in dental products, an example of university technology transfer of the sort that could help the state build up its advanced manufacturing base.
Punctuating the point about more job losses to come, United Technologies Corp., issuing respectable quarterly earnings report Tuesday, warned that its cost-cutting is not done.
86,800 Jobs Lost
Economists caution against reading too much into any single month's employment data because it can be subject to large revisions. But the downward trend remains clear in the data.
For the 12 months ending in September, the state lost 76,300 jobs , or 4.5 percent of its total — about the same decline as in the nation. The unemployment rate in September 2008 was 6 percent.
Since peaking in March 2008, the state's economy has lost 86,800 jobs.
The construction industry, which has lost 19.5 percent of its jobs in the state despite September's gains, remains the largest percentage loser, followed by administration and business services support jobs.
Health care and social assistance, along with arts, entertainment and recreation, are flat from one year ago, the best performers by industry. Health jobs had been growing through most of the recession, until a few months ago.
Klepper-Smith said the number of construction jobs was up last month because of spending on projects funded by federal stimulus money. Employment in education was down because the public sector is starting to follow the lead of downsizing by private business, he said.
Klepper-Smith said he now foresees Connecticut losing closer to 100,000 jobs as a result of the recession. A year ago, he saw the state losing on the lower end of job losses ranging between 80,000 and 100,000 jobs.
He expected between 1,500 and 2,500 lost jobs in September.
"Well, I guess I got blown out of the water," Klepper-Smith said. "This speaks volumes about the depth and duration of this recession. It's the harsh reality." | | | Rell Announces Plan For Juvenile Detention For Girls In Bridgeport - Courant.com
22-October-2009
October 21, 2009
The state will build a $15 million juvenile detention center for girls in Bridgeport so it can keep them out of adult prisons and other facilities scattered around the state, Gov. M. Jodi Rell announced Tuesday.
Finding space for juveniles has been a problem since the controversial closure of the Long Lane School in Middletown in 2003 under Gov. John G. Rowland. Since then, some teenage girls have been confined at the state's York Correctional Institution for adult women in Niantic, provoking sharp criticism from child-welfare officials.
In a related development Tuesday, Attorney General Richard Blumenthal issued a legal opinion that Rell's administration cannot shut down the High Meadows residential treatment center for troubled boys in Hamden because the legislature specifically allocated money for the program this year. Rell's budget office said Blumenthal's opinion "represents a fundamental misreading" of the state budget and subverts the governor's constitutional powers.
The new detention center for girls at 115 Virginia Ave. in Bridgeport is expected to be approved when the 10-member State Bond Commission meets Oct. 30. Rell chairs the commission and controls the agenda, virtually guaranteeing approval for any project that she proposes.
The state's child advocate, Jeanne Milstein, said the Bridgeport center is "long overdue." Long Lane closed in early 2003, and "it's now 2010, practically, and there hasn't been a facility for girls," she said.
However, Milstein said, "it does not solve the larger problem of DCF's poor planning, insufficient services, and a lack of understanding about the underlying needs of the girls and not just the behavior that led them" into DCF's supervision.
In the meantime, teenage girls who normally would have been sent to Long Lane, or to a new facility such as the one planned in Bridgeport, have had to go to the state's York prison for women in Niantic. There are now 12 girls at York under 18, some of whom would be eligible for the planned Bridgeport center, Milstein said. In addition, a small number of other girls in private treatment facilities, under contract with the state, could be moved to the new center.
State officials object to the use of the term "jail" or "prison" to describe the new treatment center, but a section of 16 beds that would be locked and secured will be reserved for girls who have been convicted of an offense. They will receive counseling and education at the center.
The center will hold 24 girls, including 16 in the locked setting and eight more in a non-locked area for "respite care" if they are having trouble in a community program, said Department of Children and Families spokesman Gary Kleeblatt. Construction is expected to be completed by June 2011, and the facility should open by September 2011.
The empty lot became available on Virginia Avenue in Bridgeport after crews knocked down an asbestos-contaminated, state-owned building that had been vacant for the past nine years. The building had been used as the southwestern regional office of the Department of Mental Retardation, and then was used as an office for addiction services. The building is easily accessible to Routes 8 and 15, making it easier for families to visit the girls, officials said.The annual cost of running the center was not available Tuesday.
High Meadows Opinion
Milstein welcomed the opinion by Blumenthal that Rell's administration cannot shut down the High Meadows facility because the legislature specifically allocated money for it this year. Blumenthal cited statements made on the House floor by state Rep. John Geragosian, a New Britain Democrat who co-chairs the budget-writing appropriations committee.
Milstein said the delay in closing High Meadows, or perhaps reconsideration of that decision, would give officials time to address the needs of the 12 children remaining in the center instead of discharging them to wherever there is space — whether it is in a state-run facility or in a community-based program.
"We need to stop, take a deep breath, focus — and be guided by the needs of these children and not by pressure to close the facility," Milstein said. "There's a larger, systemic issue here," Milstein said, and that is "poor planning by DCF."
She said poor planning is evident in the "hasty" manner in which the agency has gone about emptying High Meadows — from 36 boys in February to 12 now. Milstein noted that the state has spent about $2 million in recent years on improvements at High Meadows, including more than $200,000 on a pool and $1.1 million on dormitories.
But Kleeblatt said the Bridgeport detention center is the result of the sort of planning that Milstein is calling for.
"This program for girls was designed along with a lot of input from members of the advocacy community," he said. "And the whole idea was to design a facility, and more importantly a program, that was going to specifically meet the girls' needs." | | | Group seeks answers for retirement 'crisis' - USA Today
22-October-2009
When Vise-Grip closed its plant last year in DeWitt, Neb., and moved it to China, Anita Oltmans lost her job. With no job, federal law prevented her from continuing to contribute to her 401(k) plan. She watched her account spiral down as the stock market crashed.
"They closed the doors on Halloween of last year," says Oltmans, 40, who worked in assembly at the plant and is now in college. "Before that happened, I was happy with what I had saved for retirement. But now, it's very scary."
Congress created the 401(k) in 1980 to supplement company pension plans. But with pension plans no longer offered to all workers or frozen, millions of Americans, such as Oltmans, have been relying solely on 401(k) plans to fund retirement. Others – nearly one-third of American households – don't have any retirement savings, according to a McKinsey & Co. report. And only 4% of middle-income married couples who don't have a pension and are nearing retirement are likely to have enough money to last their lifetime, according to a new report by Ernst & Young.
America faces a retirement crisis, says an influential group of organizations that have started a new retirement initiative called Retirement USA. Wednesday, the group meets in Washington, D.C., to begin searching for solutions.
Retirement USA was launched last March by the Economic Policy Institute, the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare, the Service Employees International Union and the Pension Rights Center. The coalition has grown since, adding the AFL-CIO, the National Caucus and Center on Black Aged and the National Consumers League, among others. The group's goal is to create a new retirement system that works in conjunction with Social Security and existing plans.
"We're not under an illusion that this will happen overnight," says Karen Friedman, policy director of the Pension Rights Center. When the group comes up with a retirement proposal, it will need congressional support.
Members agree that the retirement system must be universal, secure and able to ensure that all will have a reasonable standard of living after they stop working. The current system does not meet those basic needs, they say.
Millions of retirees are barely surviving financially, says Retirement USA. Nearly 24% of Americans older than 65 have incomes below the poverty threshold, according to the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. And the United States, Ireland, South Korea and Mexico have the highest old-age poverty rates among the 30 OECD countries.
"I feel we're watching a slow-motion train wreck," says Steve Bartlett, president of the Financial Services Roundtable, which represents large institutions, such as Citigroup, Allstate and Fidelity. "It's pretty clear that with the current trend, the country's Baby Boomers and the next generation will not have enough money to retire."
O(k), or not O(k)
The 401(k) is clearly the center of the retirement storm. Some consumer advocates say the 401(k) is a failure that should end. Others, especially financial industry representatives, think 401(k) plans are still the best retirement option and they simply need shoring up. Retirement USA wants to keep the best parts of the current system and add to it.
Bartlett says 401(k) plans are now the retirement reality and should be quickly strengthened. The Roundtable is not part of Retirement USA, but it has recommended a number of improvements, including increasing access to retirement savings plans for small-business employers. "Every day that we delay makes it harder," he says.
Proponents say 401(k)s are good because they're easy to contribute to, they provide tax breaks, and they are portable from job to job. And if an employer offers a company match to an employee's contributions, even better, says Jane White, author of America, Welcome to the Poorhouse.
Many workers who have stayed at one job for years and consistently contributed to 401(k) plans have been able to build decent nest eggs. To urge more workers to start saving for retirement, about half of midsize-to-large employers provide automatic enrollment to 401(k) plans, up from 44% in 2008, according to a 2009 Hewitt Associates survey.
But companies have cut costs due to the recession and have not spared 401(k) plans, often slashing or eliminating contribution matches and not offering automatic enrollments.
Not a panacea
Statistics also show that 401(k) plans don't serve everyone well, and that those who use them often make big investing mistakes, including cashing them out early.
Many workers – especially women, Hispanics and African Americans – don't contribute to a 401(k) plan at all. Only 41% of Hispanic workers say they save money for retirement, and only 25.6% are covered by employer-sponsored retirement plans, according to a new study by the Hispanic Institute, a non-profit organization.
"It's a grim reality," says Dr. Yanira Cruz, president of the National Hispanic Council on Aging.
Not all 401(k) plans provide good options. Although they are voluntary savings plans, employers choose the menu of investment vehicles.
Those who do contribute to such plans often get subpar investment returns and make bad decisions.
Marshall Goldsmith, 41, a customer care representative for American Hotel Register in Las Vegas, says he stopped contributing to his 401(k) plan and instead contributes to an IRA.
One reason: "Not one of the funds is in positive numbers, even since the market improved in the last couple of months," he says. His company also has dropped its matching contribution.
Many workers agree with Goldsmith: A recent AARP survey found that 29% of workers ages 45 to 64 had stopped making retirement contributions. About 18% of workers in the same age group have withdrawn funds from their 401(k) plans in the past year, either taking loans or cashing out.
A change of perspective
For many people, trying to determine when they might be able to retire and how much they will need is simply a vexing question.
Throw in rising unemployment, the stock market meltdown and the drop in some company matches, and it becomes all the more confusing.
Mark Heup, a commodity manager in Baltimore, doesn't have an overall retirement strategy. He lost his job in February, and his wife, Julie, a structural engineer, lost her job last November. They are both 41 and have a son, Matthew, who is 4.
Although they started new jobs in June, albeit in different cities, they're worried about their retirement future. Before they lost their jobs, they had not been contributing the maximum amount to their 401(k) plans.
"We were just buying things or spending money on our house," says Heup, who now works for Black & Decker. "I guess that being out of a job" has made the couple focus on retirement saving, he says.
People who have worked for 20 to 30 years will need to have 10 times their final pay banked to retire securely, says author Jane White. And not many people are that fortunate.
The Retirement USA members see the difficulties, confusion and current economic circumstances as catalysts for a new system.
Some longtime supporters of 401(k) plans agree it may be time for a change.
"Now, we're in a different world," says Ted Benna, a retirement consultant who created the first 401(k) plan in 1980 and is semi-retired. "How are we going to move forward from here? It will be interesting to see. And I am not going to lose any sleep if 401(k) doesn't survive."
| | | Rescued banks raise chief executives' perks - Washington Post
22-October-2009
NEW YORK — Even as the nation's biggest financial firms were struggling and the federal government was spending hundreds of billions of dollars to save many of them, the companies as a group were boosting the perks and benefits they pay their chief executives.
The firms, accounting for more $350 billion in federal bailout funds, increased these perks and benefits 4 percent on average last year, according to an analysis of corporate disclosures filed in recent months.
Some chief executives, such as Kenneth Lewis of Bank of America and Jeffrey Peek of CIT Group, the major small-business lender now on the brink of bankruptcy, each received about $100,000 more than a year earlier for personal use of corporate jets.
Others saw an increase in the value of chauffeured services, parking or personal security.
Ralph W. Babb Jr., chief executive of the Dallas-based lender Comerica, was compensated for a new country club membership, with an initiation fee and dues of more than $200,000. GMAC Financial Services CEO Alvaro de Molina benefited from a $2.5 million payment from his company to help cover his personal tax bill.
"You would have thought that this would be the moment when everyone said, 'OK, the perks have got to stop, at least while we're indebted to the government,' " said Paul Hodgson, senior research associate at the Corporate Library, "but that didn't happen."
This year may turn out to be different. In June, the Treasury Department prohibited companies receiving bailout funds from reimbursing senior executives for their personal tax payments.
Kenneth Feinberg, the Obama administration official assigned to set pay for top executives at seven of the companies receiving the most help, could curtail perks such as country club fees when he rules on compensation later this month.
On average, the chief executives at 29 of the largest public financial companies that have taken bailout funds received perks and benefits worth more than $380,000 in 2008, according to compensation figures included in annual proxy statements and supplied by Equilar, a compensation data services firm. Individually, about half of the banks increased their fringe benefits to the top executives. The figures do not include relocation costs and related taxes, typically one-time fees that can skew year-over-year comparisons. In contrast to the 4 percent average increase in perks and benefits at these companies, the average awarded to top executives at non-financial companies in the Fortune 100 declined by more than 7 percent over the same period, according to Equilar.
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Shareholders complain
Personal use of corporate aircraft and "gross-ups," when the company pays taxes due on bonuses or other benefits, represented more than half of the $11 million in non-cash pay awarded to the 29 chief executives in 2008. Among the more common perks were company cars and drivers, as well as personal financial and tax-planning services.
Although perks represent a relatively small portion of an executive's overall compensation package, they have been targeted by some shareholders who argue that these fringe benefits are meant largely to stroke the egos of top company brass.
"These executives are already well compensated," said Daniel Pedrotty, director of the AFL-CIO's office of investment. "The notion that some of these folks can't even leave a nickel on the floor, that they want to take every last dime and put it on the company card, really rubs people the wrong way but points to a larger problem of lack of independence at the board."
Some banks, mindful of the popular resentment over the government's $700 billion bailout of banks and other financial companies, have eliminated certain perks. And a few executives have voluntarily given up benefits that lawmakers have criticized as excessive. At Bank of America, for instance, senior executives will no longer use corporate jets for personal travel starting this year, a bank spokesman said.
Personal use of corporate aircraft and "gross-ups," when the company pays taxes due on bonuses or other benefits, represented more than half of the $11 million in non-cash pay awarded to the 29 chief executives in 2008. Among the more common perks were company cars and drivers, as well as personal financial and tax-planning services.
Although perks represent a relatively small portion of an executive's overall compensation package, they have been targeted by some shareholders who argue that these fringe benefits are meant largely to stroke the egos of top company brass.
"These executives are already well compensated," said Daniel Pedrotty, director of the AFL-CIO's office of investment. "The notion that some of these folks can't even leave a nickel on the floor, that they want to take every last dime and put it on the company card, really rubs people the wrong way but points to a larger problem of lack of independence at the board."
Some banks, mindful of the popular resentment over the government's $700 billion bailout of banks and other financial companies, have eliminated certain perks. And a few executives have voluntarily given up benefits that lawmakers have criticized as excessive. At Bank of America, for instance, senior executives will no longer use corporate jets for personal travel starting this year, a bank spokesman said.
Personal use of corporate aircraft and "gross-ups," when the company pays taxes due on bonuses or other benefits, represented more than half of the $11 million in non-cash pay awarded to the 29 chief executives in 2008. Among the more common perks were company cars and drivers, as well as personal financial and tax-planning services.
Although perks represent a relatively small portion of an executive's overall compensation package, they have been targeted by some shareholders who argue that these fringe benefits are meant largely to stroke the egos of top company brass.
"These executives are already well compensated," said Daniel Pedrotty, director of the AFL-CIO's office of investment. "The notion that some of these folks can't even leave a nickel on the floor, that they want to take every last dime and put it on the company card, really rubs people the wrong way but points to a larger problem of lack of independence at the board."
Some banks, mindful of the popular resentment over the government's $700 billion bailout of banks and other financial companies, have eliminated certain perks. And a few executives have voluntarily given up benefits that lawmakers have criticized as excessive. At Bank of America, for instance, senior executives will no longer use corporate jets for personal travel starting this year, a bank spokesman said.
| | | Blumenthal Defends Participation In Pratt Union Lawsuit - Courant.com
22-October-2009
Attorney General Richard Blumenthal on Wednesday defended his attempt to join a Machinists union lawsuit that seeks to bar Pratt & Whitney from moving more than 1,000 jobs out of Connecticut.
Blumenthal sought permission on Oct. 8 to file a friend-of-the-court brief in support of the union, arguing that it is in the state's interest to avoid harm to the local economy and economic hardship for individuals and families. Less than a week later, Pratt's lawyers formally questioned the appropriateness and usefulness of Blumenthal's participation.
The attorney general responded Wednesday, writing to the court that "none of Pratt's arguments overcome the state's substantial and direct interest in participating as amicus [friend] in this matter, a matter affecting both the financial well-being of hundreds of Connecticut families and the state's overall economy."
The Machinists claim that Pratt violated a contractual promise to take all reasonable steps to keep the jobs in the state. The company plans to shut down its engine repair plant in Cheshire and a smaller repair unit in East Hartford and move more than 1,000 jobs to Columbus, Ga., and Asia.
In his brief Wednesday, Blumenthal noted that Pratt's lawyers acknowledge that no law prohibits his participation. He also challenged Pratt's suggestion that he should be excluded because he explicitly supports the union.
"To the extent the state has taken a position supportive of the plaintiff in this matter, its position is derived from direct knowledge of the underlying factual and legal controversy and reflects the Attorney General's conclusion that the union's position . . . coincides with the broader interest of the State of Connecticut."
Pratt did not immediately respond to a request for comment. A trial in the Machinists' suit is scheduled to begin Dec. 12.
| | | The Banks Are Not All Right
21-October-2009
It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. O.K., maybe not literally the worst, but definitely bad. And the contrast between the immense good fortune of a few and the continuing suffering of all too many boded ill for the future.
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Fred R. Conrad/The New York Times
Paul Krugman
Go to Columnist Page » Blog: The Conscience of a Liberal I’m talking, of course, about the state of the banks.
The lucky few garnered most of the headlines, as many reacted with fury to the spectacle of Goldman Sachs making record profits and paying huge bonuses even as the rest of America, the victim of a slump made on Wall Street, continues to bleed jobs.
But it’s not a simple case of flourishing banks versus ailing workers: banks that are actually in the business of lending, as opposed to trading, are still in trouble. Most notably, Citigroup and Bank of America, which silenced talk of nationalization earlier this year by claiming that they had returned to profitability, are now — you guessed it — back to reporting losses.
Ask the people at Goldman, and they’ll tell you that it’s nobody’s business but their own how much they earn. But as one critic recently put it: “There is no financial institution that exists today that is not the direct or indirect beneficiary of trillions of dollars of taxpayer support for the financial system.” Indeed: Goldman has made a lot of money in its trading operations, but it was only able to stay in that game thanks to policies that put vast amounts of public money at risk, from the bailout of A.I.G. to the guarantees extended to many of Goldman’s bonds.
So who was this thundering bank critic? None other than Lawrence Summers, the Obama administration’s chief economist — and one of the architects of the administration’s bank policy, which up until now has been to go easy on financial institutions and hope that they mend themselves.
Why the change in tone? Administration officials are furious at the way the financial industry, just months after receiving a gigantic taxpayer bailout, is lobbying fiercely against serious reform. But you have to wonder what they expected to happen. They followed a softly, softly policy, providing aid with few strings, back when all of Wall Street was on the ropes; this left them with very little leverage over firms like Goldman that are now, once again, making a lot of money.
But there’s an even bigger problem: while the wheeler-dealer side of the financial industry, a k a trading operations, is highly profitable again, the part of banking that really matters — lending, which fuels investment and job creation — is not. Key banks remain financially weak, and their weakness is hurting the economy as a whole.
You may recall that earlier this year there was a big debate about how to get the banks lending again. Some analysts, myself included, argued that at least some major banks needed a large injection of capital from taxpayers, and that the only way to do this was to temporarily nationalize the most troubled banks. The debate faded out, however, after Citigroup and Bank of America, the banking system’s weakest links, announced surprise profits. All was well, we were told, now that the banks were profitable again.
But a funny thing happened on the way back to a sound banking system: last week both Citi and BofA announced losses in the third quarter. What happened?
Part of the answer is that those earlier profits were in part a figment of the accountants’ imaginations. More broadly, however, we’re looking at payback from the real economy. In the first phase of the crisis, Main Street was punished for Wall Street’s misdeeds; now broad economic distress, especially persistent high unemployment, is leading to big losses on mortgage loans and credit cards.
And here’s the thing: The continuing weakness of many banks is helping to perpetuate that economic distress. Banks remain reluctant to lend, and tight credit, especially for small businesses, stands in the way of the strong recovery we need.
So now what? Mr. Summers still insists that the administration did the right thing: more government provision of capital, he says, would not “have been an availing strategy for solving problems.” Whatever. In any case, as a political matter the moment for radical action on banks has clearly passed.
The main thing for the time being is probably to do as much as possible to support job growth. With luck, this will produce a virtuous circle in which an improving economy strengthens the banks, which then become more willing to lend.
Beyond that, we desperately need to pass effective financial reform. For if we don’t, bankers will soon be taking even bigger risks than they did in the run-up to this crisis. After all, the lesson from the last few months has been very clear: When bankers gamble with other people’s money, it’s heads they win, tails the rest of us lose.
| | | Harkin Says Congress Will Pass Health Bill by Christmas — With a ‘Public Option’ - New York Times
21-October-2009
Senator Tom Harkin, the chairman of the Senate health committee, predicted on Friday that Congress would pass sweeping health care legislation before Christmas. And he said it would include a new government insurance plan — the so-called public option — which would compete with private insurers.
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“The vast majority of the Senate Democratic caucus is for the public option we have in our bill,’’ which was approved by the health committee in July, Mr. Harkin said.
A competing bill approved this week by the Senate Finance Committee does not include a public insurance plan, but would set up private nonprofit insurance cooperatives across the country.
Mr. Harkin, an Iowa Democrat, said Congress would probably have to “go outside the health care system’’ to raise revenue to finance coverage of the uninsured. “That’s what the House has done,’’ Mr. Harkin said, and House leaders can “make a pretty strong argument’’ for that approach.
The main health care legislation in the House would impose a surtax on high-income people. By contrast, the bill approved by the Senate Finance Committee would raise revenue within the health care system — by imposing an excise tax on high-cost insurance plans and by requiring insurers and makers of drugs and medical devices to pay annual fees to the federal government.
Some Democrats have tailored their proposals to appeal to moderate Republicans. The chairman of the Finance Committee, Senator Max Baucus, Democrat of Montana, won support for his bill from one Republican, Senator Olympia J. Snowe of Maine.
But in response to a question, Mr. Harkin indicated that he was not overly concerned about getting Ms. Snowe’s vote for a final bill.
“It’s not so important who you get on the bill,’’ Mr. Harkin said. “What’s important is getting it done right.’’
If Congress decides to tax high-cost insurance policies, Mr. Harkin said, it should increase the thresholds in Mr. Baucus’s bill. Under the bill, insurance plans would generally be subject to the tax if premiums were more than $8,000 for individual coverage or $21,000 for family coverage.
The tax is expected to raise more than $200 billion over 10 years. Mr. Harkin has long been an ally of organized labor, and labor unions are fighting this proposal, which they describe as a tax on middle-class benefits.
The Senate majority leader, Harry Reid, Democrat of Nevada, is combining the bills approved by the Finance Committee and by Mr. Harkin’s panel, the Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions. Mr. Reid said he hoped the full Senate would begin debate on the package later this month.
Though Republicans are overwhelmingly opposed to the legislation, Mr. Harkin sounded confident.
“We are in an irrevocable position,’’ Mr. Harkin said. “The momentum is there. We will not be stopped by obstructionists. We will have a bill on the president’s desk before Christmas. And yes, it will have a public option.’’
Insurance companies say that a government-run plan could drive them from the market. But Mr. Harkin said, “I do not expect them to lose business unless they have products that are overpriced for the value.’’
| | | Gov. Rell defending credibility after years of basking in limelight of trustworthiness
21-October-2009
When M. Jodi Rell took over as governor in 2004, replacing her former running mate John G. Rowland after he resigned amid a corruption scandal, she was seen by many Connecticut voters as a breath of fresh ethical air.
Over the past five years, they've continued to hold the Republican in high regard, citing in statewide polls her honesty and trustworthiness as her top attributes.
But in recent weeks, Rell -- who has enjoyed some of the highest approval numbers in the country among governors -- has found herself in the unusual position of defending her credibility.
"This is going at her biggest strength," said Douglas Schwartz, director of the Quinnipiac University Poll. "People were so relieved after Rowland left office that they felt that they had someone as governor they could trust."
Several investigations have begun into the Rell administration's hiring of a University of Connecticut professor to oversee a two-year, $220,000 project aimed at streamlining state government. Democrats say e-mails first obtained by The Day of New London show that at least part of the work conducted by Professor Ken Dautrich, former director of the school's polling institute, was done to help the governor politically.
Gary Rose, chairman of the Department of Government and Politics at Sacred Heart University, said he believes the controversy over Dautrich's taxpayer-funded work, which included a focus group that was asked questions about Rell's leadership style besides budget issues, could hurt Rell among voters.
-- especially with the economy in recession.
"When people are upset generally with the state of affairs, something such as this ... it does become more of an issue," he said. "It looms larger than it would under different circumstances."
Rose said Rell has managed to deftly avoid the taint of scandal for years, even when her chief of staff, M. Lisa Moody, came under fire in 2006 for using of her state Capitol office to distribute invitations to a Rell campaign fundraiser.
"That's the one thing about Jodi. She seemed to be above a lot of that in the minds of many people in this state, that she was not your typical political figure," he said.
"This casts some doubt on that," Rose said. "All of a sudden, there is that sense that, gosh, is she all that different?"
Nancy DiNardo, the chairwoman of the state Democrats went far as to accuse Rell last week of "not being truthful" about the intentions behind Dautrich's work, citing inconsistencies about when Rell's administration rejected a proposal from Dautrich to conduct a poll that included questions about potential political rivals in the 2010 election.
Rell, appearing at a flu clinic in Old Saybrook on Friday, bristled when asked to respond to DiNardo's comments and whether this controversy has led voters to question her honesty.
"I'm not going to comment on anything Nancy DiNardo says," Rell said. "I know what kind of person I am, I know what kind of life I lead, I know how I deal publicly and privately and I am not going to let comments by the Democratic state partywoman have any influence on me whatsoever."
While still relatively high when compared to surrounding governors, Rell's job approval numbers have dipped in recent Quinnipiac Polls, due mostly to the state's budget problems. A Sept. 16 poll showed 59 percent approve of how she's handling her job while 34 percent disapproved -- the lowest approval number during her tenure as governor. Rell's job approval number in a July 22 poll was 65 percent; and 73 percent on May 27.
Her all-time high was 83 percent job approval in a Jan. 13, 2005 survey.
Schwartz said even though Rell's numbers have dropped somewhat, she remains in good shape politically if she decides to seek re-election in 2010.
"She's got a good-sized cushion being consistently in the 70s, so she can take a hit in the polls and still be strong," he added.
Chris Healy, chairman of the state Republicans, said he takes Rell at her word and believes she was trying to get an accurate read of what's on the public's mind and how the state government should be streamlined when facing the worst deficit in Connecticut history.
He accused the Democrats, who control the General Assembly by a veto-proof majority, of trying to deflect attention from what he considers their mishandling of the state's budget crisis.
"I think it's a frustration on the Democratic front because they can't defeat the governor in the public's mind," he said. "Any whiff of controversy they're going to fan to see if it catches fire. I don't think that this is going to catch fire."
| | | AFSCME head Gerry McEntee takes on Obama's White House - Politico
21-October-2009
The president of one of America’s largest labor unions, Gerry McEntee, has emerged as a major obstacle to the White House’s efforts to maintain a unified front in the health care debate.
The veteran president of the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees (AFSCME) has crossed lines that few labor leaders – even those who quietly agree with him – would go near.
McEntee led workers in chanting a barnyard epithet to describe Senate Finance Committee chairman Max Baucus’s health care bill, which would levy a new tax on expensive health care plans. He published an op-ed in U.S.A. Today warning, in terms that could be used against Democrats in the midterms, that the plan could tax the middle class and cost workers their health care. And he blew off a plea from White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel and published an open letter promising to “oppose” legislation that contained the tax – published over the objections, several labor officials said, of other union presidents whose names appeared on the letter.
"We have had just about enough of his gratuitous slaps,” said a senior White House official Friday, calling the politically charged language “outrageous and unacceptable” from an ally — even from one that had, the official noted, devoted substantial resources to health care efforts.
“He’s doing his members a real disservice,” said the official, who said that while all other labor leaders had been careful to keep their opposition to elements of health care proposals modulated and largely inside the tent, McEntee was “beyond the pale.”
But a spokesman for AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka stood by McEntee.
"We work closely with the White House and count ourselves among their strongest supporters,” said the spokesman, Eddie Vale. “Sometimes being supportive means staking out a tough position, and nobody understands that better than President McEntee."
McEntee’s posture – and the fierce response from a White House determined to keep allies in line – reflects a broader dilemma on the left of the Democratic Party, which is feeling both lingering satisfaction at Obama’s victory and frustration at his caution.
From labor to civil libertarians to anti-war activists, progressive organizers have had to choose between biting their tongues and losing the access and power that comes with friends in the White House. McEntee is among the most prominent leaders who has been willing to challenge the administration.
Despite his investment – and AFSCME’s – in health care reform, he has been willing to risk his relationships and his influence with powerful Democratic leaders in the White House and the Senate for a bill he can more fully embrace.
McEntee’s stand also reflects the messy internal politics of the labor movement. His arch-rival in organizing public sector workers, Service Employees International Union (SEIU) President Andrew Stern, has aligned himself closely with the White House, pushing McEntee, an associate said, to define himself as the loyal opposition.
The posture is entirely in character for the brawny, brawling Pennsylvanian, who has a long record of confrontational politics, stretching back to the 1980s, when he led fierce attacks on Democrats who backed a balanced-budget amendment.
Unafraid of making enemies, he has a history – unusual for a union leader - of diving early and aggressively into Democratic primaries, supporting the unsuccessful presidential candidacies of Howard Dean and Hillary Clinton, and, most recently, endorsing Terry McAuliffe, who lost to Creigh Deeds in the Virginia gubernatorial primary.
McEntee first angered the Obama camp during the 2008 campaign with his support for Clinton , especially in the early, demure days of the primary season, when his union mailed a harsh attack on Obama to New Hampshire voters, which asked: “How can we be sure the new President is ready?”
In labor circles, McEntee is regarded with a mixture of pride, indulgence and disdain.“Gerry’s never been shy about standing up for his members, regardless of who’s in power – he’s there to fight for his members,” said the secretary-treasurer of the Pennsylvania AFL-CIO, a longtime McEntee friend, Rick Bloomingdale.
“A lot of people have made the political calculus that we don’t want to piss off the White House, so we don’t want to be that overt – but they’re certainly glad that somebody is,” said one prominent labor official. “That’s the great thing about him – you can’t edit the guy – and he likes to do the ‘bull***’ chant whenever he can find an excuse.”
McEntee, traveling in Puerto Rico to oppose layoffs of public workers there, was unreachable Friday, according to his spokesman, Chris Policano.
"No one's worked harder than AFSCME to support the president's vision of providing quality, affordable health care for all Americans,” said Policano, who said the union has spent more than $2 million on advertising for health care reform, lobbied Congress, paid campaign organizers in 13 states, and turned out workers to town hall meetings, while planning a large-scale "national day of action" October 20.
“President McEntee is fiercely committed to the principles we've been advocating for months, including a public option and keeping costs off the backs of working families. He's more than willing to keep the heat on Congress to make that happen,” he said.
When Emanuel recently requested that he tone down his public criticism of compromise legislation, McEntee responded dismissively. “He told us that we really don’t want to be looked upon as the group that stopped meaningful health-care reform,” he said in an interview with Bloomberg News . “We would love to be on the exact same page as the White House, but we see ourselves as fighting for our members.”
So instead of backing down, McEntee convened a conference call Tuesday afternoon of AFL-CIO union presidents, and presented them with an ad that would run the next day in POLITICO, the Washington Post, and other Washington newspapers containing this uncompromising language: “Unless the bill that goes to the floor of the U.S. Senate makes substantial progress to address the concerns of working men and women, we will oppose it.”
The last phrase shocked other union leaders on the call, and three of them – Randi Weingarten of the American Federation of Teachers, Leo Gerard of the United Steelworkers, and Harold Schaitberger of the International Association of Firefighters - questioned the language.
“It’s gone,” McEntee said of the ad, and when Schaitberger – a longtime foe -- tried to pass a resolution blocking the letter, he objected on procedural grounds.
“Is there any imaginable scenario where even AFSCME – the big blowhard – would oppose a health care reform bill by this congress and this president?” asked an official at one objecting union, who spoke on the condition of anonymity. “Is there any scenario that that would happen? So why would we say it in an ad?”
Others said they might still oppose the legislation, but that the ad was unnecessarily strident. “This is very premature to be putting markers down,” Schaitberger said. “There are so many steps left. There are two Senate bills to be merged. We’re going to get a lot further down this road by being prospective.”
The unions that thought McEntee had gone too far are circulating a letter to the Senate that changes the word “oppose” to “not support it.”
Another union president on the call, Unite Here’s John Wilhelm, downplayed the differences.“The president and the labor movement have the same agenda on health care. There might be tactical disagreements from time to time,” he said. As for McEntee, he added: “There’s a lot of different styles in the labor movement, and that’s ok.”
One longtime McEntee associate said the president and his aides will just have to get used to him. “That’s just the kind of bare-knuckles politics McEntee has played for a long time,” the person said. “I know the White House is pissed off at him, but it’s awful early in the presidency to be tossing someone over the side.”
| | | Nurses ring doorbells for health care reform - New Britian Herald
21-October-2009
NEW BRITAIN — Mila Chia, a registered nurse from New Jersey, said last week while she was working her hospital went to Code Purple.
“Code Purple means the emergency room is filled,” she said. “It happens when a lot of people with no insurance come in. Hospitals are closing because they can’t recover their cost on these patients.”
Chia and 30 or more nurses and patients, all union members, gathered Saturday at Council 4, American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees headquarters in New Britain. The nurses, some from other states, were joined by local community members as they hit the streets, going from door-to-door, talking to city residents about health care reform.
Similar canvasses have been held in what Council 4 Spokesman Larry Dorman described as “nine health care battleground states” — states in which elected officials seem undecided about Obama Care. Similar events have taken or will take place in Arkansas, Delaware, Indiana, Louisiana, Maine, North Dakota, Nebraska, and Ohio. In Connecticut, union organizers have targeted Democratic Sen. Joe Lieberman.
On Saturday, nurses garbed in hospital scrubs talked to city residents about health care reform, handing out post cards indicating their support for a public health insurance plan option. Dorman said the completed cards will be collected and mailed to Lieberman in hopes of arranging a meeting with him about his health care vote.
According to liberal columnist and political pundit Eleanor Clift, the senator “is a crucial swing vote. If he turns against [health care reform] he may take others with him.”
Lieberman has said it isn’t time to meet the health care crisis.
However, health care professionals such as Chia and Anne Berkowitz disagree.
Matthew Brokman, an AFSCME International health care organizer, said Berkowitz and Chia “are on the front lines of the health care crisis.”
Berkowitz a retired registered nurse, drove up with Chia from West Orange, N.J. to take part in the canvassing event.
“Health care costs have put middle class America into a real quagmire,” Berkowitz said. “Patients with no insurance receive a sub-standard quality of health care. As a result, our emergency rooms have become overcrowded.”
Mark Blumenthal, a union worker from Hartford, said he suffers from heart disease. His union pension will not cover his health insurance when he retires.
“I’ll have to decide between food and medicine,” he said. “This is not just a union issue; it affects all of us. We stood behind Sen. Lieberman because of his union support. Now we need to remind him that he’s back in office largely because of us.”
“We’re all in this together, young and old,” said Vanetta Llyod, president of AFSCME Local 1303-102 in New Haven. “But, politicians need to be reminded that when they needed support we were there; now they have to support us.”
Pete Cianciolo, a union worker from Winsted, said his doctors no longer accept his insurance.
“We lost Winsted Memorial Hospital several years ago,” he said. “Now we’re trying to get by with one hospital in Torrington. If we lose that, we’ll be 45 minutes away from emergency services. The governor tried to cut the hospital’s Lifestar Helicopter from the state budget. If that ever happens, we could be in real trouble.”
Scott Whipple can be reached at swhipple@centralcommunications.com or by calling (860) 225-4601, ext. 319.
| | | No Social Security COLA could prod $250 payments - Associated Press
16-October-2009
WASHINGTON – Social Security recipients won't get a cost-of-living increase next year for the first time in more than a third of a century, and that could boost President Barack Obama's plan to send seniors another round of $250 payments before the congressional elections.
Democratic leaders in Congress have signed onto the plan, greatly improving its chances, even as some budget hawks say the payments are unwarranted and could add to the federal budget deficit. Republican leaders said they, too, favor the payments but don't want to increase the deficit to pay for them.
More than 50 million Social Security recipients will see no increase in their monthly payments next year, the government said Thursday, the first year without an increase since automatic adjustments were adopted in 1975.
Blame it on falling consumer prices. By law, cost-of-living adjustments are pegged to inflation, which is negative this year because of lower energy costs. Social Security payments do not go down, even when prices drop.
Social Security recipients at a senior center in Pembroke Pines, Fla., a suburb of Fort Lauderdale, took it in stride that come January they won't see an increase in their benefits.
"At my age, I've got a nice bedroom, I have clothes, I have anything I want, I got a walker, what else do I need?" said Marie Arrasate, 83, who ran a restaurant and candy shop with her husband in Washingtonville, N.Y., and now lives with her daughter in Pembroke Pines.
"You have to make do with whatever you get. What are you gonna do? You can't do nothing about it," said Ed Nunez, 69, a retired truck driver from Miami.
The White House said the stimulus payments would cost $13 billion, though a congressional estimate put the cost at $14 billion. Obama didn't say how the payments should be financed, leaving that up to Congress. The president is open to borrowing the money, increasing the federal deficit, just as Congress did with the first round of stimulus payments.
Government analysts have been forecasting for months that there would be no increase next year in monthly Social Security payments because of falling consumer prices. In anticipation of Thursday's announcement, Obama said Wednesday he supported $250 payments to about 57 million senior citizens, veterans, retired railroad workers and people with disabilities.
Seniors groups applauded the proposal, saying the recession has reduced home values and diminished retirement funds. Recipients would be limited to one payment, even if they qualified in more than one category.
"Without relief, millions of older Americans will be unable to afford skyrocketing health care and prescription drug costs, as well as other basic necessities," said Tom Nelson, chief operating officer for AARP.
The payments would match the ones issued to seniors earlier this year as part of the government's economic recovery package. They would be equal to about a 2 percent increase for the average Social Security recipient.
Social Security has been the backbone of the nation's safety net for older Americans since it was enacted in the 1930s. Together with Medicare, the government health insurance program for the elderly, it helps keep millions of seniors out of poverty.
The poverty rate for U.S. residents 65 and older is below the rates for other age groups and has been for much of the past two decades. In 2008, the rate for seniors was 9.7 percent, according to the Census Bureau. That same year it was 11.7 percent for 18-to-64-year-olds and 19 percent for minors.
The average monthly Social Security payment for all recipients is $1,094.
Some Social Security experts say recipients shouldn't get a raise or an extra payment next year because their purchasing power has already increased with falling consumer prices.
They note that Social Security payments increased by 5.8 percent this year, the biggest rise since 1982, largely because of a spike in energy prices in 2008.
Over the past 12 months, gasoline prices have fallen 29.7 percent, and overall energy costs have decreased 21.6 percent, the Labor Department said Thursday. Consumer prices in general have declined 2.1 percent since the third quarter of 2008. The cost-of-living adjustment for Social Security, or COLA, is based on the change in consumer prices from the third quarter of one year to the next.
"The real purchasing power of their benefits is actually higher today than it was last year," said Andrew Biggs, a former deputy commissioner at the Social Security Administration and now a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute.
"Nevertheless, there will be a big political price to pay if no COLA is granted," Biggs said.
Obama's proposal has picked up support from key members of Congress, including Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif. House Republican leader John Boehner of Ohio said he wanted to use unspent funds from last year's stimulus legislation to offset the cost.
Advocates for seniors argue that they deserve a raise because they spend a disproportionate amount of their incomes on health care costs, which rise faster than other consumer prices.
"Any senior living in the real world knows that the cost of living has gone up over the last year," said Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y.
Obama's plan also picked up an endorsement from Social Security Commissioner Michael J. Astrue, who was appointed to a six-year term by former President George W. Bush.
The lack of a monthly increase in payments triggers several provisions in the law. Among them, the amount of wages subject to Social Security payroll taxes will remain unchanged. The first $106,800 of a worker's earned income is currently subject to the tax.
Also, Medicare Part B premiums for the vast majority of Social Security recipients will remain frozen at 2009 levels. However, premiums for the Medicare prescription drug program, known as Part D, will increase.
___
| | | Dodd to continue push for public insurance option - The New Haven Register
16-October-2009
One day after the Senate Finance Committee voted out a health care reform bill, U.S. Sen. Christopher J. Dodd, D-Conn., said he would continue to push for a public insurance option.
Dodd was among the handful of lawmakers who met with White House officials Wednesday to begin negotiations on blending the reform elements in his Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pension Committee bill with that of U.S. Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont.
“I’m a huge advocate of the public option,” Dodd said in a teleconference with the press. “It is very, very important to keeping costs down.”
The Congressional Budget Office has scored the public option in a House version, which builds on the Medicare provider network and payment system — plus 5 percent, as saving $110 billion a decade. A system where rates are negotiated would save $25 billion.
Baucus’ bill has no public option, but it does propose a series of health care cooperatives, a model Dodd said “doesn’t work very well.”
He said the majority of Democrats in the House and Senate favor some type of public option, as do a majority of Americans. “I’m still optimistic we can win that,” Dodd said.
“This is one of those rare moments when we can do something significant for 100 percent of the American people,” Dodd said of health care reform.
Dodd said delaying it will only make the task more costly and more difficult. “It should have been done 50 years ago,” he said.
Dodd said 28,000 people in Connecticut lost health care this year as a consequence of being laid off.
U.S. Sen. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, is the only Republican so far to vote for one of the four health bills to come out of the committee. Snowe favors a trigger mechanism that would have a public option kick in if lack of competition among insurers continues after the reform bill is adopted.
She has said she will not vote for a public option beyond that, but Dodd said lawmakers can’t design a bill to suit one senator.
Sen. Joseph I. Lieberman, I-Conn., told Don Imus on Fox News Wednesday that he cannot support the Baucus bill because he fears a tax on insurance companies will be passed along to consumers. Dodd also does not favor the proposed excise tax on so-called “Cadillac” high-end insurance plans.
A report by the insurance industry that reforms will increase costs has been criticized as self-serving. PricewaterhouseCoopers, which authored the document, said it was not asked to analyze the full Baucus bill and did not take into account proposed insurance premium subsidies.
Lieberman, in an earlier interview, said the president is taking on too much at once and should concentrate on reforming the health care delivery system away from a fee-for-service model to save costs.
| | | Democrats target Rell inconsistencies - The Day
16-October-2009
Hartford - The chairwoman of the state Democratic Party sharply criticized Gov. M. Jodi Rell Wednesday for inconsistencies in her account of the administration's use of a University of Connecticut pollster to test the governor's political messages.
Those inconsistencies were detailed this week by The Day, and showed that UConn officials were approached about conducting a formal poll of 500 voters for the Rell administration, to be paid for with public funds, well after the governor has said the idea was dismissed by her top aides.
Nancy DiNardo, the Democratic chairwoman, spoke to reporters at the Capitol, one day after the party delivered Freedom of Information requests to the governor's office and her budget agency, the Office of Policy and Management, seeking more records of the budget reform project undertaken by Ken Dautrich, through which the polling expert conducted at least one focus group to test Rell's budget message late last year. The administration concedes that doing a formal voter poll was considered but that the poll was never done with public funds.
DiNardo charged that Dautrich's public opinion gathering and his political advice to Rell's powerful chief of staff, Lisa Moody, was done “in a deceptive manner” - never specifically laid out in the $223,000 memorandum of understanding for his project between UConn and the state, and kept secret even when the administration revealed other details of Dautrich's work analyzing the state's budget and governmental structure.
And DiNardo slammed Rell over her comments on Friday, in which Rell insisted that the idea of doing a poll was Dautrich's and that it had been quickly dismissed by her aides after he suggested it in the summer of 2008. In fact, Moody at first agreed to do a poll and alerted Dautrich that she had found available funding for the poll within OPM's budget.
While that poll was later shelved, Rell insisted that the issue had been dropped by the time Dautrich eventually convened a focus group, with Moody and another Rell aide watching through a two-way mirror, to test the governor's budget message in late December.
But the e-mails among UConn officials, including the head of the department in which Dautrich works, date to January 2009 and specifically propose a 500-voter survey of public opinion of budget policies, seemingly throwing Rell's offered “timeline” of the events into question.
”Clearly we have seen that the governor hasn't been truthful about what exactly happened so how can we believe what she is saying in this instance?” DiNardo said. “And certainly Lisa Moody has always made it her mission to make the governor look good and has stepped over the line a number of times. So I would not be believing anything that the chief of staff would be putting forth in that regard. And the governor's recent history shows us that we have to doubt what she has said as well.”
A spokesman in the governor's press office declined to comment on DiNardo's remarks, as the administration says it awaits the outcome of an elections complaint filed by a political consultant and former state legislator, and an internal review of the governor's own political committee, which Rell pledged on Friday to determine if Dautrich's assistance with her committee's polling ran afoul of campaign finance regulations.
But Chris Healy, the Republican Party chairman, criticized DiNardo and the Democrats for what he has portrayed as a skewed approach to ethics inquiries.
”This is nothing more than the convenient application of ethics to cover up the Democrats' disastrous leadership on the budget and the state's hostility to business,” Healy said in a statement, which also branded DiNardo's FOI request as “vapid.”
Democrats have insufficiently investigated and disciplined the recent misdeeds of some of their own, Healy charged, including Sen. Thomas Gaffey, D-Meriden, who acknowledged billing his campaign committee for expenses through which he was also being reimbursed through his state job with the Connecticut Resources Recovery Authority.
The legislature should also discipline Sen. Joseph Crisco, D-Woodbridge, Healy said. Crisco admitted last year that he had forged the signature of his campaign treasurer on campaign forms, and eventually was forced to return his $85,000 public campaign grant.
Both senators have already been investigated and fined by the State Elections Enforcement Commission.
Meanwhile, even those political figures who have sharply criticized Rell for apparently mingling public and political responsibilities through the Dautrich project have acknowledged that the line that separates expected levels of political positioning from misconduct remains, in DiNardo's words, “a gray area.”
”Clearly people get (political) opinions all the time, but this seems like it went a little beyond that,” DiNardo said. “There was more effort and time put in there than just asking for an opinion of it. And that's why it's important that the SEEC make the ruling on that.”
But when pressed on whether the legislature's uses of “contingency accounts” - such as the distribution of grants for legislators facing stiff electoral challenges - was also misconduct, DiNardo said, “No.”
”It's different when you're giving it out for good in your district, as opposed to when you're using it so your own campaign can have a better direction to go forward,” DiNardo said.
t.mann@theday.com
"Regional"
| | | Leaders laud teachers pact, look for aid - New Haven Register
16-October-2009
NEW HAVEN — The decisive approval of the New Haven Federation of Teachers contract was hailed Wednesday by city leaders as a victory for efforts to reform public schools here.
With the teachers’ backing, Mayor John DeStefano Jr., Superintendent of Schools Reginald Mayo and union President David Cicarella turned their eyes outside the district Wednesday, seeking support from the state, the federal government, Yale University, philanthropic communities and parents.
“The teachers have stepped right up to the plate,” Mayo said.
“They hit a home run on behalf of the students of New Haven,” he said, calling on others to do the same.
While the city is expected to shoulder the burden of raises and benefits for teachers, DeStefano said the city will be looking for additional revenue sources to pay for increased student support, staff bonuses and a potentially longer school day and year. DeStefano has also secured a tentative funder to provide scholarships, up to the cost of the University of Connecticut, for city graduates who meet certain academic and behavioral standards.
Teachers voted 842-39 Tuesday to ratify a new four-year contract that takes effect next September. The agreement must be approved by the Board of Aldermen.
The contract grants teachers an average 3 percent annual raise and calls for a 0.5 percent increase in medical contributions each year. But the pact has been more widely noted for what it says about the unfolding school reform effort.
The agreement lays the framework for inclusion of student performance measures in teacher evaluations, grants new flexibility for schools to institute local changes and establishes a peer-mentoring program for low performing teachers. The contract also grants the district ability to close a school and re-constitute it under new staff and leadership, possibly as a charter school.
Officials also shed new light Wednesday on a school-based merit pay provision in the contract.
Rather than granting individual teachers performance-based bonuses, the agreement calls for bonuses to be granted to schools that reach certain performance targets. Schools would then be allowed to divvy the pay themselves. All staff at a school, from principals to custodians, could be eligible for part of the bonus.
Specific targets would be set by the Board of Education, and the district will raise money to pay for bonuses, according to Garth Harries, assistant superintendent for portfolio and performance management.
While many details of the reform remain vague, changes are expected at all levels of the school board. Members are expected to meet for a planning session at 9:30 a.m. Saturday to discuss their role in the reform, and possible changes to their practices.
More details of the reform are expected to be rolled out in the next 30 to 60 days, Mayo said Wednesday.
The New Teacher Project, hired to evaluate and reform teacher evaluation, recruitment and retention, is expected to release results of its teacher surveys within 60 days, Mayo said.
DeStefano has made school reform the central issue of his re-election campaign; he vowed Wednesday to make reforms the principal focus of his administration.
The reform broadly aims to raise standardized test scores up to the state average by 2015, cut the dropout rate in half in five years and seeks to ensure all students have the choice to go to college and are academically and financially prepared to graduate.
| | | Mayoral candidates release financial documents - New Britin Herald
16-October-2009
NEW BRITAIN — The filing of campaign finance forms Tuesday showed that in the race to raise money, state Rep. Tim O’Brien, the Democratic challenger to Republican Mayor Timothy Stewart, was out front by far more than a nose.
“Tim O’Brien has pulled together a strong campaign organization while personally speaking to people door-to-door throughout New Britain,” said John McNamara, chairman of the New Britain Democratic Party. “I am encouraged by the broad-based support Tim O’Brien has, and the hard work he has put in. This shows Tim O’Brien is committed to being our next mayor.”
O’Brien, with reported contributions of $39,733.57, more than doubled the Stewart campaign’s sum of $17,410. The only other campaigns to collect anything over the $1,000 that calls for disclosure were by Alderman Greg Gerratana who collected $9,400 during his campaign for tax collector and Alderman Phil Sherwood who reported contributions of about $2,500.
“I am deeply humbled by the many people who are supporting my campaign for change,” O’Brien said.
Stewart said he was not surprised that O’Brien had collected as much as he had because of the amount of special-interest money donated to his campaign.
“The majority of the money raised by the O’Brien campaign came from PACs, unions and lobbyists who have an agenda,” Stewart said. “I would rather have less money that came from the people of New Britain than twice as much from special-interest groups outside of the city.”
Although it was reported by the Democratic Town Committee that O’Brien received nearly $40,000 including contributions from 151 individuals, Stewart only saw contributions from 77 individuals. A closer look at the numbers indicate differences other than the amount.
Stewart’s 77 individual contributors donated almost the same amount as O’Brien’s total contributions from 151 individuals, $15,150 to $15,155. At least 11 O’Brien contributors were registered lobbyists while Stewart accepted no money from lobbyists. O’Brien’s next $15,600 came not from individuals but by a wide assortment of PACs, unions and organizations.
While at least one organization, AFSCME Council 4, which donated $1,500, was centered in the city, the remaining 16 organizations were from as far away as New York, Litchfield, East Haven and Middletown, to locate a few.
The differences in expenses also were noticeable. The Stewart campaign disclosed a total of nearly $6,000 in expenses for lawn signs, printing, fundraising and postage. O’Brien disclosed slightly more than $15,000 for the same period. While many of the same items were listed as expenditures by the O’Brien campaign, a $6,250 payment to Citizens Services Inc., in Harford for campaign consultants stood out. Although there were no phone listings for the company in Hartford, a call to the address of the Working Families Party proved successful.
John Green, director of WFP, confirmed the money had been paid to CSI for payment to canvassers and some mailing design work and that, “Citizens Services Inc., is the staffing firm that employs folks who work at Working Families. It’s a consulting firm … that assigns people to work on mostly progressive political campaigns.”
While both sides garnered and spent money differently, both said that with only three weeks left in the campaign it was expected that fundraising and campaigning would increase.
James Craven can be reached at jcraven@centralctcommunications.com or by calling (860) 225-4601, ext. 231
| | | Labor unions turn against parts of health bill - USA TODAY
16-October-2009
WASHINGTON — A coalition of labor unions is emerging as a leading critic of an $829 billion health care bill heading toward a Senate vote, complicating debate among Democrats over how to pay for the measure.
Unions had largely supported President Obama's effort to revamp the nation's $2.6 trillion health care system, but 27 labor groups have launched a campaign against key provisions in the bill passed this week by the Senate Finance Committee.
Many groups with a stake in the health care fight have objected to the legislation — including the insurance trade group, America's Health Insurance Plans — but labor has traditionally had closer ties to Democrats, who control Congress.
HEALTH CARE BILL: Committee passes $829B legislation
SNOWE: Republican helped shape health bill
Unions spent $75 million on contributions to federal candidates in 2008, 92% of which went to Democrats, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.
"This push is really a reflection of the struggle that's going to take place in the Democratic Party in how you move forward," said Jacob Hacker, a political scientist at Yale University.
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada and other Democratic leaders have started merging the Finance Committee bill with separate legislation approved in July by the Senate's health committee. The new bill is to be released this month.
Unions want Reid to include a government-run insurance program in the merged bill and remove a tax on high-priced insurance policies. Gerald McEntee, head of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees (AFSCME), estimates half of its 1.6 million members would be affected by the tax.
McEntee said union workers have often chosen to accept lower wages in exchange for better and more costly health insurance. He said union members, who frequently organize get-out-the-vote efforts for Democrats, won't be afraid to remind politicians of that in next year's election.
"We worked for all these people. We worked for Obama," he said. "What do we get for it? We not only don't get anything for it, we get a slap in the face."
McEntee favors the House health care bill, which includes an income tax surcharge on high-income workers and a government insurance plan.
Many of the ideas favored by unions are opposed by moderate Democrats as well as Republicans and would make it difficult to attract the 60 votes needed in the Senate to end filibusters. Sen. Kent Conrad, D-N.D., for instance, has said he will not support government-run insurance called for in other versions of the bill.
The AFL-CIO, the Air Line Pilots Association and the UAW are also part of the coalition. The effort began with newspaper advertisements this week and McEntee said it may expand into television ads and "boots on the ground" in coming weeks.
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell warned that the Senate Finance Committee bill will become more partisan as it is merged with other bills. "Right down here in the majority leader's conference room they'll be writing the real bill," he said.
Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, said unions raise legitimate concerns. "This bill is going to change significantly," he said.
| | | U.S. Rep. Courtney Objects To Tax On High-Cost Health Plans - Courant.Com
06-October-2009
By DANIELA ALTIMARI
The Hartford Courant
October 3, 2009
They're called Cadillac health plans and they conjure up images of insurance coverage for spa treatments, cosmetic surgery and other medical indulgences.
Some Democrats on the U.S. Senate Committee on Finance want to levy a tax on such plans, beginning in 2013. The tax would be both a mechanism to generate money for an overhaul of the nation's health care system and a way to help rein in spiraling medical costs.
But while these plans are commonly thought to be luxuries for the very rich, the reality is more complicated.
Many of the Cadillac plans — defined as individual plans worth $8,000 and family plans worth $21,000 — are held by middle-class workers, many of them union members who traded better benefits for wage concessions.
The proposed tax "would put a burden on middle-class families," U.S. Rep. Joe Courtney said in a telephone press conference Friday. It would also disproportionately affect residents living in regions with higher health care costs, such as the Northeast, he said.
Employees would be subject to a tax "for something they really have no control over," Courtney said. "This is a flawed approach."
The 2nd District Democrat has drafted a letter to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi registering his disapproval of the finance committee's plan. The purpose of the letter is to put up a "big red flag for the White House and congressional leadership that this is going to be a problem," Courtney said.
He has circulated the letter among his colleagues; as of late Friday afternoon, more than 100 House members had signed on.
"The short-term impact would be greatest on individuals and families living in high-cost regions and for those that have sacrificed pay increases for strong benefits," Courtney wrote.
"Over the long term, the number of individuals and families subjected to the tax would likely continue to grow. To this end, we urge you to continue to reject proposals to enact an excise tax on high-cost insurance plans that could be potentially passed on to middle-class families," his letter states.
The nonprofit Kaiser Family Foundation, which studies health care policy, found that 2.7 percent of workers covered by family health insurance plans have premiums greater than $21,000 in 2009. By 2013, when the proposed tax would take effect, that percentage would likely grow, a spokesman for the foundation estimates.
| | | Forum In New Britain To Discuss 'Making Sense Of Health Care Reform' - Courant.Com
06-October-2009
By DON STACOM
The Hartford Courant
October 5, 2009
NEW BRITAIN —
As the country wrestles with the question of how to provide health care and how to pay for it, Central Connecticut State University is sponsoring a forum Thursday to discuss possible answers.
"Making Sense of Health Care Reform" will feature a presentation by Michael Critelli, a retired CEO of Pitney Bowes, with a discussion by a panel that includes a senior insurance executive, a state labor leader, the head of a consumer advocacy group and a board member from the Connecticut's new SustiNet health insurance program.
"I think there's going to be a lively debate," said Carol Shaw Austad, a CCSU psychology professor and chief organizer of the session.
Critelli will focus on ways to make preventive care a bigger part of the nation's overall health care system, and the panel talk will tackle the more controversial topics of single-payer proposals, market-based insurance, public option plans and general cost containment.
"But even preventive care is controversial because you have the question of how to pay for it. And you don't see short-term results — preventive care brings long-term results," Austad said. "Is it possible to have any discussion about health care now without controversy?"
The public can attend the free session Thursday at 11 a.m. in the Philbrick-Camp Room of the student center, said Mark Warren McLaughlin, the university's marketing vice president.
The panel is scheduled to include Paul Grady, a board member of SustiNet; Michael Turpin, executive vice president of USI Insurance Services; Sal Luciano, executive director of Council 4 of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees; Tom Swan, executive director of the Connecticut Citizen Action Group; Austad; and Ned Lamont, former Senate candidate and currently a political science professor at CCSU.
Critelli led the creation of a wellness program at Pitney Bowes, and will discuss how better preventive care can bring down the cost of health care.
The 90-minute forum will include a question-and-answer session with the audience, Austad said.
| | | Nursing home crisis looms - Associated Press
06-October-2009
Hartford - The nation's nursing homes are perilously close to laying off workers, cutting services - possibly even closing - because of a perfect storm wallop from the recession and deep federal and state government spending cuts, industry experts say.
A Medicare rate adjustment that cuts an estimated $16 billion in nursing home funding over the next 10 years was enacted at week's end by the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services - on top of state-level cuts or flat-funding that already had the industry reeling.
And Congress is debating slashing billions more in Medicare funding as part of health care reform.
Add it all up, and the nursing home industry is headed for a crisis, industry officials say.
”We can foresee the possibility of nursing homes having to close their doors,” said David Hebert, a senior vice president at the American Health Care Association. “I certainly foresee that we'll have to let staff go.”
The funding crisis comes as the nation's baby boomers age ever closer toward needing nursing home care. The nation's 16,000 nursing homes housed 1.85 million people last year, up from 1.79 million in 2007, U.S. Census Bureau figures show.
Already this year, 24 states have cut funding for nursing home care and other health services needed by low-income people who are elderly or disabled, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a nonprofit research firm based in Washington.
Some facilities are now closed because of money problems - including four in Connecticut - and others have laid off workers because of what industry officials say are inadequate Medicaid reimbursement rates. Medicare cuts are troubling, they say, because the higher Medicare reimbursements have been used to compensate for the lower Medicaid rates.
In Griswold, the community's only nursing home shut down earlier this year because of rising costs and an inability to pay for $4.9 million in needed renovations for the 90-bed facility.
”A 92-year-old woman was screaming and crying as she was loaded into the ambulance, saying 'This is my home,”' Griswold First Selectman Philip Anthony said. His 88-year-old mother was a resident of the same home at the time.
Anthony sought and found a new facility for his mother, but she died of pneumonia before the Griswold Health and Rehabilitation Center closed in the spring.
”To be hit with a sudden and deliberate closure like this, it just drained the heart right out of you,” Anthony said.
Connecticut Gov. M. Jodi Rell and state lawmakers gave no Medicaid rate increases to nursing homes in the state last fiscal year and kept the funding flat for the next two years.
The Griswold home was one of four nursing homes in the state that have closed since December because of financial problems, a higher rate than usual, said Deborah Chernoff, a spokeswoman for District 1199 of the New England Health Care Employees Union in Connecticut, which represents more than 20,000 health care workers in the state.
”We're really teetering on the edge of what we see as the collapse of the long-term care system,” she said.
Chernoff said many of Connecticut's 240 or so nursing homes have been reducing workers' hours to deal with money problems, while two are in bankruptcy now.
Also this year across the country:
• The Motion Picture & Television Fund said in January it would close a hospital and nursing home in Woodland Hills, Calif., founded to care for actors and other entertainment industry workers, because of financial losses.
• The Westchester Medical Center in suburban New York said it would close a nursing home and cut 400 jobs to deal with Medicaid and other fund cuts.
• The Dove Health Care nursing home in Glendale, Wis., near Milwaukee, closed this summer because of heavy debt.
• Medicaid reimbursement rates to nursing homes were cut this year by Rhode Island (5 percent); Michigan (4 percent) and Florida (3 percent).
• Washington state legislators whacked nursing home funding by $93 million for the next two fiscal years.
Gary Weeks, executive director of the Washington Health Care Association, said some of the organization's 400 assisted living and nursing homes have laid off workers. Some will not survive, he said.
At the request of Weeks' association, a federal judge in July issued a temporary restraining order blocking the cuts because state officials didn't do a required analysis of how the reductions would affect care quality and access.
”There's a lot of pain going on everywhere, but it's clearly a crisis in long-term care,” Weeks said.
In Washington, D.C., health care interests are resisting President Barack Obama's plan to pay for his health care overhaul by slowing Medicaid and Medicare spending.
Obama wants to trim $313 billion from the two programs over 10 years.
It's not clear exactly how all the health spending cuts will affect nursing homes.
A University of Pittsburgh study earlier this year found nearly 1,800 nursing homes nationwide closed from 1999 to 2005, about 2 percent each year.
One of the study's authors, health policy and management professor Nick Castle, said the annual closure rate is rising, for reasons that include inadequate Medicaid reimbursement rates and the push for more home and community care.
”It's come to a head recently with state budgets being in such jeopardy that they're cutting in all areas,” Castle said.
The federal stimulus package approved in February includes $87 billion in Medicaid funding to help states. But Connecticut and several other states are using a loophole in the legislation to divert the money to budget items unrelated to health care, according to a congressional study.
On average, Medicaid payments by states to nursing homes fell short by $12 per patient, per day last year - nearly $4.2 billion in unreimbursed costs for Medicaid-allowed expenses, according to the AHCA.
In New York City, the Metropolitan Jewish Health System laid off about 200 of its 1,000 employees at three nursing homes in Brooklyn because the state cut Medicaid funding by 10 percent to 14 percent, said President and Chief Executive Eli Feldman.
”We understand there's a recession/depression,” Feldman said. “But this is not health reform ... and the victims are basically the people who live in the facilities. The Legislature basically says, 'Too sick, too old, too bad.”
| | | New emergency response policy adopted - New Haven Register
06-October-2009
NORTH BRANFORD — Officials are disputing a public safety dispatcher’s claims of harassment and intimidation by the fire chief now that the town has conducted an internal investigation and implemented a new emergency response policy.
A dispatcher filed a complaint in August with Council 4 of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees union, whose membership includes North Branford town employees, according to Larry Dorman, spokesman for Council 4, AFSCME. A union representative then contacted town authorities to address the situation.
The dispatcher claimed that after sending police officers to a report of a missing 2-year-old child, the dispatcher and police supervisor agreed more manpower was needed. The dispatcher reported that fire officials were sent as well, at which point Fire Chief Bill Seward contacted the dispatcher, Dorman said.
The dispatcher reported that Seward questioned the nature of the call, whether it was an emergency, and why the dispatcher didn’t discuss the call with the Fire Department before deploying members, Dorman said.
“The bottom line for us is that dispatchers handle emergencies, and to have any kind of act of harassment and intimidation that would actually impede our dispatchers’ ability to protect the public and promote public safety is unacceptable,” Dorman said.
The town maintains Seward didn’t interfere with emergency services, nor harass the dispatcher, Town Manager Richard Branigan said.
“In listening to the tapes, it’s clear that not only was the fire chief polite, he gave the benefit of the doubt to the dispatcher in handling what was a tense situation at that particular moment,” Branigan said.
Dorman said the fire chief interrupted the dispatcher’s call since the employee was managing multiple calls and follows up on them during a shift.
After union representatives contacted the town, and officials found no merit to the claims, the Board of Fire Commissioners adopted a change in emergency response procedures to clarify questions regarding future calls, Seward said.
The new procedure provides standard operating guidelines to respond to incidents when a citizen reports a lost or missing person, and gives dispatchers a list of first responders, depending on the location of the emergency.
“In North Branford, the Fire Department is the first responder to all incidents. We have three fire companies, so depending upon where it (an emergency) is in town, an individual fire company or a combination of companies will respond to the incident,” Seward said.
In response to the dispatcher’s complaint, Seward said, “My sole responsibility is to manage fire assets 24 hours a day and provide fire protection and rescues to citizens. Whatever needs to be done will be done by the Fire Department.”
Police Chief Matthew Canelli declined to comment.
| | | State Probe of Suspended Red Cross Procedure Continues - Journal Inquire
06-October-2009
The state health department is continuing to investigate the now-suspended use of unlicensed personnel by the American Red Cross in Connecticut to conduct a procedure in which donors give two units of red blood cells during a single visit, a department spokesman said this week.
The health department spokesman, William Gerrish, provided no new details about the probe, which began last summer after unionized employees at the Red Cross complained that it was using “unlicensed supervisors” to conduct the “double red cell procedure.”
“The matter remains under investigation and has not been resolved yet,” Gerrish said.
Meanwhile, a Red Cross official said Friday that while the health department had allowed the organization to continue the practice during its investigation, the Red Cross had “temporarily discontinued” it here “due to concerns raised by our staff.”
“Arrangements have been made to bring the double red cell product in from out of state,” Donna M. Morrissey, the director of public relations and corporate affairs for the Red Cross’ Northeast Division said. “We regret any inconvenience this has caused our double red cell donors, but we do encourage them to make whole blood donations at this time.”
In a letter sent in August to the regional medical director of the Red Cross, a manager in the health department’s practitioner investigation unit wrote that since the procedure involves the administration of a sugar and/or salt solution to a donor, it “lies with the scope of a licensed practitioner” and can’t be delegated to “unlicensed assistive personnel.”
The manager added that the department wanted the Red Cross to resolve the issue and warned that it should provide a plan of correction by Oct. 1 or the unlicensed individuals conducting the procedure could face legal action for the practice of nursing.
Morrissey on Friday refused to say whether the Red Cross had submitted such a plan, repeatedly referring the question to the health department with whom she said the organization had “many communications.”
The spokeswoman, however, added that Red Cross officials “feel our highly trained staff is qualified and competent” to do the procedure safely.
“We have staff that do this work in most states in the country,” she said.
The chief executive officer of the Connecticut region of the Red Cross, Paul Sullivan, warned last summer that it may need to stop having employees who aren’t registered nurses or licensed practical nurses perform double red cell collections if the health department didn’t reconsider its initial finding, according to an internal memorandum made available by American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees Local 3145, which represents 225 Red Cross blood collection workers.
Sullivan in his memo also warned that having to hire licensed staff “could both increase the cost for area hospitals and displace a number of our current nonlicensed staff who have been ably and safely doing this work for years.”
Local 3145’s contract with the Red Cross expired last spring, and the union has since picketed its Connecticut offices and donation sites in part because it says the nonprofit wants to end a requirement that registered nurses be present at all blood drives.
While union officials say they are considering a strike against the Red Cross, Morrissey said negotiations over a new contract are continuing, with another round slated for mid-October.
Christine Holschlag of Manchester, a phlebotomist at the Red Cross and a member of the union’s negotiating team, said the contract proposed by the Red Cross “may jeopardize the blood supply.”
“They’re consistently cutting costs on the front line, and we’re under a Federal Drug Administration consent decree,” she said, referring to a federal court order requiring the Red Cross to improve its blood donor operation and what she said was some $21 million in related fines paid by the nonprofit. “When are they going to start allowing us to do our jobs right?
“We’re at a standstill right now,” she added. “They will not back down on the language that protects our nurses | | | Obama-backed health bill gains ground - Associated Press
02-October-2009
WASHINGTON – Health care legislation backed by President Barack Obama all but cleared a major hurdle in the Senate early Friday as Democratic liberals and moderates on a key committee closed ranks behind the most sweeping set of changes in a half-century.
Obama hailed the developments in the Senate Finance Committee as a milestone, and said in a written statement, "we are now closer than ever before to finally passing reform that will offer security to those who have coverage and affordable insurance to those who don't."
The legislation is designed to spread health insurance to millions who now lack it, and cracks down on industry practices such as denying coverage on the basis of pre-existing medical conditions.
More than $400 billion in federal subsidies would help defray premium costs for lower-income families and help small businesses offer coverage to their workers. Most policies would be required to cover preventive care as well as treatment for medical illness and vision, dental and mental health needs.
It was past 2 a.m. in the East — and Obama's top health care adviser, Nancy-Ann DeParle in attendance — when Sen. Max Baucus, D-Mont., the committee chairman, announced that work had been completed on all sections of the legislation.
"This bill will lower taxes for more than 42 million Americans and reduce the federal deficit," he said. "This bill will protect Medicare benefits for seniors. This bill will significantly expand health coverage."
A final vote was delayed until next week so budget officials can certify the legislation does not add to federal deficits. Given the Democrats' 13-10 majority only the final margin is in doubt.
Sen. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, said she has not yet decided how to vote. "I've got a lot to think about," she said. All other Republicans on the committee have criticized the bill and are certain to oppose it.
The full Senate already is scheduled to begin a historic debate at mid-month on legislation to meet one of Obama's principal campaign promises — and a goal of presidents since Harry Truman sat in the White House at mid-20th century.
The legislation was built on the wreckage of failed bipartisan negotiations among six members of the committee, and tilted at several points to appeal to Democratic moderates more than liberals. Baucus said that was the only strategy that could succeed in gaining 60 votes in the Senate, needed to overcome a threatened Republican filibuster.
As a result, it lacks a provision to permit the government to sell insurance in competition with private industry. Instead, it allows non-profit cooperatives to fill that role.
Unlike legislation taking shape in the House and a bill that passed a different Senate committee earlier in the year, it does not require businesses to offer insurance to their employees. Instead, companies that do not would be required to offset the cost of any federal subsidies their workers receive when they buy their own insurance in a new federally regulated exchange that would be established.
On the other side of the Capitol, Democratic House leaders have struggled in recent days to agree on a bill to send to the floor for a vote later this month. Aides have said the pace of progress could accelerate following the Finance Committee's work.
That's because the bill that Baucus steered toward committee approval is viewed as the most middle-of-the-road of all the Democratic alternatives pending in Congress, and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and her lieutenants are now better able to calculate which elements they can accept and which they may want change in final compromise talks between the two houses.
Democrats were in control throughout a two-week debate in the Senate committee, and on the final day of deliberations rejected Republican attempts to strip out tax increases they said violated Obama's campaign promises.
They made a number of major changes in the final hours.
One would allow a new commission designed to wring savings from Medicare to recommend cuts in federal subsidies paid to low-income seniors who have prescription drug coverage under the program.
Other last-minute modifications were designed to build support among the Democratic rank and file and blunt any impact on millions of working class families.
One change would exempt millions of people from a requirement to purchase insurance that is currently in the bill and reduce the penalties on millions more who defy the mandate.
Another would narrow the impact of a proposed tax on high cost insurance policies.
A third would allow the states to negotiate for coverage for individuals and families with incomes slightly higher than the cutoff for the Medicaid programs that provides health care for the poor.
Sen. Maria Cantwell, D-Wash. said the proposal was based on a system in effect in her home state that has resulted from lower-cost quality care as the state uses its purchasing power to negotiate better prices from insurance companies.
"If your governor and your legislators don't want to negotiate on behalf of their citizens, that's their political problem," she told Republicans who raised doubts about it and eventually voted against it.
In the final moments, Sen. Ron Wyden, D-Oregon, made an impassioned plea to change the bill to allow workers to leave their employer-backed coverage if they were dissatisfied. "A typical American, if they're getting hammered by their employer, they are stuck," he said.
His proposal never came to a vote after it became clear it would fail.
| | | Jobless rate reaches 9.8 percent in September - Associated Press
02-October-2009
WASHINGTON – The unemployment rate rose to 9.8 percent in September, the highest since June 1983, as employers cut far more jobs than expected. The report is evidence that the worst recession since the 1930s is still inflicting widespread pain.
Persistently high unemployment could weaken the recovery as consumers, concerned about their jobs and incomes, restrain spending. Consumer spending accounts for about 70 percent of the nation's economy.
The Labor Department said Friday that the economy lost a net total of 263,000 jobs last month, from a downwardly revised 201,000 in August. That's worse than Wall Street economists' expectations of 180,000 job losses, according to a survey by Thomson Reuters.
The unemployment rate rose from 9.7 percent in August, matching expectations.
If laid-off workers who have settled for part-time work or have given up looking for new jobs are included, the unemployment rate rose to 17 percent, the highest on records dating from 1994.
More than a half-million unemployed people gave up looking for work last month. Had they continued searching, the official jobless rate would have been higher.
All told, 15.1 million Americans are now out of work, the department said. And more than 7.2 million jobs have been eliminated since the recession began in December 2007.
Many analysts expect the economy grew at a healthy clip in the July-September quarter, technically ending the recession, but few think the recovery will be strong enough to lower the jobless rate. Most economists expect the rate to top 10 percent and keep climbing.
The economy has received a boost from the Cash for Clunkers auto rebate program and other government stimulus efforts, but many economists believe that growth will slow in the current quarter and early next year as the impact of those programs fade.
Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke said Thursday that even if the economy were to grow at a 3 percent pace in the coming quarters, it would not be enough to quickly drive down the unemployment rate. Bernanke said the rate is likely to remain above 9 percent through the end of 2010.
Hourly earnings rose by a penny last month, while weekly wages fell $1.54 to $616.11, according to the government data.
The average hourly work week fell back to a record low of 33 in September. That figure is important because economists are looking for companies to add more hours for current workers before they hire new ones.
The uncertainty that surrounds the recovery has made employers reluctant to hire. The Business Roundtable, a group of CEOs from large corporations, said earlier this week that only 13 percent of its members expect to increase hiring over the next six months.
While job losses have slowed since the first quarter of this year when they averaged 691,000 a month, the cuts actually worsened last month in many sectors compared with August.
Construction jobs fell by 64,000, more than the 60,000 eliminated in August. And service sector companies cut 147,000 jobs, more than double the 69,000 in the previous month. Retailers lost 38,500 jobs, compared to less than 9,000 in August.
Temporary help agencies eliminated 1,700 jobs, down from the previous month, but still a sign of labor market weakness. Economists see temporary jobs as a leading indicator, as employers are likely to hire temp workers before permanent ones.
| | | Comptroller: Connecticut Could Be Accumulating $500 Million Deficit - Courant.com
02-October-2009
The Hartford Courant
October 2, 2009
The state's cigarette tax and hundreds of fees just went up Thursday, but the state could already be accumulating a deficit of more than $500 million for the fiscal year that began July 1.
That was the preliminary analysis from state Comptroller Nancy Wyman, who said that tax collections are far lower than originally expected for the year's first three months.
The projection casts further doubt that a pending sales-tax cut from 6 percent to 5.5 percent, scheduled to kick in Jan. 1, will ever occur. The cut was contingent on better state finances.
The pessimistic numbers set the scene for the legislature's special session today as lawmakers put the finishing touches on the implementation bills for the two-year, $37.6 billion budget.
Senate Republican leader John McKinney said the numbers show that the Democratic-controlled legislature must cut spending further.
"It's mind-boggling that the Democrat leaders continue to bury their heads in the sand, ignore the real fiscal realities of what's happening in our state, and are moving forward with implementing a budget we already know is going to be out of balance," McKinney said Thursday.
But Senate President Pro Tem Donald Williams, the highest-ranking senator, said he expects that additional revenue will be generated by the so-called millionaires' tax on the state's richest residents as the economy rebounds. In addition, he said, Republican Gov. M. Jodi Rell's administration "must continue to tighten its belt and cut the size of bureaucracy in the executive branch. Falling short is unacceptable."
Collection of the state income tax — the largest generator of revenue by far — is down 15 percent overall, partly because a growing number of citizens are unemployed and thus paying less in taxes than in the past. In one of the most important categories, estimated payments of income tax are down 25 percent. Those estimated payments are generally made by the state's richest residents because much of their income comes from capital gains and dividends on Wall Street, which is highly volatile.
Payroll withholding — which covers workers with steady jobs — was down by 6 percent.
"If first quarter trends continue, even after fully incorporating the projected revenue gains enacted as part of the budget, the revenue shortfall in the general fund would exceed half a billion dollars," Wyman wrote in her monthly letter to Rell.
Republicans immediately said the lower tax collections would prevent a contingent sales-tax cut from happening. If the state's revenues were coming in as expected, the Democratic-written budget called for cutting the current 6 percent sales tax to 5.5 percent on Jan. 1, 2010. But Republicans had predicted that would never happen, and they said that Wyman's new numbers Thursday would ensure that it won't.
"There will be no sales tax cut — therefore nothing to stimulate or give some help to the middle-class and small and mid-size businesses," said House Republican leader Larry Cafero of Norwalk.
Steve Jensen, a spokesman for Wyman, said the deficit projection assumed that the sales tax rate would remain at 6 percent, and the contingent sales-tax cut was not factored in.
Jensen noted that the numbers represent a preliminary analysis and were not yet an official deficit projection because it is still early in the fiscal year.
It is unusual that the Republican legislators would be citing the work of Wyman, a Democrat.
"Nancy Wyman confirms what the governor has been saying — that the budget passed by the legislature is loaded with dubious assumptions and unachievable savings," said Donna Tommelleo, a spokeswoman for Rell. "In refusing to sign the budget, the governor said she did not want to endorse its levels of borrowing, revenues, and taxes."
Derek Slap, a spokesman for the Senate Democrats, would not agree with statements by Cafero and McKinney that the sales tax cut will never happen.
"We don't know," Slap said. "We'll have to wait and see."
Slap also dismissed talk by Republicans about cutting spending to solve the state's budget crisis.
"This is the group of Republicans who never proposed a balanced budget," Slap said. "The Republicans talking about fiscal responsibility is like [U.S. Rep.] Joe Wilson complaining about bad manners."
| | | Christopher Dodd A Bad Guy In Michael Moore's Latest Film - Hartford Cournat
02-October-2009
Michael Moore's new movie casts U.S. Sen. Christopher Dodd as a villain, though the populist provocateur insists he isn't angry at the Connecticut Democrat.
"I think he's done so much good for the country," Moore said during an interview in Boston to promote his film "Capitalism: A Love Story," which opens in Connecticut today.
But right now, Moore said, perhaps the best thing Dodd can do when his term ends in 2010 is step aside.
"I have only one concern as a supporter of President Obama and his agenda, and that is not losing the 60-vote filibuster-proof majority in the Senate," Moore said. "If Christopher Dodd presents a threat to that, then I, and all the other good people who support Obama, have to say the seat is more important than one person's re-election."
His movie is a sprawling compendium of the evils of American capitalism. Moore, a slouchy showman in a baseball cap and glasses, uses all his trademark tools — humor, pathos, snappily edited news clips and shots of himself shouting into a megaphone — to make his point that the system is failing all but the rich.
The story focuses on the financial crisis that unfolded last fall. Moore's cast of scoundrels includes big corporations that have taken out life insurance policies on their workers, big banks that received government bailouts and big mortgage companies that specialized in predatory loans.
And Chris Dodd.
Moore highlights allegations — never proven and since dismissed by the Senate Select Committee on Ethics — that Dodd, chairman of the Senate banking committee, and other political bigwigs improperly benefited from a VIP mortgage program run by the now-defunct Countrywide Financial Corp.
The assertions come more than an hour into the film and take up only about three minutes. But they underscore a political problem for Dodd, who is locked in a tough re-election campaign.
"Dodd wants to change the subject," said Doug Schwartz, director of the Quinnipiac University Poll. "He wants to talk about health care and the economy, but this movie's not going to let him. The more talk there is about it the worse it is for Dodd, even though he has been cleared."
The bipartisan ethics committee conducted a yearlong investigation and determined in August that Dodd's two mortgages did not break any rules, a fact that is never mentioned in Moore's movie.
"I think he might have recognized that instead of repeating the allegations," Dodd said earlier this week.
Dodd is not given screen time to defend himself against the charges. And he said he has not seen the movie.
In the film, Moore interviews Robert Feinberg, the Countrywide official who oversaw the program for borrowers identified as "Friends of Angelo," a reference to Countrywide CEO Angelo Mozilo.
Feinberg said he became upset the day he happened to see Dodd on television "pontificating" about predatory lending. "I had done a number of loans for him in which he got discounts and all the good things that go with being a Friend of Angelo's," Feinberg says in the film.
The ethics committee found that Dodd and his wife, Jackie, received no special benefits or below-market interest rates when they refinanced two loans with Countrywide in 2003, though the committee chastened Dodd for not doing enough to avoid the appearance of a conflict.
Moore said he views Dodd's Senate exoneration as "irrelevant."
"It really requires more of an investigation not by his fellow senators but by Justice Department officials," Moore said. "But let's make the assumption that Chris Dodd did nothing wrong. He's the chairman of the banking committee, he is the top regulator in the Senate. ... Whatever he does should be beyond reproach."
The filmmaker said he believes Dodd's explanation that he did not know he was a VIP. But, Moore added, "I want the guy who's the head of my Senate banking committee to know a lot more than I know. ... We've already seen what happens to the country when you have a leader who's not as smart as you are or I am."
Moore, a hero to some activists on the left, rejected the idea that he is unfairly picking on a prominent liberal senator. He said he has been asked by a prominent Democrat, whose name he would not reveal, to "back off" from his criticism of Dodd.
"I'm not out to get him in any way, shape or form," the filmmaker said. "If anything, when we first talked to Feinberg, I didn't want to believe it, because in a way it breaks your heart to see otherwise good people caught up in something maybe they shouldn't have been caught up in."
Talk of Dodd's situation prompted Moore to recall another instance when he saw a politician facing criticism. The year was 1967, and Moore had traveled to Washington on a family trip.
He said he happened to visit the Senate chambers during a debate leading up to the censure of Dodd's father, Sen. Thomas Dodd, who had been accused of improperly diverting campaign funds.
"We got to sit in the Senate gallery and it was the day his father made this impassioned speech defending his honor," Moore recalled. "And I, as a child, was a witness to that in person. ... It really made an impression on me. Here's a man who may have done something wrong but he believed in his country and he ... very much stood up for himself."
| | | City police approve new 3-year contract
02-October-2009
NEW HAVEN — City police officers Wednesday overwhelmingly approved a new contract, which includes major concessions, but protects existing benefits.
The vote was 276-45, and the pact must be approved by the Board of Aldermen. The last contract expired in June 2008.
“This new contract recognizes the importance of delivering high quality police services to our residents while responding to the needs of our officers as employees,” Mayor John DeStefano Jr. said in a statement. “It isn’t easy to achieve an agreement in such a difficult economy, but we’re comfortable with what we were able to accomplish by working together.”
The three-year pact includes no retroactive raise and 3 percent increases in the final two years.
The union had encountered some resistance from younger officers in the department, but union president Sgt. Louis Cavaliere called the decisive approval “a vote of confidence for the executive board.”
The concessions will affect future hires, creating a two-tier structure for pensions and medical benefits. The health and pension benefits, among the most lucrative in the state, will remain intact for existing officers.
All officers now will be required to work 20 years before they are eligible to retire, when in the past they could retire after 15 by using a sick-time buyback incentive.
The new pact also includes a “bad boy clause,” under which officers who engage in certain acts of on-the-job misconduct may be subject to the loss of pension benefits.
Cavaliere Wednesday night described the pact as reasonable during an economic recession, and said it preempts risky binding arbitration.
“At least we preserve what we have,” he said. “It’s enough to accept, at least for the next year and a half, until we get back to the negotiations table.”
| | | The Waiting Game
02-October-2009
Patricia is a 70-year-old widow whose Connecticut unemployment benefits are about to run out, and she’s scared. Very scared.
“I think, ‘Oh dear God, I’ve got to find a way to pay for my health insurance.’ I can’t get caught without it. … That’s why I’m starting to panic,” she says.
Patricia, who asked that her identity be concealed for privacy reasons, isn’t asking for much. “I don’t want a lot of money anymore. I just want to live.”
She isn’t alone in her fear. The earliest casualties of this recession, working- and middle-class Connecticut folks whose jobs were axed at the start of our economic nightmare, are now falling through the unemployment-compensation safety net at a rate of 450 a week.
They’ve exhausted their 72 weeks of state and federal unemployment aid. They are calling state officials, asking what to do, asking who is going to help them. They are afraid of losing their homes, their health insurance; worried about their kids, tearful at the prospect of maybe going on welfare for the first time in their lives.
Connecticut’s average weekly unemployment check amount is $312 a week right now. The money those 450 people were getting adds up to about $140,400 per week at a time when this state and federal governments are paying out approximately $40 million every seven days to Connecticut’s jobless.
The help they need is tantalizingly near. There is already a seven-week extension of federal unemployment benefits on the books. Congress is ready to give final approval to another 13-week extension.
But under the Alice-in-Wonderland rules governing federal unemployment aid, Connecticut doesn’t yet qualify.
You see, things aren’t quite bad enough: More people here must lose their jobs in order for already-unemployed people like Patricia to get the help they need.
Connecticut’s unemployment rate since June has averaged 7.9 percent. Since that’s well below the national average of 9.7 percent, we should be pleased.
Unfortunately, state labor officials say our jobless rate has to reach 8 percent or higher for Connecticut to get those additional seven weeks of federal unemployment cash. (To get the 13-week benefit extension Congress is contemplating, our unemployment would need to be at least 8.5 percent.)
Gov. M. Jodi Rell sums up the insanity rather well. On her way into the Capitol last week, she said, “The good news is we’re not there yet; the bad news is we’re not there yet.”
“It’s bizarre,” agrees John Olsen, head of Connecticut’s AFL-CIO, a man who doesn’t often agree with Rell. It’s like we’re hoping for the unemployment rate to climb. And we’re also hoping it stops climbing.
Not to worry though, the chief bean-counters at Pratt & Whitney are doing all they can to put Connecticut over the top. Last week, they announced plans to vaporize another 1,000 jobs by shutting down a Cheshire plant and an engine repair unit in East Hartford.
Salvatore DiPillo, statistics supervisor for the Connecticut Department of Labor, says the loss of another 1,000 jobs in this state “could possibly” push us up over the qualifying threshold for the seven-week benefit extension. Except for the fact that the Pratt & Whitney job losses will be spread out over the next year and a half.
The Pratt & Whitney layoffs won’t hit in East Hartford until the spring of 2010 and in Cheshire until early 2011. While that might temporarily postpone the pain for those workers, it won’t help Connecticut’s unemployed get any extended benefits.
There is hope (if that’s the right word) for more doom and gloom soon.
“A lot could happen,” DiPillo warns, saying Connecticut could see more immediate layoffs despite recent estimates by some experts that the recession has technically ended and a recovery technically begun.
“There’s always a lag time between when the economic indicators start looking good and when additional hiring occurs,” DiPillo explains.
Economists like the Connecticut Business and Industry Association’s Peter Gioia are pretty sure this state’s unemployment rate “could get close to 9 percent” in the next few months.
Connecticut has lost about 79,100 jobs since its peak employment in March 2007.
“I think it will be the case for both Connecticut and the U.S. that we will continue to lose jobs,” Gioia says. “My guess is we’re likely to hit somewhere around 100,000 [Connecticut] jobs lost.” He predicts the state isn’t likely to see any significant, sustained hiring until the summer of 2010. All kinds of stuff needs to happen before Connecticut employers start hiring full-time people again, according to Gioia. They have to resume handing out overtime to people still on their payrolls and bringing on temporary or part-time workers until they feel secure enough to hire full-time employees. “All of that takes time,” Gioia says.
U.S. Rep. Jim Himes, D-3, says Connecticut’s congressional delegation is in the “funny position” of having pushed for an extension of federal benefits that won’t immediately benefit their constituents. “We argued hard” to have the qualifying threshold lowered, Himes adds.
Himes is philosophical about losing that argument, since he agrees with the grim forecasts about Connecticut unemployment. “It is very possible we could qualify soon,” he says.
The U.S. House approved the benefits extension by a 331-83 vote. Some Republican critics claim the measure is proof President Obama’s stimulus program isn’t working. Some Democratic lawmakers argue the extension doesn’t go far enough.
The 13-week extension will help people who are about to run out of their benefits in 27 states. Michigan sits on the painful peak of that list with a jobless rate of 15.2 percent; Nevada is close behind at 13.2 percent; and our poor little neighbor, Rhode Island, is up there at 12.8 percent.
A person who is laid off in Connecticut currently gets 26 weeks of state unemployment insurance, plus 33 weeks of extended federal benefits under one program and another 13 weeks of federal coverage under a second extension, for a total of 72 weeks.
Jobless benefits in Connecticut are calculated according to a complex formula based on the highest amounts that a worker received during his or her two highest-paid quarters in a calendar year. At the moment, the maximum weekly benefit is $519 a week no matter how high someone’s pay was. On Oct. 4, the top rate will jump to $537 per week.
Nancy Steffens, spokeswoman for the state Department of Labor, says her agency does its best to make sure that all those people whose benefits have run out know about other help available from the state. Steffens says the state’s HUSKY program can provide health coverage for children, there is a state food-stamp program, local and state welfare for those who qualify, and ongoing career counseling and job-finding services.
But when jobs aren’t there, no matter how hard you look, 72 weeks can tick by in a hurry.
Karl R. Paulette is a 49-year-old engineer who was laid off in July from Watertown’s public works department. His wife still has her nursing job, but with six kids — one in college — Paulette has been scouring the Internet and everywhere else for work. And he’s already getting nervous about what’s ahead.
“You go on the Web, there’s no positions,” he says.
Paulette’s daughter just lost her job as an apprentice in the construction industry. Paulette’s brother, a union carpenter, is even worse off.
“He just ran out of unemployment benefits like two weeks ago,” Paulette says. “My brother’s 51. He’s getting over the hill. … It’s kind of a rough age to start over.”
Nancy Maranzino hears similar stories every day. She is a community service representative with the state labor department, one of the folks who answers telephone calls from the unemployed.
“They cry when their unemployment runs out,” says Maranzino, who lives in West Haven. She’s worked for the state labor agency for nearly 20 years but has never experienced anything like this. The worst has come since July when the earliest victims of Connecticut’s recession began hitting that 72-week cutoff.
“People are telling me how they are losing their homes, how they can’t afford health insurance,” she says. “They’re shocked — they don’t know how they’re going to buy things, buy food.”
This constant barrage of unhappiness is also taking its toll on state workers like Maranzino who answer those calls. “I know my heart goes out to them,” she said last week. “It’s a very difficult job emotionally for me.”
If you think a state worker like Maranzino is isolated from the real pain, think again. She is a single mother of three teens, ages 12, 14 and 16. Her ex-husband is now unemployed and is no longer able to provide any financial help.
She is keenly aware she’s lucky to be working. “I tell my children, be grateful for what you have,” Maranzino says.
Of course, if Fed chairman Ben Bernanke is right and this recession is “very likely over,” then maybe the return of prosperity is right around the corner.
Patricia doesn’t believe it.
“Unemployment in the state of Connecticut is terrible,” the 70-year-old grandmother says in an interview last week, “no matter what they say on TV.
“You watch TV and they say, ‘The economy is changing, the economy is changing.’ But where is it changing?” she asks. “They say there’s work out there? Find me something.”
Patricia has been looking ever since she got laid off from her 25-year job as a clerical worker at one of Connecticut’s larger construction companies.
She did actually find a position with a temporary clerical agency for the first six months after her layoff, but that ended up putting her in more trouble. Her current unemployment benefits are calculated on that lower-paying temp job and she’s only getting $100 a week in benefits, an amount Patricia figures is probably one third of what she would be getting based on her old employment. As small as it is, those $100 weekly checks are critical supplements to her $1,200 a month in Social Security payments, she adds.
Patricia’s 72 weeks of unemployment compensation will end at the beginning of November.
“I worked all my life,” she says. “Then I got laid off … and my husband died unexpectedly and everything went upside down.” She ended up in the hospital. All of their savings went down the tube with the debacle on Wall Street.
This is the first time Patricia has had to accept unemployment benefits. “That’s why this is all new to me,” she says.
“Being laid off puts you in a mess. You go to the grocery store, but there’s no way to get around it cheap,” she says. “You’ve got to pay for it; you’ve got to eat.”
Patricia has a daughter who she says is working and is doing fine. Her son-in-law is self-employed, and may be nervous about the future but seems to be doing well. Patricia doesn’t want to be a burden on them. “I would never do that,” she explains. “They’ve got two children that they’ve got to send through college.”
“If something comes up where I’m really in a jam, I’ll tell her,” Patricia says. “But I’m private, even with my family. It’s the way I was brought up. … I don’t like to tell people my problems.”
So Patricia looks for work that isn’t there. No jobs at the local mall, for instance, even as the stores ramp up for the coming holiday season. “Have you thought about Christmas?” she asks. “Oh, it’s going to be a black Christmas.”
The thought of losing those weekly unemployment checks is coloring everything. She is going to physical therapy three times a week, and says the cost of health coverage and the co-pays for her prescriptions “is terrible.”
“My biggest worry is my health insurance and my life insurance,” she says. If she can’t make her life insurance payments, Patricia is fearful there won’t be money to pay her funeral expenses when she dies. “I do want to get buried.”
Patricia explains she isn’t the kind of person to carry grudges or gripe to her friends. But she admits to being angry now, particularly with the high-rollers on Wall Street who never gave a thought to how their gigantic financial gambles might hurt people like her.
“I think it’s a game for them, it’s a bunch of greedy people,” she says, her voice rising as she talked about the misery Wall Street’s financial wizards conjured up. “Those big-shots should have been on top of those things.”
Lingering anger among ordinary people like Patricia could well turn into a political firestorm, particularly for incumbents, according to the AFL-CIO’s Olsen. “There’s always a danger that people will react, will strike out,” he says, noting even Rell’s high popularity ratings have begun to slide as she heads into a reelection season.
Patricia isn’t thinking that far ahead. She is still having trouble accepting the brutal realities of this whole weird recessionary trip.
“Can you believe, in this day and age, people in Connecticut are struggling like this?” she asks. “I hope I get a little job soon.”
| | | Senators Reject Pair of Public Option Proposals - NY Times
01-October-2009
WASHINGTON — After an intense debate that captured the essence of the national struggle over health care, a pivotal Senate committee on Tuesday rejected two Democratic proposals to create a government insurance plan to compete with private insurers.
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A blog from The New York Times that tracks the health care debate as it unfolds.
More Health Care Overhaul NewsRelated
Economic Scene: How a Tax Can Cut Health Costs (September 30, 2009) The votes, in the Senate Finance Committee, underscored divisions among Democrats and were a setback for President Obama, who has endorsed the public plan as a way to “keep insurance companies honest.”
The first proposal, by Senator John D. Rockefeller IV of West Virginia, was rejected 15 to 8, as five Democrats joined all Republicans on the panel in voting no. The second proposal, by Senator Charles E. Schumer of New York, was defeated 13 to 10, with three Democrats voting no.
The votes vindicated the middle-of-the-road approach taken by the committee chairman, Senator Max Baucus, Democrat of Montana. Mr. Baucus voted against both proposals, which were offered as amendments to his bill to expand coverage and rein in health costs.
“There’s a lot to like about a public option,” Mr. Baucus said, but he asserted that the idea could not get the 60 votes needed to overcome a Republican filibuster on the Senate floor.
Proponents of a public plan said it was needed to compete with private insurers, and they said consumers would benefit from the competition, getting lower prices and better benefits.
Republicans on the committee unanimously opposed the public option, saying it was, in the words of Senator Orrin G. Hatch of Utah, “a Trojan horse for a single-payer system” in which the government would eventually control most health care.
Mr. Obama has said he wants a public plan, but he has not always insisted on it, and the administration has sent mixed signals about how important it is. In the debate on Tuesday, few senators mentioned the president’s preferences, although several noted that many House Democrats, including Speaker Nancy Pelosi, supported the public option.
House Democratic leaders met for several hours on Tuesday to continue the dicey work of melding bills from three committees into a consensus package that could win a House majority.
Mr. Schumer said the public option would hold down costs because it would not have to generate profits, answer to shareholders or incur marketing expenses. His proposal would have required the public plan to negotiate rates with doctors and hospitals, rather than setting prices based on Medicare reimbursement rates. Under Mr. Rockefeller’s plan, the payment of doctors and hospitals would have been based on Medicare rates for the first two years.
Mr. Rockefeller said the Congressional Budget Office had estimated that a government insurance plan could slice $50 billion from the cost of Mr. Baucus’s bill, originally put at $774 billion over 10 years. The budget office predicted that eight million people would initially enroll in the public plan — about one-third of those who would seek coverage through new markets, or insurance exchanges.
“The public plan will be optional,” Mr. Rockefeller insisted. “It will be voluntary. It will be affordable to people who are now helpless before their insurance companies.”
But Senator Charles E. Grassley of Iowa, the senior Republican on the committee, said a government insurance plan would have inherent advantages over private insurers. “Government is not a fair competitor,” Mr. Grassley said. “It’s a predator.” He predicted that “a government plan will ultimately force private insurers out of business,” reducing choices for consumers.
Senator John Ensign, Republican of Nevada, said he feared that a government plan would prove so popular it could never be uprooted. “Does anybody believe Congress would let this public plan go away once it has a constituency?” Mr. Ensign asked. “No way. Once it’s started, you will never get rid of it. Congress will subsidize it more and more, allow it to grow and grow.”
Besides Mr. Baucus, two Democrats, Senators Kent Conrad of North Dakota and Blanche Lincoln of Arkansas, voted against both public option proposals. Two other Democrats, Senators Thomas R. Carper of Delaware and Bill Nelson of Florida, voted against the first amendment, but supported the second.
Mr. Carper said he liked Mr. Schumer’s proposal because it “would establish a level playing field” for competition between private insurers and the government plan.
The votes on Tuesday set the stage for a compromise under which the public plan could be offered in states where people could not find affordable private coverage, Mr. Carper said. He and Senator Olympia J. Snowe, Republican of Maine, have proposed such a compromise.
Democrats hope Ms. Snowe will eventually break with her party and support the legislation.
In the House, the Democratic leader, Representative Steny H. Hoyer of Maryland, echoed Mr. Schumer’s argument that the Finance Committee was the least friendly of the forums that would consider a public option.
“The Senate floor may be better, and the conference even better,” Mr. Hoyer said, looking ahead to negotiations where differences between the two chambers might be resolved.
Senator Lincoln, who faces an increasingly competitive race for re-election next year, said she supported efforts to cover the uninsured and to protect consumers by imposing strict new federal rules on insurance companies. But she said Congress could achieve those goals “without creating a purely public new government program, which most Arkansans do not support.”
Mr. Baucus’s bill does not include a public plan, but would set up nonprofit insurance cooperatives as an alternative to private insurers. The Congressional Budget Office has suggested that the cooperatives would have little effect on federal costs.
Mr. Rockefeller and Mr. Schumer were undaunted. “We will keep fighting so the bill that lands on the president’s desk has a good, strong, robust public option,” Mr. Schumer said
| | | Conn. report: More uninsured without health care reform - Associated Press
01-October-2009
HARTFORD -- A new report says more people in Connecticut would be without health insurance and state residents would face higher costs if Congress and the president don't improve the nation's health care system.
The report by the nonpartisan Robert Wood Johnson Foundation says up to 479,000 state residents could be uninsured within 10 years, up from the 356,000 state residents who now lack insurance.
The estimates, released Wednesday, also predict that state residents could see their health care spending increase by up to 64 percent, and Connecticut employers could see their premiums nearly double over 10 years.
State government could also face a big hit. The report says spending for Medicaid and other health programs for the poor could rise as must as 105 percent over a decade
| | | Rowland: Business Climate Has Deteriorated During Rell Era - Courant
01-October-2009
Some interesting comments by ex-governor John G. Rowland appeared in a recent column in the Waterbury Republican-American, and Capitol insiders are wondering if they were intended to reflect badly on his successor and fellow Republican, Gov. M. Jodi Rell.
Rell was Rowland's lieutenant governor for more than nine years before he resigned as governor in mid-2004 during a corruption scandal and later served 10 months in federal prison. Rell quickly disassociated herself from him politically once his resignation elevated her to governor.
Now Rowland has returned to public life as Waterbury's economic development coordinator. In that capacity, he was quoted by the Waterbury newspaper about Pratt & Whitney's announcement last week that it would close its Cheshire plant and part of its East Hartford plant, cutting 1,000 Connecticut jobs.
Rowland was quoted as saying: "But what has the state of Connecticut done for the business community in the last five years to make it more attractive?"
Rowland said the opposite has happened, the article continued, quoting Rowland as saying: "It's not just about Pratt, it's about the entire business climate, especially in the last five years."
Rowland never mentioned Rell. But he did mention "the last five years" - twice - and that's how long Rell has been governor.
| | | Justice asks high court to OK labor board rulings - Associated Press
01-October-2009
WASHINGTON — The Justice Department on Tuesday asked the Supreme Court to let a federal labor board continue working even though three of its five seats are vacant.
The National Labor Relations Board, which resolves conflicts between unions and management, has worked with three vacancies for nearly two years because of political wrangling in the Senate.
Earlier this year, a federal appeals court in Washington said hundreds of decisions issued by the NLRB are invalid because federal law does not permit the board to act without at least three members.
But three other federal appeals courts — in Boston, Chicago and New York — have reached the opposite conclusion. The Justice Department's petition urges the Supreme Court to resolve the split.
The uncertainty has thrown into question more than 400 decisions that clarified the rules of union organizing or decided whether there was merit to claims of unfair labor practices.
The standoff has also forced the two remaining board members — one Democrat and one Republican — to postpone dealing with more complex cases that could have a wider impact on the workplace.
Democrats refused to fill the empty seats during President George W. Bush's final year in office, angered over a series of anti-union board rulings and a perception that Bush's nominees were too pro-business.
Now Republicans have stalled President Barack Obama's picks for the board after business groups complained that one nominee — former union lawyer Craig Becker — has views that are "out of the mainstream." Obama's nominees have been pending since July.
The NLRB has continued to hear cases and issue decisions in which the chairwoman, Democrat Wilma Liebman, and Republican board member Peter Schaumber can agree.
"We continue to believe that our position is correct, and hope that a decision from the high court will bring some finality to these cases," Liebman said.
| | | Prison Taken Off Lockdown - Journal Inquire
01-October-2009
Prison taken off lockdown, investigation into assaults continues
By Laura F. Alix
Journal Inquirer
Published: Tuesday, September 29, 2009 12:00 PM EDT
SOMERS — State police are continuing their investigation into a recent spate of staff assaults at Northern Correctional Institution, although the facility was taken off lockdown and returned to normal operations last week.
“As in the past, we do not tolerate any degree of assaults on our staff, and we will take every step necessary and appropriate to ensure the inmates involved are dealt with,” state Department of Correction spokesman Brian Garnett said.
On the afternoon of Friday, Sept. 18, inmates at Northern Correctional Institution, the state’s maximum-security facility, assaulted correctional officers in three separate incidents.
Garnett said two of the three officers assaulted had required medical treatment, and one of them was taken to Johnson Memorial Hospital in Stafford for treatment and released later that day.
Although the Correction Department would not elaborate on the nature of the attacks, Rep. Karen Jarmoc, D-Enfield, has said she learned that one officer was kicked, another spat on, and a third knocked unconscious when he was ambushed by two inmates.
The department placed the entire facility on lockdown until the following Monday, when the lockdown was lifted for five of the six units at Northern. Last Wednesday the lockdown was finally lifted on the sixth unit, where the most serious attack was reported to have occurred, Garnett said.
The department is working with the state police on the investigation and wants the inmates responsible for the attacks charged, he said.
Additionally, he said officials are reviewing certain Correction Department policies, particularly those that relate to inmate and staff contact.
Meanwhile, a correctional staff union spokesman still expressed concerns about staff safety in light of the assaults.
Larry Dorman, spokesman for Council 4 of the American Federation of State, Municipal, and County Employees said by e-mail Monday that “the latest lockdown has ended, but our concerns over safety and security remain. Frontline prison employees across the state put their lives on the line everyday and they deserve the safest possible working conditions and optimal staffing levels.”
| | | Social Security in deficit territory, thanks to recession - New Haven Register
29-September-2009
WASHINGTON — Big job losses and a spike in early retirement claims from laid-off seniors will force Social Security to pay out more in benefits than it collects in taxes the next two years, the first time that’s happened since the 1980s.
The deficits — $10 billion in 2010 and $9 billion in 2011 — won’t affect payments to retirees because Social Security has accumulated surpluses from previous years totaling $2.5 trillion. But they will add to the overall federal deficit.
Applications for retirement benefits are 23 percent higher than last year, while disability claims have risen by about 20 percent. Social Security officials had expected applications to increase from the growing number of baby boomers reaching retirement, but they didn’t expect the increase to be so large.
What happened? The recession hit and many older workers suddenly found themselves laid off with no place to turn but Social Security.
“A lot of people who in better times would have continued working are opting to retire,” said Alan J. Auerbach, an economics and law professor at the University of California, Berkeley. “If they were younger, we would call them unemployed.”
Job losses are forcing more retirements even though an increasing number of older people want to keep working. Many can’t afford to retire, especially after the financial collapse demolished their nest eggs.
Nearly 2.2 million people applied for Social Security retirement benefits from start of the budget year in October through July, compared with just under 1.8 million in the same period last year.
The increase in early retirements is hurting Social Security’s short-term finances, already strained from the loss of 6.9 million U.S. jobs.
The Congressional Budget Office is projecting that Social Security will pay out more in benefits than it collects in taxes next year and in 2011, a first since the early 1980s, when Congress last overhauled Social Security.
Social Security is projected to start generating surpluses again in 2012 before permanently returning to deficits in 2016 unless Congress acts again to shore up the program.
Without a new fix, the $2.5 trillion in Social Security’s trust funds will be exhausted in 2037.
Those funds have actually been spent over the years on other government programs.
They are now represented by government bonds, or IOUs, that will have to be repaid as Social Security draws down its trust fund.
| | | United Technologies Corp., the Hartford-based multinational conglomerate that this week announced it would ship about 1,000 Connecticut jobs to Georgia and Asia, generated $45.3 billion in operating profits over the last decade, according to reports - Associated Press
29-September-2009
WASHINGTON – The recession has hit middle-income and poor families hardest, widening the economic gap between the richest and poorest Americans as rippling job layoffs ravaged household budgets.
The wealthiest 10 percent of Americans — those making more than $138,000 each year — earned 11.4 times the roughly $12,000 made by those living near or below the poverty line in 2008, according to newly released census figures. That ratio was an increase from 11.2 in 2007 and the previous high of 11.22 in 2003.
Household income declined across all groups, but at sharper percentage levels for middle-income and poor Americans. Median income fell last year from $52,163 to $50,303, wiping out a decade's worth of gains to hit the lowest level since 1997.
Poverty jumped sharply to 13.2 percent, an 11-year high.
"No one should be surprised at the increased disparity," said Richard Freeman, an economist at Harvard University. "Unemployment hurts normal workers who do not have the golden parachutes the folks at the top have."
Analysts attributed the widening gap to the wave of layoffs in the economic downturn that have devastated household budgets. They said while the richest Americans may be seeing reductions in executive pay, those at the bottom of the income ladder are often unemployed and struggling to get by.
Large cities such as Atlanta, Washington, New York, San Francisco, Miami and Chicago had the most inequality, due largely to years of middle-class flight to the suburbs. Declining industrial cities with pockets of well-off neighborhoods, such as Pittsburgh, Cleveland and Buffalo, also had sharp disparities.
Up-and-coming cities with growing middle-class populations, such as Mesa, Ariz., Riverside, Calif., Arlington, Texas, and Henderson, Nev., were among the areas showing the least income differences between rich and poor.
It's unclear whether income inequality will continue to worsen in major cities, said William H. Frey, a demographer at the Brookings Institution. Many Americans are staying put for now in traditional cities to look for jobs and because of frozen lines of credit.
"During the years of the housing bubble, there was middle-class movement from unaffordable metros with high-income inequality," Frey said. "Now that the bubble burst, more of the population may be headed back to the high-inequality areas, stemming their middle-class losses."
Among other findings:
_Income at the top 5 percent of households — those making $180,000 or more — was 3.58 times the median income, the highest since 2006.
_Between 2007 and 2008, income at the 50th percentile (median) and the 10th percentile fell by 3.6 percent and 3.7 percent, respectively, compared with a 2.1 percent decline at the 90th percentile. Between 1999 and 2008, income at the 50th and 10th percentiles decreased 4.3 percent and 9.0 percent, respectively, while income at the 90th percentile was statistically unchanged.
_Plano, Texas, a Dallas suburb, had the highest median income among larger cities, earning $85,003. Cleveland ranked at the bottom, at $26,731.
The findings come as the federal government considers new regulations to rein in executive pay at companies in which it has invested. President Barack Obama also typically cites the need for higher taxes on the wealthy to pay for health care overhaul and other measures, arguing that the wealthy have disproportionately benefited from tax cuts during the Bush administration.
The 2008 figures come from the Current Population Survey and the American Community Survey, which gathers information from 3 million households. The government first began tracking household income in 1967
| | | PROFITS UP, PAYROLL CUT: UTC raised execs' pay while eliminating other jobs - Journal Inquirer
29-September-2009
United Technologies Corp., the Hartford-based multinational conglomerate that this week announced it would ship about 1,000 Connecticut jobs to Georgia and Asia, generated $45.3 billion in operating profits over the last decade, according to reports the company made to federal securities regulators.
The documents also show that UTC’s Pratt & Whitney division, whose jet-engine repair operations in Cheshire and East Hartford are to close within two years, accounted for nearly a third of those profits — a total of $13.6 billion between 1999 and 2008.
Moreover, the reports reveal that over the same period the total compensation collected by the five highest-paid executives at UTC jumped to $66.9 million from $10.5 million, a six-fold increase.
In perhaps the best example of that trend, the corporation’s chairman and chief executive officer was its highest-paid official in 1999, when he was paid a total of $4.2 million. The firm’s highest-paid official in 2008 was its president and chief executive officer, who was paid a total of $18 million, or more than four times as much.
Similarly, while the president of UTC’s Carrier division was paid a total of $1.1 million in 1999, the executive in the same post received a total of $8.3 million in 2008. The company’s senior vice president and chief financial officer was paid a total of slightly more than $1 million in 1999, but the executive in the same post was paid a total of $4.4 million last year.
UTC recorded its profits and awarded its compensation packages as the company repeatedly moved to cut labor and other costs.
The company’s payroll at Pratt in Connecticut, for example, plunged from around 15,000 hourly workers in 1987 to around 4,100 two years ago, according to union statistics.
Pratt reportedly eliminated more than 600 Connecticut jobs between December 2008 and July 2009. The company handed out pink slips to 280 salaried workers in East Hartford, Middletown, and Cheshire in December.
Those layoffs occurred only a few months before UTC announced a $750 million “restructuring” program aimed at cutting a total of 11,600 jobs from its subsidiaries around the world.
Nevertheless, a UTC spokesman, John Moran, said Friday that UTC’s total employment in Connecticut had grown by 3.5 percent — or about 935 additional jobs — since 2003.
State Treasurer Denise L. Nappier last week said UTC executives should voluntarily cut their multimillion-dollar pay packages to save the jobs at Pratt’s Cheshire and East Hartford operations and as well as at their multiple suppliers and contractors in Connecticut.
The sole fiduciary officer of the state pension fund that holds $23.5 million worth of UTC stocks and bonds, Nappier said the company’s top five executives were paid a total of $70 million last year. That is more than three times the amount UTC says it needs on top of money and concessions offered by the state and the Machinists union to make those operations profitable, she said.
The treasurer had cited her concern about executive compensation at UTC last month in a letter to its chief executive officer.
In a reply to that letter, Akhil Johri, UTC’s vice president for financial planning and investor relations, did not specifically mention the executives’ pay.
But Johri reminded Nappier “of the value UTC has created for its shareholders.”
“Since December 1992, UTC stock has increased by nearly 13 times (through August 2009) while the S&P 500 and the Dow Jones industrial average have increased by two times and three times, respectively, over the same period,” he wrote.
“Despite a very challenging economic environment, UTC increased its dividend by 20 percent last October, leading to a total increase of 276 percent since 2000. This performance is due to UTC’s market-leading businesses, combined with a relentless focus on costs, productivity, and product performance.”
Johri also cautioned Nappier that UTC’s second-quarter 2009 results included a 17 percent decline in revenues and a 20 percent decline in earnings per share. He added that to remain competitive the company “has had to make many difficult decisions, including reducing headcount, requiring furloughs, and deferring merit increases.”
The term “operating profit” refers to the difference between the revenues of a business and the related costs and expenses, not counting income from sources other than its regular activities and before deductions for interest payments, taxes, bonuses, and certain other items.
Media accounts often describe UTC’s annual “net profit,” which accounts for the amount remaining in a business after it has met or deducted all costs and expenses.
UTC recorded net profits of $4.7 billion in 2008, $4.2 billion in 2007, $3.73 billion in 2006, $3.06 billion in 2005, $2.78 billion in 2004, $2.36 billion in 2003, and $2.23 billion in 2002.
UTC’s reports to the U.S. Securities & Exchange Commission show that the corporation’s operating profit fell behind a previous year’s number only once in the last decade. That occurred in 2003, when UTC reported a $3.64 billion operating profit, down slightly from the $3.65 billion recorded in 2002.
Pratt’s operating profit also dropped in 2003, when it fell to $1.06 billion from $1.28 billion the previous year.
Pratt’s number also fell behind in 2001, the year the terrorist attacks rattled the aerospace industry, when the unit’s operating profit hit $1 billion, down from $1.2 billion in 2000.
| | | State: Westbrook had the right to not reappoint assessor - New Haven Register
29-September-2009
WESTBROOK — The town had the right to not reappoint former assessor Ivan Kuvalanka when his term expired last year, the state has ruled. Kuvalanka will file an appeal to overturn that decision, and bring the case to Superior Court, a spokesman for his union said Wednesday.
Kuvalanka filed a grievance after he was not reappointed in June 2008. He most recently requested arbitration at the state Board of Mediation and Arbitration, which determined Sept. 17 the matter was not eligible, according to the arbitration award.
The Board of Selectmen’s June 2008 vote not to reappoint Kuvalanka came months after his controversial decision to overrule 65 appeals granted by the Board of Assessment Appeals.
At the time, Larry Dorman, spokesman for Kuvalanka’s union, Council 4, American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, said Kuvalanka’s dismissal was a “politically motivated termination.”
First Selectman Noel Bishop said Kuvalanka was not terminated, he was just not reappointed, as he had been every year from 2001 through 2007. Dorman said at the time that Kuvalanka’s collective bargaining agreement must be upheld.
Kuvalanka and the town had a collective bargaining agreement in effect through June 30, 2009.
“We feel that Ivan was terminated without just cause and that the collective bargaining agreement should prevail,” Dorman said, after explaining Kuvalanka would appeal the decision.
In the arbitration award, board members determined that the Connecticut General Statutes grant the town the right to determine Kuvalanka’s term of office, “notwithstanding the parties’ collective bargaining agreement.”
The assessor’s one-year term ended in June 2008.
“There is no evidence which suggests that (Kuvalanka) has a right to reappointment,” according to the arbitration award signed by state board Chairman Ruben E. Acosta and members David Mulholland and David Ryan.
Since Kuvalanka was not reappointed after his term expired, there did not need to be cause, the board ruled.
In February 2008, 60 people who had their property assessments reduced in 2007, including the assessment appeals board chairwoman, saw Kuvalanka throw those appeals out and increased their assessments.
The 60 residents filed 65 appeals, with some residents owning multiple properties. Kuvalanka said at the time that he made the changes because he didn’t feel the board’s decisions were justified.
The Board of Assessment Appeals has since reviewed the appeals and reaffirmed its initial decisions, officials said. In March 2008, selectmen ruled that any future reversal of property assessment reductions granted by the Board of Assessment Appeals will have to include reasons for the decision, because, selectmen said at the time, “that hasn’t been the case.”
“My decisions were not arbitrary. I know I’m doing what I feel is right, and I’ve got the expertise and the education,” Kuvalanka said in March 2008.
Since Kuvalanka’s departure, the town has not hired a full-time assessor, Bishop said.
The town employs Pam Fogarty as an assistant assessor. She is taking courses to become certified as an assessor, Bishop said.
Whenever the town needs a certified assessor — for duties such as signing the grand list — it will bring someone in on a temporary basis, Bishop said.
There is $15,000 in the budget for that purpose, he said.
| | | Union votes to accept concessions, save jobs - The New Britain Herald
29-September-2009
NEW BRITAIN — In an attempt to forestall possible layoffs, city workers belonging to Local 1186 voted Wednesday to defer a scheduled wage increase for the promise of job security.
“The members of Local 1186 stepped up to the plate,” said Larry Dorman of Council 4 public affairs. “They sacrificed to protect the public services they provide to New Britain’s residents and businesses.”
Local 1186 members ratified the agreement which called for a six-month wage deferral that will end Jan. 1, 2010 when members will receive a general wage increase of 2 percent.
According to Ed Thibodeau, staff representative for Council 4, said members had been due to receive a 3.25 percent increase in July.
“They sacrificed a 1.25 percent increase to come to this agreement,” Thibodeau said.
The approximately 180 members adopted the agreement by a clear majority, Dorman said.
The negotiations were delayed only slightly when the city offered an early-retirement option for some employees. About five Local 1186 members have accepted the plan to this date. Members have until Oct. 31 to accept the early-retirement option.
The agreement follows a negative vote by Local 1186 members to not accept the city’s concession offer in July.
“At that time the local leadership made it very clear that the union wanted to continue talking as we looked for an agreement to that would protect services and our members in these economically-challenged times,” Dorman said.
Thibodeau said members were not entirely happy with the agreement.
“Clearly, a majority of the members understood it was necessary,” Thibodeau said.
After the scheduled increase in January, the next wage increase would be a 3.25 percent increase in July 2010.
With the agreement, there can be no layoffs before June 30, 2010.
| | | House moves to extend unemployment benefits - Associated Press
21-September-2009
WASHINGTON – Despite predictions the Great Recession is running out of steam, the House is taking up emergency legislation this week to help the millions of Americans who see no immediate end to their economic miseries.
A bill offered by Rep. Jim McDermott, D-Wash., and expected to pass easily would provide 13 weeks of extended unemployment benefits for more than 300,000 jobless people who live in states with unemployment rates of at least 8.5 percent and who are scheduled to run out of benefits by the end of September.
The 13-week extension would supplement the 26 weeks of benefits most states offer and the federally funded extensions of up to 53 weeks that Congress approved in legislation last year and in the stimulus bill enacted last February.
People from North Carolina to California "have been calling my office to tell me they still cannot find work a year or more after becoming unemployed, and they need some additional help to keep their heads above water," McDermott said.
Critics of unemployment insurance argue that it can be a disincentive to looking for work, and that extending benefits at a time the economy is showing signs of recovery could be counterproductive.
But this recession has been particularly pernicious to the job market, others say.
Some 5 million people, about one-third of those on the unemployment list, have been without a job for six months or more, a record since data started being recorded in 1948, according to the research and advocacy group National Employment Law Project.
"It smashes any other figure we have ever seen. It is an unthinkable number," said Andrew Stettner, NELP's deputy director. He said there are currently about six jobless people for every job opening, so it's unlikely people are purposefully living off unemployment insurance while waiting for something better to come along.
The current state unemployment check is about $300 a month, supplemented by $25 included in the stimulus act.
That doesn't go very far when a loaf of bread can cost $2.79 and a gallon of milk $2.72, Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus, D-Mont., said at a hearing last week on the unemployment insurance issue.
"We need to keep our unemployed neighbors from falling into poverty. We need to figure out how best to make our safety net work," Baucus said.
The jobless rate currently stands at 9.7 percent and is likely to hover above 10 percent for much of 2010. Gary Burtless, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution, said at the Finance Committee hearing that, according to Labor Department figures, 51 percent of unemployment insurance claimants exhausted their regular benefits in July, the highest rate ever.
"It is likely the exhaustion rate will continue to increase in coming months" as the unemployment rate continues to rise, he said.
Stettner predicted that Congress will likely have to continue extending jobless benefits through 2011.
McDermott in July introduced a more ambitious bill that would have extended through 2010 the compensation programs included in the stimulus act. Those benefits are now scheduled to expire at the end of this year.
But with a price tag of up to $70 billion, that bill would have been far more difficult to pass. McDermott instead decided to offer the scaled-down 13-week extension to meet the urgent needs of those seeing their benefits disappear this year.
McDermott said his bill would not add to the deficit because it would extend for a year a federal unemployment tax of $14 per employee per year that employers have been paying for more than 30 years. It would also require better reporting on newly hired employees to reduce unemployment insurance overpayments.
Three-fourths of the 400,000 workers projected to exhaust their benefits this month live in high unemployment states that would qualify for the additional 13 weeks of benefits under his bill, McDermott said.
They include Alabama, Arizona, California, District of Columbia, Florida, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Michigan, Mississippi, Missouri, Nevada, New Jersey, North Carolina, New York, Ohio, Oregon, Pennsylvania, Puerto Rico, South Carolina, Tennessee, Washington, Wisconsin and West Virginia.
Other states could qualify for more benefits if their unemployment rates are approaching the 8.5 percent threshold.
| | | E-Mails Show Rell's Budget Posturing - Courant.com
21-September-2009
Jon Lender
Government Watch
September 20, 2009
On Sept. 1, when legislative Democrats approved a new state budget that Republican Gov. M. Jodi Rell called excessive, the governor held a press conference at 5:15 p.m. — in time to get on the TV news at 6 — and said that she wouldn't give her "stamp of approval" by signing the budget bill.
Instead, she said, she would end a yearlong budget stalemate by letting the budget become law without her signature and then would cut $8.3 million in "pork" spending by imposing line-item vetoes.
That changed a week later, after state Attorney General Richard Blumenthal advised her that she lacked the constitutional authority for any line-item veto unless she first signed the bill. "I respectfully disagree," Rell responded on Sept. 8. But, to avoid a "costly and protracted court fight," she said that she would forgo the vetoes and let the unsigned budget bill become law.
Blumenthal's legal finding, and Rell's abrupt reversal in response to it, caught citizens and even some political insiders by surprise — and it made big news.
But now, based on internal Rell-administration e-mails obtained by The Courant, it turns out that it was not a surprise at all to the governor's office.
In fact, on Sept. 1, three hours before the press conference in which Rell resolutely said that she wouldn't sign the bill and would cut the budget with line-item vetoes, her own chief gubernatorial legal counsel had issued the same advice that Blumenthal would give days later: If you don't sign the budget, you can't veto line items in it.
"Based on a reading of the CT constitution and case law, the Governor's exercise of the line item veto would require her approval and signature of the remainder of the bill," gubernatorial legal counsel Anna Ficeto wrote in an e-mail to Rell's powerful chief of staff, M. Lisa Moody, at 2:13 p.m. on Sept. 1.
Moody forwarded the e-mail three minutes later to Rell's budget director, Robert Genuario, who responded at 2:45 p.m.: "Our two lawyers agree. Isn't that amazing?" Genuario was referring to one of his key budget deputies, lawyer Jeffrey Beckham.
Why would Rell disregard the advice of the top legal expert in her own office and a legal adviser to her administration's top budget official?
Was her resolute-seeming stance at the Sept. 1 news conference just a pose for the cameras, to make herself look better at the end of the long budget battle that many observers say she lost?
That's what the Democratic speaker of the House thinks.
"Knowing her announcement was unconstitutional, she apparently went against legal advice to score political points," Speaker Christopher Donovan, D- Meriden, said Friday after being told of the Ficeto and Genuario e-mails.
Donovan called that one of "two disappointments." The other disappointment, he said, was that when Rell announced Sept. 1 that she would be vetoing line items in the budget for about 20 projects costing $8.3 million, it was a list of "items she already had agreed with." By calling them "pork," he said, "she put legitimate funding items in a bad light."
The bottom line, he said, was that "we ended up with a good budget given extraordinary circumstances, and we are proud of it."
Donovan's positive view of the budget couldn't be more contrary to the stance that Rell has taken since the legislature approved it. In public pronouncements, the governor has done everything except hold her nose as she refers to the $38 billion, two-year, tax-and-spending document as well as the Democratic House and Senate majorities that approved it.
"They cannot resist the temptation of pork-barrel spending even when we have record deficits," Rell said at her Sept. 1 press conference. "They cannot say 'no'. And they cannot be pushed, pulled, charmed [or] dragged into doing the right thing."
But the newly uncovered e-mails present another snapshot of how the Rell administration — which has preached good government over politics-as-usual — engages in political stage-managing as much as any governor's office, and maybe more, to present a public face that doesn't necessarily reflect what's going on in its collective mind.
Another example was a recent meeting that Rell's press aides called of about 20 career civil-service public information officers, from agencies throughout state government, to discuss how the governor could get better press coverage during the difficult budget standoff that Rell's Sept. 1 press conference signaled the end of.
Rell's press office insisted last week that the governor's Sept. 1 position — in spite of her own legal counsel's advice — was not a hollow posture.
"The governor solicited opinions from several attorneys — public and private," said press aide Donna Tommelleo. "Frankly, the lawyers were divided on whether" Blumenthal's opinion was correct.
However, she did not specifically address why Rell didn't take the advice of her own legal counsel, Ficeto, days before Blumenthal even raised the issue in a letter dated Sept. 4. Instead, Tommelleo reinforced what Rell said Sept. 8 — when Rell announced that Blumenthal had given her the written advice and she decided to heed it because "we must have a budget."
Tommelleo said: "Rather than waste taxpayer money on a costly court fight to press the line-item veto issue, she heeded the attorney general's advice and allowed the entire budget, which included those items she wanted to veto, to go into law without her signature."
"She would not affix her signature to the budget because she did not and does not believe in it," Tommelleo said. "She refused to put a stamp of approval on the Democrats' spending, their inability to make cuts or their levels of borrowing, revenues and taxes."
The public approval ratings of Rell and legislators took hits after the prolonged budget debate, although the governor's (59 percent) remained higher than the legislature's (35 percent), a new Quinnipiac University poll showed last week.
The poll came at a time when Rell had been criticized publicly, including in newspaper editorials, for the way she handled the budget battle — and, in particular, for first vowing to veto the "pork" line items and then reversing herself after the "news" a week later that Blumenthal said her signature was required before imposing any line-item vetoes.
One such editorial, in the Connecticut Post newspaper, put it this way: "[T]he governor's final line-item budget cuts were pulled back on news they likely were prohibited. After making a big show of holding the line on what she called 'pork' in the Democratic-approved budget, she again absolved herself of responsibility. The attorney general made plain that her actions were out of order. Put simply, a line-item veto can only apply to a bill the governor signs. ... Surely, someone in the governor's office should have known that."
Somebody did, the e-mails now show.
•Jon Lender is a reporter on The Courant's investigative desk, with a focus on government and politics. Contact him at jlender@courant.com, 860-241-6524, or c/o The Hartford Courant, 285 Broad St., Hartford, CT 06115.
Copyright © 2009, The Hartford Courant
| | | Connecticut's Budget Requires Correction Department Cuts, But No One Seems To Know Where To Make Them - courant.com
21-September-2009
The Hartford Courant
September 21, 2009
Just save the money.
That's what the state's prisons are being told by the legislature. All state agencies have been saving money during the deep economic downturn, but the Department of Correction is being told to find $63.4 million in savings over two years under the new state budget.
Prison officials are complaining that they have not been told which programs to cut, and the explanation from the legislature's nonpartisan fiscal office says only that the cuts will "reflect the implementation of various correctional policies to achieve savings in the correctional system."
From Gov. M. Jodi Rell's budget office to the prison guards' union, no one seems to know how the cuts will be made.
"We think that the legislature's budget for the corrections department represents an overly optimistic estimate of savings with no credible basis in fact," said Jeffrey Beckham, a spokesman for Rell's budget office. "It is just one example of many where the legislature has deliberately underestimated basic expenses of government so that they could shift money to areas where they just wanted to spend more. Frankly, this has been a recurring problem, which is why we have seen deficiencies in the Department of Correction budget over the last several years."
But Derek Slap, a spokesman for Senate President Pro Tem Donald Williams, said that Rell had been pushing for cuts for months and publicly complained that the Democratic-controlled legislature had not reduced spending enough.
"The governor said there were no real cuts," Slap said. "Now that there are cuts, they say, 'How do we do it?' Families across the state are doing this belt-tightening. The Rell administration and her bureaucracy is going to have to do the same. People want substantial cuts in spending."
With an annual budget of more than $700 million, the Department of Correction will need to cut $63.4 million from a two-year total of more than $1.4 billion. That represents less than 5 percent of the total department budget over two years.
In addition, Slap noted that Rell herself wanted to cut the prisons' budget by $56 million — a total not far from the Democrats' figure.
Larry Dorman, a spokesman for the union representing correction officers, said that closing any prisons would be a mistake. There are currently no provisions in the budget to shutter any facilities.
"We don't know where any of these alleged savings would come from or how they will be achieved," Dorman said. "If these cuts come at the expense of … safety inside or out [of prisons], then nothing good will be accomplished. If you close prisons, they will be opened up later. Crime doesn't stop."
The prison guards' union was concerned about the budget cuts even before the state's "super-max" prison was locked down over the weekend after three attacks Friday on guards by four inmates. One of the guards was beaten unconscious at the Northern Correctional Institution, which houses some of the state's toughest inmates and includes prisoners on death row. Top prison officials will meet today to determine whether the lockdown will be extended.
State Rep. Douglas McCrory, who serves as a subcommittee co-chairman overseeing prisons, said that lawmakers purposely avoided tying the hands of the correction commissioner during budget talks earlier this year. Instead, they wanted department officials to make the decisions about where to cut.
The state's prison population has been dropping since a peak that came after the triple killings in Cheshire in July 2007, which prompted a freeze in the state's parole system. The all-time high population in the prisons was 19,894 inmates on Feb. 1, 2008, according to the correction department. Today, that number has dropped by about 1,000.
With the cost of incarcerating the average inmate at about $40,000 per year, the state can save money this year by moving nonviolent criminals to halfway houses and group homes, McCrory said.
"Our prison population has declined over the last year and a half," McCrory said.
Along with the University of Connecticut Health Center, the correction department is one of the large state agencies that has failed to meet its budget projections in recent years. As such, the legislature often passes a "deficiency" bill, which means that the deficit is covered by savings in other agencies during the robust years or simply adds to the overall state deficit in the lean years.
Brian Garnett, a spokesman for the correction department, offered no specific examples of cuts in a large agency that oversees 18,800 inmates in 18 facilities.
"We continue to review that document," Garnett said of the two-year, $37.6 billion state budget. "We continue to take a look at those numbers and how we will implement them."
Copyright © 2009, The Hartford Courant
| | | Connecticut's Maximum Security Prison Remains Locked Down, As State Seeks Explanations For Attacks On Guards - Courant.com
21-September-2009
The state's maximum security prison will remain on lockdown through the weekend as correction officials and state police try to unravel why three separate attacks on prison guards took place on Friday, including one that left a guard unconscious.
Brian Garnett, a spokesman for the Department of Correction, said Saturday that the lockdown at Northern Correctional Institution was ordered to "stabilize the situation." A lockdown means inmates are confined to their cells and visitations are canceled.
DOC officials will review the situation Monday and decide whether to end the lockdown, he said.
State police have been called in to investigate. DOC officials have said little about the attacks, other than that they were not related and that four inmates were involved.
A source familiar with the attacks said the worst one occurred in what is called the "gang area" of the prison. A prison guard taking a prisoner to his cell was brutally attacked.
The source said that as the guard opened the cell door to let the inmate back in, his cellmate threw something at the guard, distracting him. The two inmates then jumped the guard and beat him until he was unconscious, the source said.
The guard was treated at a local hospital and released, Garnett said.
The other incidents were not as violent, the source said.
In one case an inmate walking back to his cell spit in the face of a guard. In the other case the guard was taking an inmate to his cell and the second inmate in the cell tried to bolt when the door was opened, striking the officer in the knee.
State Rep. Karen Jarmoc, D-Enfield, said Saturday that the legislature needs to consider mandatory minimum sentences for inmates convicted of assaulting guards. She said that, too often, inmates charged with assault get minimal, if any, extra jail time.
"The inmates know they aren't getting any extra sentences now. We need a deterrent so they know they won't get away with assaulting a corrections officer," Jarmoc said.
There have been at least two other lockdowns at Northern in the past seven months. In March an inmate was stabbed and in June an officer was beaten.
Northern is the state's maximum security prison. It currently houses about 450 inmates, including those on death row.
Copyright © 2009, The Hartford Courant
| | | State Questions Red Cross On Use Of Staff - The Hartford Buisness Journal
21-September-2009
The Red Cross region in Connecticut has temporarily stopped performing a blood-withdrawing procedure as state regulators determine whether the nonprofit is using qualified staff to perform it.
The procedure, known as a double-red cell blood collection, requires donors to give two units of red blood cells during a single visit. The Red Cross uses non-licensed staff to perform these procedures in all but a few locations across the country, said Donna Morrissey, a spokeswoman for the Red Cross.
That raised concerns from unionized employees who have been in contentious contract negotiations with the Red Cross for months, and who have complained that the blood-collection agency has been eliminating registered nursing positions and filling them with less qualified and unlicensed individuals.
Some workers in AFSCME Local 3145, which includes 225 nurses, technicians and phlebotomists, alerted the state Department of Public Health about the situation.
In August, DPH sent a letter to Red Cross officials telling them that double-red procedures lie “within the scope of a licensed practitioner and cannot be delegated … to unlicensed assistive personnel.”
Morrissey said the organization is working closely with DPH and the nonprofit is confident that their “highly trained staff is qualified and competent to do this work safely.”
“The Red Cross extensively trains its work force to ensure compliance with regulatory requirements of the Food and Drug Administration, the American Association of Blood Banks, as well as its own high standards of performance,” Morrissey said.
Morrissey said DPH has advised that the Red Cross may continue to operate as it has been while they discuss licensing requirements.
She said, however, it has ceased the procedure due to concerns raised by staff.
During a double-red cell donation, a needle is inserted into the donor’s arm and blood is withdrawn directly into a cell separator next to the donor bed. The whole blood is separated into red blood cells and plasma.
The red blood cells are then drawn into two separate bags, while the plasma and saline solution is returned to the donor.
Because the procedure involves the administration of certain medications and/or biologicals, such as sodium chloride, it must be performed by a licensed professional, DPH said in its letter.
DPH requested that Red Cross officials provide it with “a plan of correction that will resolve the current practice ... of having the Double-Red Procedure administered by unlicensed staff,” by Oct. 1.
The letter also states that failure to do so could cause DPH to seek “legal action against the unlicensed individuals for the practice of nursing.”
Morrissey said that a registered nurse is scheduled at every blood drive performing double-red cell procedures and that each Red Cross blood region has dedicated medical staff, including physicians, who are available 24-hours-a-day to consult about any medical concerns relating to blood drives.
Unionized Red Cross workers have been working without a contract since March 31, and say the nonprofit is trying to cut or freeze their wages, slash their health care benefits, and force them to work unrealistic hours.
Negotiations between the two sides have already broken down four times, setting the stage for a potential strike in the coming months if a deal can’t be reached soon.
Debra Lenentine, a phlebotomist and president of AFSCME Local 3145, said DPH’s findings validate the union’s concerns. She called DPH’s intervention “an important step toward protecting donors, workers and blood safety.”
Christine Holschlag, a union officer and phlebotomist who has been with the Red Cross for five years, said the main issue for workers is public safety.
“I feel the Red Cross put us in a position to go to outside agencies to get our concerns addressed,” Holschlag said.
Morrissey told the Hartford Business Journal in July that the Red Cross has been battling financial difficulties and has instituted cost-cutting measures over the past year, including laying off roughly 1,000 employees, to deal with a $200-million deficit.
In an internal memo obtained by The Hartford Business Journal, a Red Cross official said being required to use licensed staff on double-red blood cell procedures could increase costs.
“Should the state’s ruling stand, the Red Cross may over time hire licensed staff to conduct this work,” the Aug. 28 memo said. “This effort could both increase the cost for area hospitals and displace a number of our current non-licensed staff, who have been ably and safely doing this work for years.”
| | | Rell Drops To Lowest Poll Rating Ever - 59 Percent Approval - Courant.com
17-September-2009
Weakened politically by a bitter, seven-month battle over the state budget, Republican Gov. M. Jodi Rell has dropped to her lowest poll rating ever.
The latest Quinnipiac University survey shows Rell's approval rating at 59 percent - far below her sky-high rating that peaked in January 2006 at 83 percent.
The summer-long soap opera over the budget ended on an unexpected note as Rell refused to either sign or veto the two-year, $37.6 billion spending plan. She was sharply criticized by Democrats for that action, and the public apparently agrees.
By 56 percent to 34 percent, those polled said Rell "copped out'' by failing to take final action on the budget. In addition, voters disapprove of Rell's handling of the budget by 52 percent to 42 percent.
As part of the public's overall disapproval of actions under the Gold Dome at the state Capitol, the legislature's approval rating fell to its lowest level since July 2003 - at 35 percent.
"Democrats can't take comfort in these numbers since their score on the budget is much lower than the governor's,'' said Douglas Schwartz, the poll director. "But Democrats might hope that the Rell juggernaut finally has hit a pothole, which could set the stage for a competitive race for governor next year.''
During her five years as governor, Rell has consistently polled above the 70 percent mark, reaching the highest consistent rating in the history of the Quinnipiac poll. This year, her ratings have ranged from a high of 75 percent to the current low at 16 points below that level.
Despite the drop, Rell still scores far above Democratic governors in Pennsylvania, New Jersey and New York, based on the Q poll. Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell has also been locked in a protracted budget battle in his state, and his approval ratings have fallen to 39 percent. In New Jersey, Gov. Jon Corzine's approval rating has plummeted to 34 percent, and some polls show him behind in the election race against a former federal prosecutor.
In New York, Gov. David Paterson has an approval rating of 30 percent, based on the latest Quinnipiac poll.
State legislatures have not fared well in those states, either. Connecticut's legislature, though, was viewed more positively by the home-state residents than those polled in other states.
From the day that Rell unveiled her budget in early February, she was criticized by Democratic legislators for underestimating the size of the deficit in the state's worst fiscal downturn in decades. Starting with the bankruptcy of the Lehman Brothers investment banking firm one year ago, the state's revenues collapsed in all of the major categories - including the state income tax, sales tax, and corporate taxes. Overall, revenues dropped by about $2 billion - the largest drop in state history.
With the severe recession as a backdrop, Rell and the legislature battled for months over whether taxes should be raised and how many programs should be cut.
Rell's office released the following statement:
"Governor Rell loves her job and loves serving the people of Connecticut. She appreciates the way people in this state have always supported her. The poll reflects the fact that we have been dealing with a very difficult budget situation and Governor Rell made some choices she knew would not make everyone happy. That's leadership.''
The statement continued, "For the good of our state the budget crisis is now resolved, because Governor Rell put an end to it. By digging in her heels over the past five months, Governor Rell forced the Democrats to cut state spending and sharply reduce their demand for new taxes from $3.3 billion to $900 million. Everyone's focus now should be on keeping and creating jobs and restoring our state's economy.''
Senate President Pro Tem Donald Williams, the highest-ranking senator, said the state budget has already become law, but the work is not over.
"Going forward, it is crucial that the governor carry out her significant responsibilities to make the budget cuts a reality,'' he said. "The deep spending reductions in this budget will require belt-tightening and smart choices by executive branch agencies. We urge the governor to meet immediately and frequently with her commissioners to ensure that the requisite cost savings are achieved while critical services are maintained."
| | | Obama turns to unions, auto workers for momentum on health care reform, economic policies - Courant.com
17-September-2009
PITTSBURGH (AP) — Shoring up a key part of his political base, President Barack Obama turned to blue-collar crowds Tuesday to rally support for health care overhaul and claim credit for policies that have "stopped our economic free fall."
He found a receptive audience at the AFL-CIO convention, where delegates to the country's largest labor federation were passing a resolution calling for changes to health care that include a government-run plan to compete with private insurance companies.
"Few have fought for this cause harder, and few have championed it longer than you, our brothers and sisters in organized labor," Obama, who has made overhauling health care his top domestic priority, told more than a thousand cheering union members. "You're making phone calls, knocking on doors, and showing up at rallies because you know why this is so important."
His appearance before the AFL-CIO — and earlier at a General Motors plant in Lordstown, Ohio — was part of Obama's aggressive new effort to sell his health care overhaul following a speech last week to a joint session of Congress. He has another health care rally scheduled in Maryland on Thursday, and is appearing in six network television interviews Sunday and Monday.
His speech also came a day after the president threw labor unions a big bone by ordering steep additional U.S. tariffs on Chinese tires for three years. Chinese imports represented almost 17 percent of the U.S. tire market last year and have been blamed for the loss of thousands of American jobs.
Incoming AFL-CIO president Richard Trumka sought to erase any doubts that labor would stand behind Obama, even though the president has left the door open to proposals that do not include a government-run insurance option.
"The president just said he's going to fight for the public option," Trumka told reporters. "We are going to fight with him to make sure the public option gets done."
Obama praised organized labor for creating a middle class and propelling the economy forward during last century. He said labor must help push the economy ahead now.
"One of the fundamental reasons I ran for president was to stand up for working families," Obama said. "When our middle class succeeds, that's when the United States of America succeeds. That's what we're fighting for."
At the General Motors plant, Obama claimed credit for an improving economy. He defended his administration's intervention to prevent the collapse of automakers. He also told GM employees that their company has retooled itself and is heading back to a solid business, in part, because of its work force.
"Your survival and the success of our economy depended on making sure that we got the U.S. auto industry back on its feet," Obama said, standing near a production line where compact Chevrolet Cobalts are produced.
He said those small cars were among the most popular under his temporary Cash for Clunkers program that offered drivers up to $4,500 to buy more fuel-efficient automobiles. General Motors has increased production of the compact auto and rehired laid-off workers to restore a second shift here.
"Because of the steps we have taken, this plant is about to shift into high gear," Obama said.
At the same time, Obama acknowledged that recovery would not be simple or swift.
"Over the years, we've seen factories close. You've seen friends, neighbors and relatives laid off," Obama said. "Your daughters and sons have had to move away in search of jobs and opportunity. I know it was painful around here earlier this year when three shifts at this plant were cut down to one."
The events were designed to be heavy on working-class appeal in hopes of boosting the White House's credentials with the segment of the population that played a large role in his election and is crucial to his economic agenda.
| | | One-time coal miner Trumka takes helm of AFL-CIO - Associated Press
17-September-2009
PITTSBURGH — Richard Trumka, who rose from the coal mines of Pennsylvania to the top ranks of the nation's labor movement, took the helm of the AFL-CIO on Wednesday, ushering in a more aggressive style of leadership and vowing to revive unions' sagging membership rolls.
The first new AFL-CIO president in 14 years, Trumka pledged to make the labor movement appeal to a new generation of workers who perceive unions as "only a grainy, faded picture from another time."
"We need a unionism that makes sense to the next generation — young women and men who either don't have the money to go to college or are almost penniless by the time they come out," Trumka told hundreds of cheering delegates in a speech at their annual convention.
Trumka, 60, a charismatic, former head of the United Mine Workers, embraced the challenge of rebuilding union ranks that have fallen from a high of 35 percent in the 1950s to just 12.4 percent today.
It's a feat his predecessor, John Sweeney, failed to accomplish as the U.S. continued to lose millions of manufacturing jobs and employers grew more resistant to union organizers.
Trumka insisted that unions remain the best way to lift workers into the middle class during a time of economic turmoil. He said the growing number of Americans working as temps, contractors and telecommuters are "walking a tightrope without a net" as they work for low wages, no health care and little job security.
"Even though it wasn't the labor movement that got us into this mess, we are the people who are going to lead America out of it," he declared.
Trumka plans to be a more vocal and visible spokesman for labor's cause than Sweeney was. That includes more events, more public speaking and more TV and radio appearances.
"Richie is probably more forceful than John," said Gerald McEntee, president of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees. "John had the workers' interest in his heart, but Richie has them in his heart and his gut."
With a union-friendly Democrat in the White House and Democrats in control of Congress, unions have their best chance in decades of getting their top priority: overhauling labor laws to make it easier for workers to form unions. If that happens, labor leaders predict a renaissance in organized labor, with millions of new workers signing up.
Trumka said he would organize a "strike force" of 1,000 organizers. He also urged union members to help President Barack Obama fight for health care reform — so long as it includes a government option to compete with private insurers.
The AFL-CIO represents about 8.5 million union members and another 3 million members at its Working America affiliate for people who don't have a union at work. It used to be much larger before several large unions — led by Service Employees International Union president Andy Stern — stormed out four years ago to form the rival Change to Win federation.
Trumka's goal is to reunify the fractured union movement under a single umbrella. He'll start on Thursday, when one of the departed unions, UNITE HERE, announces it is returning to the AFL-CIO.
The union of hotel, restaurant and clothing workers saw 150,000 of its members leave to join an affiliate of Stern's SEIU earlier this year. Some have accused Stern of meddling in the union's affairs, but Stern denies it.
In his speech, Trumka warned that any union trying to raid an AFL-CIO affiliate's members would meet fierce resistance.
"That's never going to be allowed to happen again," he said.
| | | Inspiration for movie 'Norma Rae' dies at 68 - Associated Press
16-September-2009
RALEIGH, N.C. — Crystal Lee Sutton, whose fight to unionize Southern textile plants with low pay and poor conditions was dramatized in the film "Norma Rae," has died. She was 68.
Sutton died Friday in a hospice after a long battle with brain cancer, her son, Jay Jordan, said Monday.
"She fought it as long as she could and she crossed on over to her new life," he said.
Actress Sally Field portrayed a character based on Sutton in the movie and won a best-actress Academy Award.
Field said in a statement Sutton was "a remarkable woman whose brave struggles have left a lasting impact on this country and without doubt, on me personally. Portraying Crystal Lee Sutton in 'Norma Rae,' however loosely based, not only elevated me as an actress, but as a human being."
In 1973, Sutton was a 33-year-old mother of three earning $2.65 an hour folding towels at J.P. Stevens when a manager fired her for pro-union activity.
In a final act of defiance before police hauled her out, Sutton, who had worked at the plant for 16 years, wrote "UNION" on a piece of cardboard and climbed onto a table on the plant floor. Other employees responded by shutting down their machines.
Union organizers had targeted J.P. Stevens, then the country's second-largest textile manufacturer, because the industry was deeply entwined in Southern culture and spread across the region's small towns. However, North Carolina continues to have one of the lowest percentages of unionized workers in the country.
Bruce Raynor, president of Workers United and executive vice president of the Service Employees International Union, worked with Sutton to organize the Stevens plants. In 1974, the Amalgamated Clothing and Textile Workers Union won the right to represent 3,000 employees at seven Roanoke Rapids plants in northeastern North Carolina.
"Crystal was an amazing symbol of workers standing up in the South against overwhelming odds — and standing up and winning," Raynor said Monday. "The fact that Crystal was a woman in the '70s, leading a struggle of thousands of other textile workers against very powerful, virulently anti-union mill companies, inspired a whole generation of people — of women workers, workers of color and white workers."
Raynor said Sutton was also a symbol of the national health care struggle. In a June 2008 interview with The Times-News of Burlington, Sutton said she couldn't get possible life-saving medicines for two months because her insurance company wouldn't cover them. She eventually received the drugs.
"How in the world can it take so long to find out (whether they would cover the medicine or not) when it could be a matter of life or death," she said. "It is almost like, in a way, committing murder."
Sutton's son said his mother kept a photo of Field in the movie's climactic scene on her living room wall at her home in Burlington, about 20 miles east of Greensboro. But despite what many people think, she got little profit from the movie or an earlier book written about her, he said.
"When they find out she lived very, very modestly, even poorly, in Burlington, they're surprised," he said.
Jordan said his mother spent years as a labor organizer in the 1970s. She later became a certified nursing assistant in 1988 but had not been able to work for several years because of illnesses.
"She never would have been rich. She would have given it to anyone she called the working class poor, people that were deprived," Jordan said.
Sutton donated her letters and papers to Alamance Community College in 2007. She said: "I didn't want them to go to some fancy university; I wanted them to go to a college that served the ordinary folks."
| | | 'Let's talk health care' Washington plays host to Congressman Murphy - New Milford Spectrum
16-September-2009
Washington residents and their neighbors filled the auditorium, lining two-deep along the aisles and out into the hallway.
The occasion at Shepaug Valley High School on Sept. 2 was a town hall meeting with Congressman Chris Murphy (D-5th) about possible health care reform.
The standing-room only crowd, some finding cause to take issue with the proposed reforms of President Barack Obama, proved a rapt audience as Mr. Murphy answered questions and gave information on the federal government's proposals for health care reform.
"We're not talking about importing anybody else's health care system into America," Mr. Murphy told the crowd. "We're not talking about bringing a Canadian system or British system of health care to the states."
"We're talking about creating a uniquely American health care plan," he said. "If we do that the right way, we can preserve the parts of the present system we're happy with, while providing health care for those who don't have coverage at this time."
Mr. Murphy said he has no stand, either right or left, on how health care reform should be structured. He said he is a proponent of malpractice reform: a "defensive" approach to practicing medicine adds extra costs.
He said he believes that, if citizens are going to be put on a health insurance exchange system, the members of Congress should be put on that plan also. And he said he wants to see tax credits for individuals and small businesses to defray the
cost of buying health insurance.
Terry Glabes, 68, of Roxbury, attended the meeting hoping to hear information that would end his "fears" about what would be happening in the country if a government-controlled health care system were to come to pass.
"I'm hoping to hear why I shouldn't be afraid of our government taking over health care," Mr. Glabes said before the meeting had started. "They're going to take a large cut out of Medicare over 10 years, which means get in line to get medical care."
"I think health care as it's being proposed is going to go down and something will come out of that," he added. "I hope that something is something I can live with."
The congressman addressed the proposed Medicare cuts, noting they are necessary. The cost of health care in this country is going to be 50 percent of every dollar spent by consumers in the next 30 years if something isn't done, he said.
"Part of the problem is fraud and abuse, but a lot of the added cost is from doctors and hospitals charging for treatment that is not necessary," Mr. Murphy said. "Drug companies and insurance companies would receive cuts in the money they get through Medicare (with the proposed bill)."
Changes also have to be made in the way Medicare pays for medical equipment like wheelchairs, he said. Providers would be made to bid for sales, forcing them to compete for business to sell medical equipment. That would bring the high costs down, he said.
Mr. Murphy's comments were met with both boos and applause. The questions raised by residents were at times passionate, at other times poignant. Concern was in the air.
In response, the congressman said he was there to take that concern back to Congress so informed progress could be made.
| | | Union wants council to revisit contract vote - New Haven Register
16-September-2009
WALLINGFORD — The president of the union representing custodial workers in the town’s schools is asking the Town Council to reconsider its vote last week, rejecting a contract with the employees that the Board of Education had approved.
If the council is unwilling to do so, the union will have no choice but to take the town to arbitration, said Marc Deptula, president of American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, Local 1303-60, whose 36 members are custodians and skilled tradesmen for the district.
“We negotiated in good faith, and we were told that what we agreed to was going to fly with the council,” Deptula said. “We’re trying to help out the town as much as we can here. But we have to give our membership something. Our membership ratified the contract, but a lot of them didn’t like it.”
The council rejected contracts for the custodians as well as food service workers last week by a pair of 5-4 votes. The votes came after Mayor William Dickinson Jr. urged the council to reject the agreements because they included wage increases.
The agreements gave members of both unions a 1 percent raise in the first year, and increases of 1.95 percent in the second and third years. Dickinson said the agreements would set a bad precedent for contract arbitration involving two other town employee unions.
Superintendent of Schools Salvatore Menzo said he’s planning to meet with the custodians union Wednesday to try and convince the group’s leaders not to seek arbitration in the case.
Menzo tried to convince the council last week that by giving raises to the members of the custodians union, the board got a concession from the workers to give up Health Net as an option for health insurance.
“We’re on the same page, and we understand they are disappointed,” Menzo said. “We’ll see what happens after we meet with them on Wednesday.”
Getting the council to reconsider its vote would require the union to request that a member of the governing body place a vote to reconsider on the agenda for the Sept. 22 meeting. And Council Chairman Michael Brodinsky said that while getting the council to reconsider its vote is “not impossible,” nobody from the union had contacted him about it.
“This is the first I’m hearing about it,” he said during a phone interview Monday.
Larry Dorman, a spokesman for the union, said that the union “won’t go back to the table and start from square zero.”
“There aren’t a lot of avenues open to us here,” Dorman said. “I don’t think arbitration is a play that anybody involved wants to go.”
If the union were to go to arbitration, it would cost the town about $30,000 in legal fees and other costs, according to town officials.
| | | China Moves to Retaliate Against U.S. Tire Tariff - New York Times
15-September-2009
HONG KONG — China unexpectedly increased pressure Sunday on the United States in a widening trade dispute, taking the first steps toward imposing tariffs on American exports of automotive products and chicken meat in retaliation for President Obama’s decision late Friday to levy tariffs on tires from China.
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John Loomis for The New York Times
China may move against new U.S. tariffs on tires with duties on chickens and car parts. Above, a chicken farm in Arkansas.
Related
China Denounces New Tire Tariffs (September 13, 2009)
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Andy Wong/Associated Press
A woman passed by a tire store in Beijing, China.
The Chinese government’s strong countermove followed a weekend of nationalistic vitriol against the United States on Chinese Web sites in response to the tire tariff. “The U.S. is shameless!” said one posting, while another called on the Chinese government to sell all of its huge holdings of Treasury bonds.
The impact of the dispute extends well beyond tires, chickens and cars. Both governments are facing domestic pressure to take a tougher stand against the other on economic issues. But the trade battle increases political tensions between the two nations even as they try to work together to revive the global economy and combat mutual security threats, like the nuclear ambitions of Iran and North Korea.
Mr. Obama’s decision to impose a tariff of up to 35 percent on Chinese tires is a signal that he plans to deliver on his promise to labor unions that he would more strictly enforce trade laws, especially against China, which has become the world’s factory while the United States has lost millions of manufacturing jobs. The trade deficit with China was a record $268 billion in 2008.
China had initially issued a fairly formulaic criticism of the tire dispute Saturday. But rising nationalism in China is making it harder for Chinese officials to gloss over American criticism.
“All kinds of policymaking, not just trade policy, is increasingly reactive to Internet opinion,” said Victor Shih, a Northwestern University specialist in economic policy formulation.
Eswar Prasad, a former China division chief at the International Monetary Fund, said that rising trade tensions between the United States and China could become hard to control. They could cloud the Group of 20 meeting of leaders of industrialized and fast-growing emerging nations in Pittsburgh on Sept. 24 and 25, and perhaps affect Mr. Obama’s visit to Beijing in November.
“This spat about tires and chickens could turn ugly very quickly,” Mr. Prasad said.
China exported $1.3 billion in tires to the United States in the first seven months of 2009, while the United States shipped about $800 million in automotive products and $376 million in chicken meat to China, according to data from Global Trade Information Services in Columbia, S.C.
For many years, American politicians have been able to take credit domestically for standing up to China by taking largely symbolic measures against Chinese exports in narrowly defined categories. In the last five years, the Commerce Department has restricted Chinese imports of goods as diverse as bras and oil well equipment.
For the most part, Chinese officials have grumbled but done little, preferring to preserve a trade relationship in which the United States buys $4.46 worth of Chinese goods for every $1 worth of American goods sold to China.
Now, the delicate equilibrium is being disturbed.
China’s commerce ministry announced Sunday that it would investigate “certain imported automotive products and certain imported chicken meat products originating from the United States” to determine if they were being subsidized or “dumped” below cost in the Chinese market. A finding of subsidies or dumping would allow China to impose tariffs on these imports.
The ministry did not mention the tire dispute in its announcement, portraying the investigations as “based on the laws of our country and on World Trade Organization rules.”
But the timing of the announcement — on a weekend and just after the tire decision in Washington — sent an unmistakable message of retaliation. The official Xinhua news agency Web site prominently linked its reports on the tire dispute and the Chinese investigations.
The commerce ministry statement, posted on its Web site, also hinted obliquely at the harm that a trade war could do while Western nations and Japan struggle to emerge from a severe economic downturn. “China is willing to continue efforts with various countries to make sure that the world economy recovers as quickly as possible,” the statement said.
The Chinese government sometimes organizes blog postings to defend its own policies. But some postings on the tire decision have been implicitly critical of the Chinese government, making it unlikely that they are part of an orchestrated effort.
“Why did our government purchase so much U.S. government debt?” said one posting signed by a “Group of Angry Youths.” It continued, “We should get rid of all such U.S. investments.”
China has accumulated $2 trillion in foreign reserves, mostly in Treasury bonds and other dollar-denominated assets, and held down the value of its currency, which has kept Chinese goods quite inexpensive in foreign markets. China’s exports have soared — China surpassed Germany in the first half of this year as the world’s largest exporter — while China’s imports have lagged, except for commodities like iron ore and oil that China lacks.
Worries that China might sell Treasury bonds — or even slow down its purchases of them — have been a concern for the Bush and Obama administrations as they have tried to figure out how to address China’s trade and currency policies.
At the same time, the Chinese economy relies heavily on exports to the United States, while the American economy is much less dependent on exports in the other direction. Exports to the United States, at 6 percent of China’s entire economic output, account for 13 times as large a share of the Chinese economy as exports to China represent for the United States economy.
Carol J. Guthrie, a spokeswoman for the Office of the United States trade representative, said that the United States wanted to avoid disputes with China and continue talks, but would look at any Chinese trade decisions for whether they comply with W.T.O. rules.
Products involved in trade disputes between the United States and China together make up only a minuscule sliver of the two countries’ trade relationship.
The bigger risk for China, economists and corporate executives have periodically warned, is that trade frictions could cause multinationals to rethink their heavy reliance on Chinese factories in their supply chains. The Chinese targeting of autos and chickens affects two industries that may have the political muscle in the United States to dissuade the Obama administration from aggressively challenging China’s policies.
General Motors sees much of its growth coming from its China subsidiary, the second-largest auto company in China after Volkswagen. And the farm lobby in the United States has long pressed for maximum access to a market of 1.3 billion mouths.
But spotlighting automotive trade may be risky for China. G.M. and Ford both rely mostly on local production to supply the Chinese market, while China is rapidly increasing auto parts shipments to the United States.
| | | Formal Negotiations Done, No Decision On Future Of Over 1,000 Pratt & Whitney Workers In Connecticut - Courant
15-September-2009
Pratt & Whitney and the Machinists union on Sunday ended their formal negotiations over the future of more than 1,000 Pratt workers in Connecticut with no decision, the company said in a statement released Sunday afternoon.
"Pratt & Whitney and the International Association of Machinists concluded the meet and confer process today, and out of respect for the process we have decided to refrain from providing details until a decision has been reached," the company said in its statement.
The statement continued: "The company is evaluating the union's proposal and the state's offer, together with our own proposals and the extra value we are assigning to alternatives that keep the work in the state. We appreciate the union's and the state's efforts to work with us to try to make the Cheshire Engine Center and the Connecticut Airfoil Repair Operation businesses competitive and try to keep them open."
Pratt, which is seeking tens of millions of dollars in annual cost savings from its Cheshire jet engine repair plant and a smaller specialty repair unit in East Hartford, did not say when it would decide whether to keep the facilities open.
Pratt said in July that it would close them both by early 2011 unless the union could help the company cut costs. As recently as early last week, Pratt was asking the union to come up with more than $50 million in annual savings.
The state has also offered Pratt $100 million over five years in tax credits and other financial incentives to keep the jobs in the state. | | | Red Cross halts some blood collection - The Advocate
15-September-2009
STAMFORD -- The Connecticut region of the American Red Cross has halted all double-red cell blood collections as the organization works with the state to determine if its procedures are safe.
Red Cross blood workers approached the state a few months ago, saying they had legal and ethical concerns about unlicensed personnel performing double-red collection.
The double-red procedure takes two units of red cells from the donor, separates the plasma, then returns the plasma and a saline solution intravenously to the donor.
After an investigation, the state Department of Public Health wrote in a letter to the Connecticut Red Cross, that because double-red involves returning foreign substance, such as sodium chloride solution, to a donor, it must be performed by a licensed professional.
"Those are the standards of care in Connecticut," department spokesman William Gerrish said. He said he could not comment further because the state's investigation is pending.
Donna Morrissey, a spokeswoman for the Connecticut region of the Red Cross, said in further communications with the DPH, the department has agreed the Red Cross can have unlicensed personnel, known as phlebotomists, to continue double-red collection.
The collection has remained frozen, however, due to continued concerns from the staff, Morrissey said.
"We feel our highly trained staff is qualified and competent to do this work safely," she said. "Non-licensed staff perform these
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procedures all across the country."
The Red Cross workers, however, who comprise the American Federation of State, County, Municipal Employees Local 3145, said the health department's action validates their concern that the Red Cross' insistence on using unlicensed personnel to perform certain blood procedures poses a public safety threat and leaves workers liable to legal action.
Local 3145 represents 225 blood collection workers in Connecticut, including licensed staff such as nurses, and unlicensed staff such as phlebotomists, drivers and lab technicians.
"We tried to go through the chain of command "¦ we tried on every level to discuss this with them "¦ but we had two choices -- to let it go or to take our risk," phlebotomist and Local 3145 President Debra Lenentine said. "We are the ones that care about blood safety and donors' safety above all else, even money."
Lenentine said the issue intensified months ago after the union's three-year contract expired March 31 and during negotiations, the Red Cross proposed using supervisors instead of licensed medical professionals to oversee blood drives.
The Red Cross had been using phlebotomists for about five years in double-red collections, she said, but this proposal represented a desire to continue removing medical professionals from the drives.
"In California, an R.N. or L.P.N, is required at every blood drive; that's what we'd like to see the state of Connecticut do," she said.
Morrissey said the Red Cross extensively trains its workforce to the guidelines of the Food and Drug Administration and the American Association of Blood Banks, as well as to its own high standard of performance.
Each Red Cross Blood Region has dedicated medical staff available 24 hours a day to consult, she added.
The halt on double-red collection is affecting the state's blood bank, Morrissey said, encouraging people to continue whole blood donation. The Red Cross will import blood from out-of-state banks, if necessary, she added.
In the letter, the state Department of Public Health said the Red Cross needs to develop a plan of corrective action by Oct. 1.
Morrissey said the Red Cross will meet with the department this week to discuss the issue.
However, Lenentine said she feared there will be layoffs if the union succeeds in getting enforcing stricter guidelines on blood safety -- "what the company should have been doing all along," she added.
In a Aug. 30 memo to the staff, Paul Sullivan, the Red Cross Connecticut Region chief executive officer, said: "Should the state's ruling stand, the Red Cross may over time hire licensed staff to conduct this work. This effort could both increase the cost to area hospitals and displace a number of our current non-licensed staff who have been ably and safely doing this work for years."
| | | Ted Kennedy Jr. Has No Plans for Office for Now - NBC News 30
10-September-2009
Ted Kennedy Jr. was surrounded like a political superstar on Wednesday when the AFL-CIO honored his father, but don't expect to see his name on any ballot soon.
While he said he has thought about following his late father's footsteps and running for political office, he has no immediate plans to do so while his children are young.
Kennedy, who lives in Branford, said he's not ready to divide what he calls his "primary job" of being father to his two young children.
After his son and daughter grow old enough that they "will not want to hang out with me," he just might run.
A Connecticut labor union will hold a tribute Wednesdayfor Sen. Edward Kennedy "I would be lying to you if I said I never thought of running for office. I have," Kennedy said after his talk to the convention. "I think every Kennedy has at one point thought about that."
Kennedy, a 47-year-old attorney, noted that his 11-year-old son, Ted, gave interviews in which he said he planned to run for Senate when he was 45.
"He's already got his l | | | |
