Connecticut’s largest labor union, the AFL-CIO is flexing its muscle — threatening, shaming, and all but demanding that Gov. Ned Lamont cave to their latest demand: forcing businesses to bankroll their strikes by handing out unemployment checks to workers who walk off the job.
S.B. 8, which passed the Senate 24–11 on May 28 with Sen. Norm Needleman (D-Essex) abstaining, rewrites Section 31-236 of state law to allow striking workers to collect unemployment benefits after 14 days on the picket line — even if they volunteered to strike.
Gov. Lamont vetoed a similar bill last year, and for good reason. This year, he’s again signaling opposition — but unions aren’t taking “no” for an answer.
At a press conference prior to the Senate calling the bill, House Speaker Matt Ritter (D-Hartford) didn’t hide the friction.
“There’s a disagreement with the executive branch and people on this issue, and it’ll get solved one way or another,” Speaker Ritter said. “Maybe he’ll veto it. Maybe they’ll come to a deal.”
Gov. Lamont, for his part, held firm. At his own press conference that day, he warned, “I think this sends a terrible signal. I really do. We’d be one of the very first states in the country. Gavin Newsom and other folks have vetoed it.” He didn’t mince words, “I don’t like the striking worker’s bill. I do not support it, and I guess that means I’m going to veto it.”
The governor’s instincts are right. “I’ve seen this movie before,” he added. When asked if it was a bad movie, he didn’t hesitate: “Yes.”
But the unions aren’t taking that lying down. The Connecticut AFL-CIO took to social media within hours, blasting Gov. Lamont with tweets that one could consider to be political blackmail.
“This is a unique and meaningful opportunity for Gov. Ned Lamont to demonstrate his commitment to working class voters [union members] by enacting policies that protect them and their jobs,” the union tweeted.
Another tweet accused the governor of “threatening to veto” the bill — accompanied by a quote from CT AFL-CIO President Ed Hawthorne, accusing Gov. Lamont of siding with “corporate CEOs over the hardworking people of Connecticut.”
The pressure campaign only escalated with a May 28 press release from the AFL-CIO, in which Hawthorne doubled down. It stated:
“This veto threat sends a clear message: Gov. Lamont is more concerned with protecting corporate profits than supporting the working people who make our economy run. I’d like to remind Gov. Lamont that Pratt & Whitney, Electric Boat and other large corporations are not his constituents. The thousands of hardworking people who work there are. We urge the House of Representatives to call it for a vote, and we call on the Governor to reconsider his position and stand with Connecticut’s workers.”
But that was not all.
Former CT AFL-CIO union president Lori Pelletier — who once proudly admitted her union was partially responsible for underfunding Connecticut’s pension system, which has caused the state’s fiscal mess — decided to insert herself from afar demanding obedience from Gov. Lamont.
“Workers need you to support SB8… like they supported you,” she tweeted, along with a screenshot of a 2018 AFL-CIO labor convention headline bragging about Lamont’s straw poll win. If that’s not a demand for a political payoff, what is?
Pelletier, now far from the Connecticut border with no official role in state politics, is entering into the fray where she no longer has any stake. But her tweet wasn’t a policy argument — it signaled a threat: Sign this bill or the union will remember come Election Day.
She even retweeted a post from Washington state’s AFL-CIO celebrating their own striker benefit law with the caption, “See @GovNedLamont, it’s this easy! Just sign the bill and help workers like you promised at our 2018 convention.”
This isn’t advocacy or lobbying for a policy she supports — it’s extortion. But she wasn’t the only one trying to pressure the governor.
At a press conference preceding the vote, Senate President Martin Looney (D-New Haven) and Labor Committee Chair Sen. Julie Kushner (D-Danbury) defended the bill as essential to supporting union members.
But Sen. Looney’s attempt to downplay the obvious imbalance was telling. When asked whether this bill was putting a thumb on the scale for labor, he admitted as much.
“This is not putting a thumb on the scale to overbalance the scale for workers,” Sen. Looney said. “This is to reduce the tipping of the scale in the other direction by at least a bit.”
However, Sen. Looney’s assertion notwithstanding, the bill does tip the balance with taxpayers now beholden to — and paying for — striking workers. Moreover, it removes the government’s supposed impartiality during disagreements between employers and employees. Union representatives at the press conference insisted the bill was a “safety net” and “not a handout.”
In actuality, it is a handout — and the only people not calling this a handout are the ones cashing in on it. Speaking after Sen. Looney, one machinist union leader even admitted, “Had this been passed last year instead of being vetoed by the governor, we would not have been on strike.” That’s the game plan — shift the risk to everyone but the union, extend strikes, and kneecap companies until they cave.
Sen. Kushner had plenty to say as well, claiming the bill wasn’t just good policy but the reason why jobs still exist in Connecticut. “Pratt and Whitney wouldn’t have these good jobs here today, were it not for the workers and the actions they’ve taken, not just this strike, but previous strikes,” she said during the Senate press conference. “That is how we’ve kept good paying jobs with good benefits in Connecticut.”
Apparently in Sen. Kushner’s world, it’s not innovation, investment, or economic competitiveness that keeps jobs in the state — it’s the threat of a picket line.
Nevertheless, she insisted strikes stoke job creation and convince employers to stay in Connecticut. “Rather than seeing it as maybe motivation for an employer like Pratt and Whitney to leave the state, this is actually what’s kept good jobs here,” she said.
And if there was any doubt about her contempt for Gov. Lamont’s veto stance, she made it crystal clear in an interview with the CT Examiner the next day:
“If he really wants to support middle-class working families in the state of Connecticut, then he has to stand with the workers. … I know he’s stubborn, and when he takes a position he likes to stick with it, but this is one he really needs to rethink. He is thinking off-kilter, no question about it. I hope he comes to his senses and sees that he made a mistake here.”
If Gov. Lamont wants to be remembered as anything other than a puppet of organized labor, he should veto this bill. And as for Pelletier — who’s already done enough fiscal damage to Connecticut during her union reign — maybe she should sit this one out.
As of this article’s publication, the House is debating the bill — even though the governor has already said he’ll veto it. At a May 30 press conference, Speaker Ritter claimed his caucus “want[s] to have the opportunity to weigh in on the bill, like the Senate did.” But the timing isn’t exactly a mystery. Next session is an election year — and Speaker Ritter knows his members would rather kiss the ring of their union door––knockers now than risk their wrath in 2026.
