Sen. Julie Kushner, D-Danbury, was treasurer of the John J. Driscoll United Labor Agency during years in which $103,713 of state money dedicated to compensating workers affected by the 2012 Sandy Hook shooting went missing. […]
Four times in the past ten years Democratic lawmakers and union officials have tried to pass a bill restricting businesses from talking to their employees about unionization efforts only to have Attorney General George Jepsen […]
Republicans in the House and Senate put forward an amendment that could test where moderate Democrats stand on rolling back union power in Connecticut.
A letter from Connecticut AFL-CIO President Lori Pelletier to Democrat leaders in the House and Senate says a failure to bring several bill to a vote in either chamber will affect their “legislative scorecards” kept by the union. An image of the letter was sent by an anonymous source.
Leaders of Connecticut’s public sector unions took a decidedly harsh tone in their critique of the Commission on Fiscal Stability and Economic Growth’s findings and recommendations, calling the panel of business executives “arrogant college freshmen who come home after a semester and think they have all the answers to the world's problems.”
Approximately 150 protesters gathered outside the Connecticut Supreme Court across from the Capitol on Monday to protest Janus v. AFSCME, a free speech case being heard by the U.S. Supreme Court.
Last week Pelletier decided to lash out against the Commission on Fiscal Stability and Economic Growth with an op-ed in the Hartford Business Journal and some quotes in a CT Mirror story. According to her, the commission “attacks working people” because it is daring to discuss Connecticut’s financial problems and — gasp! — look at charts and graphs.
Connecticut government unions and union-backed organizations immediately signaled they would attempt to unseat the Democratic lawmakers that backed a new budget passed in both the Senate and the House last week.
Connecticut's top union official wrote a letter to state employees asking them to approve a concession deal negotiated with Gov. Dannel Malloy and warned of "projected budget deficits in the billions."
In a letter to state union members, AFL-CIO President Lori Pelletier told union members they could secure their benefits until 2027 and gain four years of layoff protections under the concessions agreement.
A public hearing before the powerful state appropriations committee on Friday became a referendum on state employee pension benefits and the collective bargaining process that ran almost ten hours.
Several speakers warned that changes to Connecticut’s collective bargaining practices and retirement benefits would cause the state to become a southern backwater.
The Connecticut State Legislature will begin its 2023 session on January 4th and will adjourn on June 7th. The “long session,” as non-election years are called in Hartford, will be centered around the biennial budget. The Office of the State Comptroller reports that state government found a way to spend $47.11 billion in 2022 and, if trends continue, we can expect that number to grow even more going forward. Concerns over energy prices, inflation, and general cost of living continue to dominate the headlines and the threat of a recession hovers over economic forecasts.
What will our elected officials be working on to improve policy outcomes for Connecticut residents? What tax reform proposals will there be? What can be done to lower home heating bills? How will state and local budgets be affected by fewer federal resources? How will schools be implementing to curriculum requirements?
While we wait to see the thousands of individual and committee bills that while dominate the myriad policy debates this year, Yankee Institute is hard at work promoting free-market solutions to the problems we face from Stamford to Putnam and Mystic to Salisbury. To that end, we have produced a new edition of our Charter for Change. The Charter provides commonsense reforms to make Connecticut’s government work for its residents.
Though the list of reforms may be exhausting to review, it is far from exhaustive! And that’s why we want to work with you to build a broad-based coalition to encourage sound policy reforms to enable Connecticut residents to forge a better future for themselves and their families.
It’s also imperative that we do so. As we noted in a report and CT Mirror op-ed last year, the debate over whether we’re in a national recession really misses the point for Connecticut residents. We had more people employed in the private sector in 2007 than we do today. Our economy has grown at one of the slowest rates in the nation for the past decade, and we are getting outpaced year after year. We’re not attracting innovation and industry. We’re losing some of our best and brightest as they seek other parts of the country where it’s easier to make a living.
But together, we can reverse this trend.
At Yankee Institute, we know Connecticut is a state with boundless opportunity, and we intend to help make our state more than a place where people are just able to make ends meet! Connecticut should be a place where everyone can thrive – and with your help, it will be.