Bills to Protect Workers' Right to Unionize and to Expand Paid Sick Days Gain Support

In response to hours of personal testimonies from workers calling for action to improve their lives, the Judiciary and Labor Committees have voted in favor of bills protecting free speech of workers who want to join a union, and expansion of access to paid sick days. The bills will now move forward for consideration by the entire General Assembly.

Thanking the Judiciary Committee for bipartisan approval of legislation protecting workers against intimidation and harassment during union organizing, Connecticut AFL-CIO president Ed Hawthorne said, “Far too often, management forces workers to attend closed-door captive audience meetings where they frequently threaten business closures, wage cuts, layoffs, immigration status, and working conditions if workers vote for a union.”

“No employer should be able to force a worker to attend a meeting to coerce their opinions on religion, politics, or union organizing,” said Hawthorne, adding that Senate Bill 163 “does not limit the employer’s speech. Rather, it only allows a worker to return to work without fear of discipline or termination if the employer holds a meeting about politics or religion.”

Hawthorne paid special thanks to Judiciary Committee co-chairs Senator Gary Winfield and Representative Steve Stafstrom, saying they “heard the pleas from working people and took action.”

Hours of heartfelt testimony before the Labor Committee led them to advance two bills that will expand paid sick days in Connecticut.

“Both bills are critical to how our state continues to respond to and recover from COVID-19.,” said Maddie Granado director of CWEALF (Connecticut Womens' Education and Legal Fund), one of many groups organizing for these measures.

She said, “S.B. 422 provides immediate relief to essential workers in need of paid sick days for COVID-19 related reasons, while S.B. 312 makes much needed and overdue improvements to our existing paid sick days law to protect workers from missing their paychecks when they need time to care for a family member or recover from a short term illness.”

As these pro-worker bills move forward to the General Assembly, supporters are asking constituents to call and write their legislators urging that they vote in favor. Even a few calls can make the difference.

Actions Call for Education Funding and Needs of Paraeducators

As the Recovery for All coalition prepares for a March for Our Classrooms to demand education funding for public schools and community colleges, the needs of school paraeducators took center stage at the Legislature's Education Committee.

Shellye Davis, a longtime paraeducator in Hartford and the Executive Vice President of the Connecticut AFL-CIO, delivered impassioned testimony urging improved working conditions for paraeducators across the state.

As co-chair of the Connecticut School Paraeducator Advisory Council, Davis helped lead a survey of paraeducators' working conditions. She said 3,400 responses confirmed “that paraeducators are often an afterthought and despite the important work they do, their efforts in the classroom are rarely prioritized or maximized.”

Based on the survey data as well as detailed conversations with individual working paraeducators, the council developed eight specific recommendations. Only three, relating to programs for professional development and certification, made it into HR 3521 being considered by the Education Committee,

The proposals that were not included address health care coverage, wages and numbers of paraeducators in each school district.

“I urge you all to add the remaining recommendations,” said Davis. “Now is the time to take immediate and meaningful action to raise paraeducator pay, lower our healthcare costs, and improve our retirement benefits.”

“Well trained, well equipped and fairly paid paraeducators can be a stable force for students, providing additional support and reinforced instruction to curb and reclaim COVID learning losses,” she concluded.

Meanwhile, on Wednesday March 30 at 4:00 pm, public schools and higher education union teachers and staff, students and community are marching to support fair funding for all public schools and colleges. The March for Our Classrooms begins at the New Haven Board of Education on 54 Meadow Street and marches to Gateway Community College and City Hall.

Organizers say, “We're joining together because Connecticut's public education system is facing a funding crisis, and students, teachers, and support staff are paying the price. Join us to celebrate teachers and staff and demand better for them, our students, and for our public educational systems. Students' quality of education shouldn't depend on their zip codes. Students, teachers, and staff deserve better.”

March sponsors include Recovery for All, New Haven and state-wide teacher union locals of AFT and AAUP, AFSCME Council 4 and Unidad Latina en Acción.

Legislature Urged to Create Fair Tax System and Fund Human Needs

As thousands of families across Connecticut struggle economically, shock waves went up when an IRS “Tax Incidence Report” last month confirmed how much low and middle income families bear the burden of taxes in Connecticut compared to the state's billionaires.

Dozens of members of union, community and faith based groups have testified before the Finance, Revenue and Bonding Committee in the last two weeks for a fair tax structure and full funding of needed services.

Rallies, coordinated by Recovery for All coalition are planned in the coming weeks to send a strong message to the State Legislature to act for a more equitable and just Connecticut.

“The pandemic hit low-wage workers, women and people of color disproportionately. But also, people who never thought they would need food assistance or worry about a job, health care and housing have experienced that reality,” said Tom Connolly speaking on behalf of the Connecticut Communist Party.

“Since the start of the pandemic, Connecticut’s 13 billionaires seized $13.7 billion in additional wealth—while hundreds of thousands of working people, especially working people of color, are suffering,” Connolly testified at the first Finance Committee hearing, adding that “the unfair Connecticut tax system hits the majority in our state the hardest.”

The Tax Incidence Report affirmed that low and middle income families who are suffering economically are paying an average of 25.5% of their income in combined state taxes compared to 1.7% being paid by the state's 13 billionaires.

The Finance Committee is being urged to pass a host of study bills under consideration to correct that inequity and greatly expand available funds for human needs and services.

As well, two related bills to establish a Connecticut Child Tax Credit (HB 5403) and increase the Earned Income Tax Credit (SB 383) are being proposed to assist families and address child poverty.

Twenty-five years ago the Coalition to End child Poverty in Connecticut showed that the result of regressive tax policies in the state is to disallow the ability of children and families to flourish. They proposed a special surtax of 2% on the highest earners, dedicated to the needs of children.

This crisis of child poverty not only persists today, but has become more severe in the midst of the pandemic.

Connecticut Voices for Children reports “in January, 65% of families with children struggled to pay their usual household expenses” like food, mortgage, rent, transportation, child care and health care. The bills under consideration would greatly reduce child poverty and boost the state's economy.

“The top 1% averages $3.1 million in income, about 137 times that of the bottom half,” Connolly told the Finance Committee.

“This obscene wealth in the midst of poverty, unjust tax system, unprecedented deaths from the pandemic, and the thousands of people who have lost their jobs and struggle to survive cannot be tolerated.  A government that cares for its people has the responsibility to ensure that all residents have their basic needs met by balancing the wealth of the state through taxing the rich. “ he concluded.

On International Women's Day: Honor Essential Workers with Pandemic Pay

On March 8, International Women's Day, an outpouring of over 100 members of Recovery for All unions, commmunity and faith groups, demanded pandemic pay for essential workers as they told their stories to the Labor and Public Employees Committee of the State Legislature.

While the 13 billionaires in Connecticut greatly increased their wealth during the pandemic, many thousands of families are suffering, especially low wage workers of color and women.

Speaking on behalf of the Connecticut Communist Party, Joelle Fishman emphasized, “Pandemic pay for essential workers is a small step to provide dignity and economic well being and make whole the largely Black and Latino workforce, mainly women, in service industries who have risked their lives to do their jobs.”

Jahmal Henderson, a food service worker at Southern Connecticut State University, told his story. “Each and every day workers like myself faithfully came to work since the start of this pandemic exposing ourselves, which in turn exposed our entire families every day to this potentially fatal virus. Essential workers like me a food service employee at a university, like the women and men at grocery stores, hospitals, correctional facilities and many other places, kept our state moving despite the personal risk to our health, and while it was nice to be called a hero, it is time to treat these essential workers as the heroes they truly are. It is time to pass pandemic pay for essential workers.”

Calling for corrective action, Fishman said, “How appropriate this hearing is on International Women's Day, when we celebrate the courageous women in our country who walked off their sweatshop jobs in the last century demanding health safety wages and the right to vote. awakening the solidarity of women around the world.”

“It is the responsibility of government to make sure families can thrive. The harsh lessons of the pandemic require concrete steps to meet essential workers needs, address discrimination according to race and gender and ensure a Recovery for All.

“On this International Women's Day, let us honor the working women organizing and standing up for their rights and families,” said Fishman concluding that “pandemic pay will be a powerful step toward improving quality of life and the economy for all workers in Connecticut.”

International Women's Day 2022

 

We celebrate International Women's Day March 8, 2022 in the name of the courageous women of the last century who walked off their sweatshop jobs demanding health and safety, wages and the right to vote. They awakened the solidarity of women around the world.

These women shirtwaist workers walked off the job for better wages and the right to vote in 1909, striking for 13 weeks in a bitter cold New York winter. At the Second International Conference of Socialist Women in 1910, German Communist Clara Zetkin proposed that March 8 be set aside each year for solidarity with women workers around the world. 

Since 1977 International Women’s Day has been recognized and celebrated by the United Nations. Like May Day, International Women’s Day is borne of the struggles of the U.S. working class for decent wages and working conditions and equal rights. 

In 2022 we stand in solidarity with our sisters laboring as essential workers, especially women of color and immigrant women hit hardest in the pandemic. We continue to organize for a just recovery from the COVID-19 crises of health care, inequality, racism, climate, and for transformative change to achieve equity, dignity and justice.

In 2022 We stand for NO WAR on Ukraine, NO WAR on Russia, NO WAR anywhere, no expansion of the NATO military alliance, money for human needs not for war -- For the future of women and families of all nationalities, and for the future of our planet.

In Solidarity and Unity, Connecticut Communist Party USA 

Mental Healthcare Coalition says 'Expand Services to Save Lives'

 

A statewide coalition of mental health advocates held a candlelight speak-out to share stories of how the state’s failure to fully staff and resource public mental health services has prevented residents from accessing lifesaving care. The Speak-out came on the eve of the Appropriations Committee Public Hearing on the Governor’s Proposed Budget where providers will testify about the growing crisis they’re witnessing firsthand.

 

After Governor Lamont’s budget proposal failed to adequately address the state’s ongoing mental health crisis, providers, patients and advocates are raising the urgent need to immediately fill the 1800 existing healthcare vacancies across state agencies.

 

Damien Nuzzo, a Nurse Clinical Instructor at Connecticut Valley Hospital and member of SEIU 1199NE, said she will testify at the hearing. that “We have watched our ability to serve the most vulnerable patients become decimated by the pandemic. At present, there are 800 vacancies at DMHAS which are unfilled, and this has decimated our service capacity at a time when our state, and our country, is facing an unparalleled mental health and addiction crisis.” 

 

In addition to the 800 mental health positions there are at least 500 anticipated retirements this year in the Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services alone. These vacancies are leading to devastating outcomes like dozens of children stuck in emergency rooms due to understaffing at the state’s pediatric psychiatric hospitals, and the closing of entire treatment units and facilities by the state. 

 

During the speak-out, a light projection on the side of the building urged state legislators to “Expand Services to Save Lives.”

 

Ahead of Governor Lamont’s budget proposal, the statewide coalition had laid out its roadmap to fully fund mental health and addiction services including:

 

• Expanding Services to Save Lives. Increase funding for DMHAS, address staffing shortages in treatment facilities, and ensure a living wage for mental health service workers.

 

• Guaranteeing Equity. Treatment programs accessible to everyone. Expansion of young adult services, crisis stabilization services, peer-run respite care, and community based transitional services.

 

• Adopting a Holistic Approach to Mental Health Care - Especially for Youth. An integrated system of care for at-risk children is critical. Enact meaningful investments in schools and community programs and provide holistic, preventive services statewide.