Water Authority Workers Demand a Fair Contract

Over 100 workers at the Water Authority got honks from passing cars as they lined the curb at 90 Sargent Drive in New Haven, holding signs calling for wages, safety and benefits..

“Those people passing by are with you!” exclaimed US Senator Richard Blumenthal as he called on the company to negotiate a fair contract with United Steel Worlers Local 12160. The union represents field service, field operations, meter repair, fleet garage, water treatment, customer service, and finance workers..

After working without a union contract for nearly six months, they took their fight to the public, demanding management return to the table and bargain a fair contract with respect.

The South Central Connecticut Regional Water Authority supplies water to more than 432,000 people in 15 municipalities.

Water Authority management has put forward proposals that would weaken overtime protections while imposing mandatory overtime, shift more healthcare costs onto workers, continue outsourcing their work, and refuse to negotiate over the impact of artificial intelligence in the workplace.

:”These workers deserve better!” said Ed Hawthorne, president of the Connecticut AFL-CIO.

Union president Wanda Howard, who has 37 years seniority working in customer service, said the last three contracts have been decided by arbitration because the company refuses to bargain, denying the workers the opportunity to vote on the proposals.

Arbitration is “costly for the union and it’s costly for the company,” Howard said. “And whenever it’s costly for the company, it’s also costly for the ratepayers.”

While refusing to bargain, the company unulaterally notified the workers their health savings accounrt contributions would become weekly instead of yearly, union vice president Pierre Lafranco told the rally.

“Our benefits, our time, and our well-being should not be treated as unimportant,” he said.

“You deserve dignity and respect for the essential work you do.” said U.S. Rep Rosa DeLauro. Pointing to the picket signs she said, “You deserve fair wages, decent work standards, affordable health care, and the ability to participate in the decisions of the company.”

Tens of Thousands “Vote Early” as Republican officials purge the rolls

While the Trump/MAGA administration is purging voters in an attempt to steal the election, the movement to protect the vote and count every vote is organizing across the country.

The national call for voters to cast their ballots early swept through Connecticut this week as early voting opened on October 19 and continues through November 1 at most town halls from 10 am to 6 pm daily.

Residents in 46 Connecticut towns gathered for No Kings – Vote Early rallies, marches, sign drops and information leafletting urging residents to be part of a huge turnout and to vote early. Joined by state and local elected officials, they expressed determination to stop Trump/MAGA open attempts to disenfranchise voters in the Midterm elections.

The fear mongering and voter suppression tactics were reflected in hate letters containing a suspicious white substance sent to Connecticut Secretary of State Stephanie Thomas among other election officials.

Thomas is a state and national leader in protecting voting rights and expanding voter participation. She has refused to turn over voter rolls to the national administration in response to their unlawful demands.

In stark contrast Republican Secretaries of State are purging voters from the roles, turning them away from the polls and bragging about their voter purges.

Most politicians would think twice before boasting about how many of their own constituents they’ve knocked off the voter rolls, but not today’s crop of Republican secretaries of state.

With the midterm elections just over two weeks away, GOP election chiefs across the country are competing over who can post the biggest numbers—and they’re doing it with the encouragement, and the databases, of the Trump administration.

In Kentucky, Secretary of State Michael Adams recently announced more than 318,000 removals from the rolls since he took office. His summary of the effort: “We’ve vigorously purged voters who have moved away, passed away, or been put away.”

Missouri’s Denny Hoskins took nearly 240,000 people off the rolls last year. More than half of them—some 135,000—weren’t dead or convicted of anything; they were simply classified as “inactive.” Hoskins says it’s his job to minimize ineligible voters.

In Ohio, Frank LaRose last month published a list of nearly 209,000 registrations slated for cancellation, declaring that the Buckeye State keeps the “cleanest voter rolls in the country.” LaRose’s record suggests “clean” is in the eye of the beholder. In 2023, he quietly canceled more than 26,000 registrations just days after ballots went out for that fall’s abortion rights referendum. A Democratic state legislator who dug into the records found over 1,000 voters wrongfully removed in Cuyahoga County alone.

And in Georgia, Brad Raffensperger’s office wrapped up one of the largest mass cancellations in the state’s history last year, with roughly 478,000 inactive voters targeted. Groups like Fair Fight have long warned that such purges fall hardest on Black voters.

Republican officials insist all this is routine list maintenance required by federal law. Some of it is, but the pride with which they make their announcements tells you something has changed. Purging voters is no longer simple database management and information updating. It’s now a loyalty display for a president who still won’t stop wrongfully claiming that hordes of non-citizens are stealing elections (at least the elections he and his party lose).

Another reality when it comes to these Republican-led voter purges is that it’s the same people who always get swept out first: working-class renters who move to new addresses often, young people, shift workers who miss an election or two, immigrants who became citizens. “Use it or lose it” rules don’t hit country club members; they hit people already squeezed by capitalism’s economic crisis.

The Trump administration has supercharged the purge operation. After it expanded the Department of Homeland Security’s SAVE (Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements) citizenship database, at least 67 million voter registrations—mostly from Republican-controlled states—were run through the system. At least 25 states have used it.

The results have been riddled with errors. In Missouri, 70 county clerks from both parties warned lawmakers that SAVE kept flagging people they personally knew to be citizens. In Travis County, Texas, officials found that between 10% and 21% of voters SAVE flagged as apparent noncitizens were actually citizens.

In June, a U.S. District ruled the revamped database unlawful, writing that the government had trampled Americans’ privacy in a way that threatens “the sacred right to vote.” On Sept. 25, though, the Supreme Court lifted those restrictions, handing Trump a win just weeks before Election Day.

There’s precedent for where this leads. Federal law bars systematic purges within 90 days of a federal election, a quiet period that began Aug. 5 this year. That rule tripped up Alabama Secretary of State Wes Allen in 2024, when a judge halted his “non-citizen” purge after about 2,000 eligible citizens were swept up.

In a separate case, the Supreme Court has also agreed to hear a Republican National Committee appeal from Arizona claiming database-driven citizenship checks are exempt. If the GOP wins, experts warn, voters wrongly struck on the eve of an election may have no remedy in federal court.

Commentator Thom Hartmann argues that purges in 2024 helped deliver the White House to Trump, and that Republicans are running the same play now.

The MAGA movement can’t win a fair fight on its record of exploding prices, tariffs, cuts to health care, an inflation-fueling war on Iran, and attacks on workers, so it is trying to shrink the electorate instead.

The answer is organizing. Unions, voting rights groups, and community organizations are urging everyone to check their registration status today, bring a friend to do the same, and know their right to cast a provisional ballot if their name has gone missing.

Republican secretaries of state are proud of how many voters they’ve erased. The best reply is a turnout so big their numbers don’t matter.

Get it Done! VOTE EARLY Oct 19 - Nov 1 at your Town Hall

The mid-term elections will determine much about our ability as working class people to organize for a better future. A massive vote turnout in every state for offices up and down the ballot will send the message to protect the vote and stop the MAGA destruction of livelihoods and lives. Early voting begins in Connecticut on Monday October 19. Communities are organizing marches and car caravans to vote together as an act of collective resistance. Get it done! Vote Early at your town hall. Voting on election day November 3 will be at regular polling places.

Labor-Community Coalition Supports Regulations for Short-Term Rentals

Filling the steps of New Haven City Hall. a coalition of unions, church and community groups, joined by Mayor Justin Elicker, announced their support for legislation initiated by New Haven Rising regulating non-owner occupied short term rentals. The legislation, part of an affordability agenda, is under consideration by the Board of Alders. At a packed hearing it passed committee with a favorable vote and now goes on to the full Board of Alders for any amendments and action.

As Yale and its partner developers move to transform New Haven into a biotech and travel destination, the question for working class residents has become, “a boom for whom?”.

“Development and growth should translate into good housing and jobs for working people, not displacement,” they said, releasing data showing that over 1,000 short-term rentals were listed this summer in New Haven, while, since 2020, rents are up 53% and home unaffordability by 345%. 

Many short-term rentals managed by corporate entities are advertised in luxury housing buildings that have been recently developed. The growth in short-term rentals is estimated to have cost New Haveners up to $29.9 million in extra rent over the last three years.

Over the summer, New Haven Rising volunteers collected over 4,500 petitions in support of three demands: regulating non-owner-occupied short-term rentals, a fully-funded city where Yale pays its fair share, and better paying jobs that allow New Haven families to live and thrive.

“We are in an affordability crisis. The rents are too high. Buying a home is out of reach. Racial inequality has only grown,” declared New Haven Rising director Rev Scott Marks. “The racial income gap between Black and white workers has doubled between 2011 and 2024.”

“I am a young Black man who born and raised in New Haven,” said canvasser Lamar Alston. “I want to see a New Haven where residents come before profits and families like mine can afford to stay in the community they call home. Today we are taking one step of many needed to make that dream a reality.”

Clara Dewey, one of the youth who knocked on doors said, “For all this money coming into the city we'e united to make it clear,” she said. “New Haven is not for sale!”

CT Tenants Union Grows During Housing Crisis

The housing crisis is one of the big issues in the upcoming elections as more and more families can't afford their rent and receive low pay while corporations thrive.

Across Connecticut tenants are gaining their voice and power through collective action as part of the growing Connecticut Tenants Union, forming organization to bargain with landlords.

Most recently, tenants at Old Post Village in Tolland held a press conference announcing their tenants union which seeks to resolve long-standing issues with negligence and disrespect towards tenants, to re-build eroded trust, and to win a seat at the table in deciding the future of their homes and community.

They are the third affiliate chapter of the CT Tenants Union to form in the past month.

Old Post Village is a senior living community owned by the Tolland Housing Authority and managed by an affiliate of New Samaritan Corporation. The tenants have experienced mold, burst pipes and flooding and absentee management. Tenants have not seen any renovations despite the fact that the town received a $2 million grant last year for infrastructure upgrades to this complex.

In Stamford, tenants in Friendship House, a 122-unit housing complex owned by New Neighborhoods, formed their union in September with the support of allies and elected officials as they battle recurring mold outbreaks, sewage leaks, a defunct laundry room and retaliation after contacting the Stamford Health Department on these concerns. They have now won a negotiating meeting with management in October.

In Meriden in September, residents at the 221 unit Community Towers announced their union alongside allies from SEIU 1199, the NAACP and lawmakers. It is the 28th chapter, and one of the largest statewide. Residents have dealt with unsecured doors, at least one building fire without emergency exit plans, mold issues, and a broken HVAC system that expels fiberglass.

Following the launch, a delegation of Community Towers residents delivered a petition to collectively bargain to City Hall. As a result, a meeting with Community Towers union and the Meriden Housing Authority board is now set for October.

The housing crisis is one of the big issues in the upcoming elections as more and more families can't afford their rent and receive low pay while corporations thrive.

Across Connecticut tenants are gaining their voice and power through collective action as part of the growing Connecticut Tenants Union, forming organization to bargain with landlords.

Most recently, tenants at Old Post Village in Tolland held a press conference announcing their tenants union which seeks to resolve long-standing issues with negligence and disrespect towards tenants, to re-build eroded trust, and to win a seat at the table in deciding the future of their homes and community.

They are the third affiliate chapter of the CT Tenants Union to form in the past month.

Old Post Village is a senior living community owned by the Tolland Housing Authority and managed by an affiliate of New Samaritan Corporation. The tenants have experienced mold, burst pipes and flooding and absentee management. Tenants have not seen any renovations despite the fact that the town received a $2 million grant last year for infrastructure upgrades to this complex.

In Stamford, tenants in Friendship House, a 122-unit housing complex owned by New Neighborhoods, formed their union in September with the support of allies and elected officials as they battle recurring mold outbreaks, sewage leaks, a defunct laundry room and retaliation after contacting the Stamford Health Department on these concerns. They have now won a negotiating meeting with management in October.

In Meriden in September, residents at the 221 unit Community Towers announced their union alongside allies from SEIU 1199, the NAACP and lawmakers. It is the 28th chapter, and one of the largest statewide. Residents have dealt with unsecured doors, at least one building fire without emergency exit plans, mold issues, and a broken HVAC system that expels fiberglass.

Following the launch, a delegation of Community Towers residents delivered a petition to collectively bargain to City Hall. As a result, a meeting with Community Towers union and the Meriden Housing Authority board is now set for October.

Coalition Says “Hands Off Connecticut”

Hands Off CT, a growing collective of organizations, churches, unions, and activists is committed to protecting our immigrant neighbors from ICE enforcement — building independent community defense networks in every city and town is stepping up their organizing to make Connecticut safe for everyone who lives here..

The coalition reports that 632,000 Immigrants live in Connecticut — 17% of the state, with 198,000 estimated undocumented residents statewide and 9,000 Temporary Protected Status holders in Connecticut.

The coalition is calling for those concerned with the rise in ICE abductions and violence to write to their state and city representatives. Their sample letter reads in part:

“Connecticut must not be complicit in the federal government's abusive immigration enforcement tactics or its creeping authoritarianism. Connecticut is not immune to ICE’s violence. We call on Connecticut’s elected officials — from the governor to mayors to the General Assembly — to take every possible action to protect our communities and resist federal overreach.

“Governor Lamont: Create a $10 million emergency fund for legal defense and family stability to ensure that people fighting deportation can access legal representation and that families facing the detention of a loved one can get immediate financial assistance for basic needs like food, housing, childcare, and transportation.

“Attorney General Tong: Create a portal through the Attorney General's office to collect reports of excessive use of force and discrimination by ICE agents and federal law enforcement, and file lawsuits against the federal government.

“To all State Leaders: Ensure our laws are enforced. Open an investigation into TRUST Act compliance and create an independent body with real authority to audit and enforce our laws, and close the records loophole ICE is using.”

Hands off CT says they are “committed to building independent and democratic community defense networks in every city, town, and neighborhood in our state. We say NO to mass deportations. NO to militarized raids. NO to fear. YES to dignity, safety, and sanctuary. Connecticut must be a safe and welcoming place for all of us, regardless of immigration status.”