This morning, my local paper had two headlines. The first announced that 40,000 Connecticut state workers got a raise since the new fiscal year had started on July first. The second headline announced that governor Malloy was adding an additional 1000 state workers to the layoffs that he announced a few days ago after the public employees' unions refused to make any changes to their contracts that would have required the workers to pay for a bit more of their health insurance and pensions (but still nowhere near the levels that workers in the private sector pay.) I think that this brings the total number of workers to be fired to 7000 which is around 15% of all state workers.
This leads to two questions: First, are the state workers being fired providing essential state services? If that is the case, how can the Governor and the Legislature think that they were even remotely successful in their approach of leaving it up to the workers as to whether or not they would accept the cuts. The state could easily have followed the example of New York, Wisconsin, Indiana and Ohio and forced the changes through by law. The refusal to do so in order to keep "solidarity" with the union has resulted in the damaging of the government of the state and harm to the people. Second, how can the workers choose to see 15% of their fellow employees lose their jobs rather than see a small reduction in their take home pay. The cost would have been about 2% of their wages since the raise that just took effect would have offset nearly all of the increased costs for healthcare and pensions. I contrast these actions with those of the people in Joplin, Missouri who have opened their homes to neighbors whose houses were devastated in the recent tornados. It is truly awful.
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