The Making of King Dannel
In my Connecticut News Junkie piece for this week, I write about the making of King Dannel as the legislature abdicates its traditional role as the state’s financial decision-maker.
At the center of the budgetary house of cards, however, were always the savings to be gleaned from employee concessions and contract givebacks. The Governor’s passive-aggressive approach to the state’s employees revived the unlikeable streak of hubris that sunk Malloy’s 2006 gubernatorial candidacy (which manifested itself as a gratuitous television ad that pasted his male opponent’s head on a female body) and nearly sunk his 2010 candidacy after wholly distasteful debate performances. When turned on state employees, Malloy’s rhetoric sounded more like a hostage-taking than a contract negotiation, as he pointedly noted: “We will lay people off on a large scale for which I will not feel responsible.”
For a while, the bullying and chest thumping seemed to produce results. After the announcement of the “framework” of a deal in May with the State Employees Bargaining Agent Coalition, or SEBAC, it appeared as though everything was falling into place for the Malloy administration.
But in little-noticed conversations with fellow workers and at meetings with their union leadership, the state’s rank and file employees were airing complaints and asking questions for weeks prior to the ratification vote. Unsatisfied with the answers and surprisingly skeptical of the entire process, these employees decided to ignore the bullying words of the man their union dues helped elect and rejected the deal.
Read the entire piece at CT News Junkie.
