Connecticut march protests bipartisan austerity budgets
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HARTFORD—On April 4, nearly 1000 union work ers, community organizations, Fight for Fifteen activ ists, and allies organized as the Democracy, Unity and Equality Coalition marched on the Connecticut state legislature to protest two austerity budgets in front of the representatives.
The first, overwhelmingly approved a few days earlier by a bipartisan coalition with 127 yeas to 16 neighs in the House and designed to close the deficit in 2016 state revenue by $220 million, hits the most underserved residents in the state. The few lawmak ers who held out cited the unacceptable cuts to the Department of Women and Children and services to the disabled.
The second budget plan, the FY 2017 budget pro posed by a darling of the national Democratic Party and the chairman of the Democratic Governors Coun cil, Dannel P. Malloy, proposes over $900 million in cuts and zero increase in taxes on the rich.
At the first of two rallies, Jan Hochdadel, president of the AFT Connecticut, echoed the mantra of the Chi cago Teachers Union when she mocked the claim that the state was broke and the budget process broken. “It’s not broke unless they broke it on purpose,” she countered.
Connecticut has the fourth highest median income of any state in the country, but the figure is deceptive because it also boasts the highest wealth gap between the 1% and the 99%. Connecticut’s top 1 percent each earned an average of $2.7 million a year, and between 2009 and 2012 their income grew 35%. The income of the bottom 99%, on the other hand, dropped 5.4%.
The myth of Connecticut’s “wealth” hides the dark economic reality of the state’s urban centers, such as Hartford, where the official unemployment rate for African Americans is the highest in the nation.
The refusal of the Democratic and Republican leg islators to tax the state’s 1%, as well as some of the most profitable corporations in the country, to pre serve social services was pointed out by speaker after speaker at the April 4 rally.
Brian Becker, a student activist and AAUP supporter from Central Connecticut State University, told the rally-goers, “Governor Malloy had no difficulty giving “Business demands this,” the governor told report ers, alluding to the repeated demands by the Con necticut Business and Industry Association’s 20x17 plan to “rebalance” Connecticut finances and boost the state’s bond rating. In short, business is demand ing that the investments of the wealthy in Connecticut bonds be protected by depriving the state’s poorest residents of subsistence services.
The April 4 union rally, which the press character ized as the largest and loudest in many years, raised hopes that the 15 unions that represent state work ers will indeed resist the cuts and use the struggle to deepen a coalition of labor and community groups that could mount a real fightback. In 2011, under similar pressure of huge layoffs, the State Employees Bargaining Council agreed to serious concessions in return for the 2022 contract expiration that the gov ernor and legislature are now trying to reopen.
Because a majority of the SEBAC union rank and file in 2011 refused to agree to the concessions package on the first round, SEBAC illegally changed its bylaws midstream so that affirmation from only eight of the 15 state worker unions was needed to ratify the take-back agreement. Rank-and-file activists who opposed the concessions were told by their union leaders that to defy the Democratic governor would put steam in the Koch brothers’ political engine.
The current round of attacks is putting that kind of strategic thinking to the test. Connecticut unionists and community groups may find the confidence to try a more effective response. n Marty Goodman / Socialist Action