When hospitals are faced with staffing-related challenges, executives and administrators often mandate that caregivers work beyond their scheduled shifts, jeopardizing their well-being and the safety of their patients. Last month, federal lawmakers re-introduced legislation seeking to end the use of this tactic and codify protections for nurses. The proposal would expand policies to acute care facilities across the country that union members here in Connecticut have secured as part of our “Code Red” campaign.
Although regulations limiting work hours have existed in various sectors (ex. aviation and trucking) for decades, the healthcare industry has been slower to implement such policies. The bipartisan bill Nurse Overtime and Patient Safety Act would remedy this and help reduce the frequency of dangerous patient care errors.
Click here for national reporting on the legislation’s re-introduction.
Steps to restrict mandatory overtime for nurses have been taken in 17 other states. Members of AFT Connecticut-affiliated local unions, through collective bargaining and legislative advocacy, have achieved safer health facility staffing that includes restrictions on mandatory overtime (OT).
The issue of mandatory overtime was the number one reason that Andrea Riley, RN, (speaking, in photo, above) saw a mass exodus of nurses at Windham Community Memorial Hospital (WCMH) in Willimantic. The president of our affiliated Windham Federation of Professional Nurses led nearly 100 of her colleagues to prioritize safe care in their latest contract negotiations.
“Wages and benefits are usually a big deal, but mandatory overtime trumped those issues in our bargaining,” said Riley. “In our contract, management was supposed to come to leadership – before mandating a nurse [to work OT] – to find a solution to avoid the mandate, but that just wasn’t happening,” she said.
That’s why Riley and her fellow nurses took to the picket line over the practice more than a year ago.
Click here for reporting on the contract that nurses at WCMH secured following their strike.
Riley criticized the use of mandatory OT by hospitals and corporations to fill staffing holes, emphasizing that it should never be a daily practice. She noted that Connecticut’s recently improved safe patient limits law gives nurses a stronger voice in staffing committees, which is a crucial step forward.
“For far too long, the concerns of the nurse, the doctor, and the ancillary staff have been ignored. The more nurses speak up, the more doctors speak up, the more patient care technicians speak up, the more we will effect change,” she concluded.
Click here for our report on last year’s victory in securing a stronger safe patient limits law.
Sherri Dayton, APRN, AFT Connecticut’s healthcare vice president, emphasized the need for federal legislation, pointing out the challenges caregivers face in enforcing existing laws. The proposal aims to address this by imposing civil penalties on hospital operators for violations, ensuring the development and distribution of policies, and protecting nurses’ rights through whistleblower provisions.
“Many facilities have no problem breaking the law, especially if they feel like they’re not going to get caught,” said Dayton. “Or if they do get caught, and all they get is a slap on the wrist. Does it hurt their PR enough to make them care, or does it hurt their pocketbook enough?”
Dayton acknowledged the uphill battle against well-funded hospital associations and their lobbyists but stressed the importance of federal legislation with enforceable policies. She highlighted the need for strong language in contracts, laws to eliminate potential loopholes, vigilant oversight and penalties that genuinely impact health networks’ bottom line.
Click here for reporting on the safe patient limits provisions signed into law by Connecticut’s governor.
Despite the progress made in Connecticut, Dayton pointed out the ongoing fight against corporate interests. While federal legislation would add substantial pressure, she emphasized the importance of staying vigilant and being proactive.
“We would not have been able to get this legislation passed if AFT Connecticut had not put a lot of time and effort into getting union people to run for office. And then getting out the vote to get them elected,” she added.
As the struggle continues at the national level, Dayton expressed pride in our union’s accomplishments and a commitment to ensuring that healthcare professionals are “at the forefront of positive change.”
“There’s always going to be a fight, but it feels good to have some wins,” she concluded.
Click here for our statewide vice president’s recent commentary celebrating safer working conditions for health professionals.
Editor’s note: includes contributions by Adrienne Coles, AFT
The post Leading “at the Forefront of Positive Change” for Workplace Safety first appeared on AFT Connecticut.
There is arguably no clearer example of the “union difference” than the additional resources available to members faced with a hostile work environment. The power of these tools to hold employers accountable are further amplified by mobilizing the collective action made possible by contractual protections. All of this was on full display in a recent sweeping arbitration victory by affiliated PreK-12 union members that is the focus of our latest collective bargaining wins report.
Staff at Salem School began experiencing a combative working environment in the fall of 2021 with the arrival of a new district superintendent and promotion of the current principal. Matters came to a head the following fall when Mary Barone (in photo above, front row, third from left), a veteran teacher and president of our AFT Connecticut-affiliated local union representing certified educators, was unjustly suspended.
Last spring, members of our Salem Federation of Teachers’ responded with a vote of “no confidence” in the administration and demanded school officials reverse a “pervasive culture of fear and intimidation.”
Click here for press coverage of the unprecedented action and the community support union members generated.
Instead of addressing educators and parents’ collective concerns, school officials renewed the superintendent’s contract.
Our local union’s vice president, who led the no confidence vote, was placed on leave, subjected to an investigation and ultimately suspended without pay. Three months following the vote, Barone’s employment was inexplicably terminated.
“Administration and the board of education (BOE) must be held accountable for their poor judgment and retaliatory actions,” she said. “The BOE and administration are responsible for the education of the children in the district,” added Barone, a math interventionist with nearly four decades of classroom experience.
To assure accountability and achieve justice, she appealed her termination and sought legal assistance from the law firm retained by AFT Connecticut. Over the course of several hearings, veteran attorney Eric W. Chester, Esq., presented clear evidence of the administration’s wrong-doing and exposed the superintendent’s anti-union animus.
Click here to learn more about the arbitration process at our website’s “Know Your Rights” page.
The neutral hearing officer’s sweeping ruling issued last month concluded with a clear recommendation to continue Barone’s employment. Instead of immediately seeking her return to the classroom, Salem School officials balked and hastily scheduled a “special” meeting to presumably review the matter.
Despite Barone and her colleagues mobilizing a show of force, school board members refused to act on the ruling. When they called another “special” meeting two weeks later, officials were met with an even larger crowd of union members and parents whose presence could not be ignored.
The following day, Barone received notice from the superintendent of her return to work.
“Mobilization at both special BOE meetings clearly had an impact on the decision to bring me back into the classroom,” she said. “Members voiced their opinions formally and informally – one actually told the BOE what was legal and what was not.”
Click here for press reporting on the arbitration win and Barone’s triumphant return to the classroom.
“I am so grateful for the support,” she added.
While her colleagues celebrate Barone’s win, they remain focused on justice for our local union’s vice president. At press time, he awaits an arbitration hearing where testimony will no doubt further expose the administration’s retaliatory conduct.
In the five months since our previous collective bargaining wins report was published in late October, six additional victories have been publicized. At press time, 11 additional agreements are in progress and will be announced on our state federation’s social media platforms once finalized.
Click here for the shout out to nurses in our Natchaug Hospital Unions United on their contract win.
Click here for our Johnson Memorial Hospital RNs union’s new agreement ratification announcement.
Click here for the promotion of our Waterford Federation of Classroom Teachers’ contract win.
Click here for photos of our VNASC union’s members voting to ratify their latest contract.
Click here for the graphic announcing our West Haven Federation of Teachers final contract approval.
Click here for the notice of our Windham Federation of Education Personnel’s new agreement.
Editor’s note: this report covers a five month period; the next report is scheduled for June and will resume the regular quarterly schedule.
The post Standing Strong to Protect Our Rights at Work first appeared on AFT Connecticut.
Despite claims by some state and college officials, sufficient resources are available to fully fund the dreams of students in our public higher education institutions. That is the clear message of a recently published commentary by the president of our AFT Connecticut-affiliated UConn-AAUP, which represents teaching and research faculty at the state’s flagship university. History Professor Jeffrey O.G. Ogbar (in photo, above) makes a well-researched case that “restricting critical resources to higher education is wrong-headed, un-wise, unfair and destabilizing:”
“[F]or the University of Connecticut (UConn) to compete with the Berkeleys (no. 1), University of Michigans … and Penn States … of the academic world in terms of prestige, research grants, bright kids and topflight faculty, the governor and legislature are going to have to do more than toss UConn a few crumbs in election years.”
These words convey today’s facts, but were published in a 1998 newspaper editorial. Over a quarter century later, we bear witness to an eerie sense of being in a veritable Groundhog Day. Just last year, the university community – students, faculty, staff and administrators – rallied to demand a stronger budget for the state’s flagship university. Thousands of people, over several weeks, wrote letters, testified, marched, and met with lawmakers demanding more support to narrow the shortfall from the state’s block grant to UConn.
Click here to watch highlights of last year’s student-led “Save UConn” rally.
Ultimately, it was narrowed with one-time funds, yet the university is mobilizing yet again for more demands, requests, meetings, and, some would say, begging, for a sufficient budget.
In stark contrast, however, others have argued that UConn is well-funded, a “drag” on the state, and that monies are wasted on mismanagement. Gov. Ned Lamont has noted that the level of state support is more than ever, while some have noted that UConn receives 16 percent of its budget from the state, while the percentage of state funding for budgets for universities like Michigan are in single digits.
What do the numbers say? According to the National Science Foundation, per student state support for higher education in Connecticut – when adjusted for inflation – decreased from $16,075 in 2001 to $12,344 by 2021. That is a decline of 23 percent.
Click here for recent reporting on faculty and student advocacy to resist budget cuts.
According to research from Lyle Scruggs, professor of political science and fellow UConn-AAUP member, the state’s block grant has significantly decreased since 2010, adjusted for inflation. At the start of fiscal year (FY) 2011, the block grant was $235.5 million. In the governor’s proposed budget for FY 25, it is $219.6 million. Cumulative inflation exceeded 40% in that period. This is over a 34% decrease.
Yet, if the block grant had increased in line with inflation, it would be $325 – over $25M more than the current request from UConn for FY 25.
Click here for additional reporting on faculty demands for better choices by the Board of Trustees.
The two newest schools categorized as peer institutions, University of North Carolina and University of Kansas, have state support at 18 percent and 16 percent respectively – in line with UConn’s level. However, the endowments at these schools are many times higher than UConn’s, at over $5 billion and $2.3 billion. These endowments compare to Michigan’s $17.8 billion. In stark contrast, UConn’s endowment sits around $600 million.
What about faculty salaries? Since 2010, UConn faculty salaries increased slower than all but two peer institutions. Other Connecticut workers’ salaries increased at a rate over 20 percent faster than UConn full-time faculty salaries in that same period. Over 55 percent of UConn full-time faculty have real salary declines since September 2020, adjusted for cumulative inflation September 2020 to January 2024.
The unequivocal facts are that UConn has been confronted with austerity measures intermittently for the last 15 years, beginning with the Great Recession. Salary freezes, rescissions, furloughs have targeted UConn employees and other state workers, stagnating wages and constricting resources.
Click here for Scruggs’ recent commentary on state officials’ failure to prioritize workforce recruitment and retention.
Graduate programs have been pared down and contingent (adjuncts, in-residence) faculty hired to teach courses that would otherwise be taught from full-time tenure-system faculty who are expected to research, publish, secure grants, and engage their respective disciplines in a manner commensurate with a research intensive or “Research-1” university, which is UConn’s categorization.
Can the state afford to do better? Note that these real decreases in resources from the state, and proposed cuts, are not unfolding due to a financial downturn or recession. In fact, the state had so much money in recent years that it exceeded the legal amount permitted in the Rainy Day Fund. Budget surpluses since 2017 exceeded $10 billion.
These funds could have been used to fill gaps that remain after years of parsimony and austerity. Between 2010 and 2023, there was a 4.6 percent increase in real per capita income in Connecticut, an increase of nearly 43 percent, if not adjusted for inflation. In 2022, Connecticut topped all states but Massachusetts in per capita income. Unemployment rates in Connecticut are at a low of 3.8 percent.
Click here for reporting on the governor’s budget proposals for FY 2024-25.
What is at stake? It is impossible for UConn to be a world-renowned university if it is forced to bear devastating budget reductions. Ninety-eight percent of the budget in UConn’s largest school or college – the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences (CLAS) – is salary. It does not have the anticipated 15 percent to cut, unless it eliminates graduate programs, phases out graduate fellowships, ends research accounts, closes labs, and curtails hiring.
UConn cannot attract world-class scholars who innovate in labs, produce award-winning books, award-winning art, secure patents in engineering, and science, and train thousands of the next generation’s leaders by reducing its capacity to do the critical work.
Click here for photos from union members’ recent “teach-in” on UConn’s inadequate budget.
The people of Connecticut deserve better for their higher education. We can do better. In one of the richest states in one of the richest countries in history, restricting critical resources to higher education is wrong-headed, un-wise, unfair and destabilizing to the fundamental mission of the state’s flagship university. Support higher education with a real budget that does not demand that UConn – as well as other public institutions – will be required to suffer the repeating travails of protests and demands for sufficient resources to do the critical work that the people of our state deserve.
Click here for Ogbar’s original published commentary in CT Viewpoints.
The post Restoring Trust and Demanding Truth for the Community first appeared on AFT Connecticut.
After successfully encouraging the General Assembly to allocate funding towards Middletown Public Schools (MPS) in 2023, educators and support staff are continuing their push for resources during this year’s legislative session. Members of affiliated local unions in AFT Connecticut and their colleagues in AFSCME Council 4 are also renewing their call for accountability and transparency from the state’s private education partners.
Outsourcing of public school resources has become even more concerning in recent years due to instances of fiscal mismanagement, which diverted taxpayer dollars to charter management organizations (CMOs). The biggest concern is the impact this has on learning opportunities for students.
“Public schools are foundational to a healthy, thriving democracy – and you can’t have democracy without transparency,” said Leslie Blatteau (in collage, above at far right, middle row), president of our affiliated New Haven Federation of Teachers. “That requires decisions affecting students to be made out in the open by elected representatives accountable to their communities. Too often, that is not the case with the privately appointed boards behind charters,” added Blatteau, who also serves as AFT Connecticut’s vice president for PreK-12 educators.
Click here for reporting on the latest developments in Connecticut’s highest profile CMO scandal.
With two affiliates representing certified teachers and non-certified paraeducators in MPS, our members advocate for resources on behalf of all the city’s children, not just a select few. Before the General Assembly convened earlier this month, local leaders began encouraging parents and voters to make their voices heard as it pertains to real solutions for kids and communities.
Last fall they launched a collaborative effort with parents and advocates to develop a long-term plan for strengthening the city’s traditional neighborhood schools. The president of our Middletown Federation of Teachers, Janice Pawlak (middle row, far left), weighed-in on the importance of uniting to secure further investments for all the community’s children.
“Coming together is the most effective way to make sure that there are abundant resources available for the district,” said Pawlak, a third grade teacher in Middletown’s Wesley Elementary School. “That’s how we ensure our students get what they need to succeed.”
Click here for Pawlak’s recently published opinion piece on the impact of legislative advocacy.
Additional school support staff in the district’s schools have teamed up with our members to amplify this grassroots effort. The president of AFSCME Council 4’s local union representing school nurses, custodians, food service professionals and administrative staff addressed the threat to equitable sources of education posed by CMOs.
“This disparity is the definition of inequity, and is what charter management organizations seek in every location they operate in,” said Brooke Carta (bottom row, middle), a secretary at the city’s Farm Hill Elementary School. “As school support staff, we have a unique responsibility in ensuring our school system is fair and accountable to our community, fosters a sense of belonging in students, and provides opportunities for them to flourish, no matter their background. A fully-funded public school system is the only way to achieve that.”
A 2023 legislative proposal would have diverted millions in state funds to a new CMO-operated school in the city, siphoning significant resources from the students served by MPS.
Click here for reporting on the potential impact of the proposed new private facility.
Pawlak urged fellow Middletown residents to contact their state lawmakers and ask they continue allocating those limited dollars to the PreK-12 youth in local and regional public districts.
“Our schools remain at risk of losing limited resources to a private charter management organization that has backing from some parents unhappy with student outcomes. We are committed to addressing those families’ legitimate concerns and uniting with them to achieve what we believe are shared values.”
Click here to look up your community’s state lawmakers and obtain their contact information.
Editor’s note: edited from copy by Alyssa Seidman, Hearst CT Media published in The Middletown Press
The post Coming Together to Ensure What Kids “Need to Succeed” first appeared on AFT Connecticut.
The roots of the public service crisis gripping communities across the nation run deep and sprouted more than a decade ago. Lyle Scruggs (in photo, above), a member of our affiliated UConn-AAUP, unearthed the seeds of short-staffing in state agencies in a recently published commentary. A professor of political science at the University of Connecticut (UConn), he connected policy decisions stunting growth and germinating an “outfit that pays less, has fewer benefits and now has 22% fewer workers:”
Connecticut is increasingly looking like a red state in the South. Yes, women have reproductive choice; we teach children that slavery was bad; and that climate change is real. But anti-government sentiment is in full force.
Consider this:
There are about 14,000 fewer full-time state employees today than 15 years ago, a reduction of 22% since 2008; Since 2020, general wage increases for state employees have been 10% less than inflation: a huge pay cut (that was preceded by a decade of real salary stagnation); & Current state workers have experienced large cuts in fringe benefits over the last decade (they receive less generous pensions and benefits and pay more for them).Click here for reporting on the 2022 wave of retirements impacting the state workforce.
But don’t state workers get a raise just about every year? No. General wage increases were approved in the current contract and agreed on in the middle of the COVID pandemic. But they fall far short of rising prices. For 2021, 2022, 2023, pay increases for your state social workers, nurses, engineers, and teachers cumulatively amount to less than 7.8%.
Anyone living on a budget knows that all this amounts to a huge pay cut. Why? Inflation in that period was 18.4%. And by the next scheduled contractual salary increase (July 1, 2024), prices will be higher still. Remember: “lower inflation” means slower increases in prices: jogging uphill is not sprinting uphill, but you are still going up every year. Since the start of Fiscal Year (FY) 2024, prices are now up 0.9%. At that pace, inflation will be 3.7% this fiscal year, which is consistent with current inflation forecasts.
What has the state penciled into the budget for that next COVID contract raise: 2.5%! That’s right, after probably the largest set of real pay cuts in state history, the governor is proposing another real pay cut. That would bring the cuts during the COVID era – for the nurses, health aids, social workers, teachers, transportation employees, and law enforcement officials – to more than 12%. Some thanks for that service during the COVID pandemic.
It is actually even worse than that. In the decade before COVID – going back to the Great Recession – state workers also took real pay cuts and benefit reductions. A career nurse or prosecutor working the same job over the last 15 years has actually had a real pay cut of about 14%, not just 12%.
Click here for our report-back on the contracts state employee union members secured in 2022.
Didn’t we all take real pay cuts because of inflation? Well, no. Wages in the private sector in the state have caught up with inflation according to the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis. Total salaries in Connecticut increased by 26% between June 2020 and June 2023. Adjusted for inflation, that’s a real increase of about 7%.
State workers should share in state economic gains, especially during the COVID era. They should not be exploited by reducing their purchasing power. Aren’t they unionized?
Even retirees saw much larger benefit increases than our state’s employees. Connecticut’s 700,000 Social Security recipients received (or will soon receive) pension cost of living adjustments (COLAs) raising their pensions by more than 20% between January 2021 and January 2024. Surely the state caregivers working to help your developmentally disabled cousin deserve at least the same cost of living adjustments as retirees, not half that rate.
Click here for analysis of the growing private-public sector pay gap.
Can the state afford it? The state has been touting surpluses for years. Real income is up and has been since before COVID. The stock market has boomed; up 35% compared to the pre-COVID high, and over 300% since 2008. The governor’s budget people know how inflation works on budgets, especially when it is combined with economic growth and declining public employment. They also should also know that, just as the private sector must raise salaries to keep up with inflation, the public sector should (needs to) do the same.
If pay had kept up with inflation, state surpluses would still be there. With a little more money in state employees’ pockets, the state economy would also have been even a bit more robust.
Click here for recent reporting on the unprecedented health of Connecticut’s coffers.
But don’t state benefits compensate for those real wage cuts? No. Those “generous” state benefits ended over a decade ago. Today, state employees pay much more (from depleted paychecks) for fringe benefits than they used to. And the benefits are less generous: higher effective retirement age, trimming pensionable salary, lower COLA for state pensions, pre-funding retirement health care and greater participation in defined contribution plans.
Pay attention and understand this as well: “better benefits” were supposed to permit the state to pay lower salaries for similar talent. Remember: many state workers are skilled tradespeople, licensed care providers, engineers, and lawyers; many of these folks could earn higher pay and benefits in the private sector.
There used to be an understanding: if you choose public service and earn less, you will be taken care of in your healthcare and retirement. No more! Now public jobs struggle to attract enough talented people. Teachers are leaving the state. And many state employees are looked down on. Why work for an outfit that pays less, has fewer benefits and now has 22% fewer workers? Why work in a state where you are looked down on?
Click here for our latest report on national union efforts to tackle public sector short-staffing across the country.
Do the math. Compared to a decade ago, Connecticut is now asking teachers, police and public health workers to do about 30% more work for about 15% less real compensation, while clawing back more of that lower pay to provide less generous benefits. All while the citizens of this state have generally gotten richer. That’s more befitting “Make America Great Again” states like Florida and South Carolina, not Connecticut.
Fortunately, the governor and the Connecticut General Assembly (CGA) can take a big step to solve this problem: raise general salary scales 15% on July 1, 2024. This would return state worker pay scales back into line with their pre-COVID levels, and would at least ensure that state worker pay keeps up with inflation as well as retiree pensions did. It may seem large, but it is modest and affordable: a 0% real wage increase over 15 years.
Click here for Scruggs’ original published commentary in CT Viewpoints.
The post Benefitting the Common Good by Bolstering Our Human Capital first appeared on AFT Connecticut.
Carol Gale, President
Corey Moses, First Vice-President
Stuart Beckford, Second Vice-President
