From the AFT CT Blog

From the AFT Connecticut Blog
- Matt O'Connor

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.

- Matt O'Connor

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.

- Matt O'Connor

Members of AFT Connecticut-affiliated public employee unions joined their colleagues from across the country last month to brainstorm solutions to shared challenges. They came together in Baltimore to tackle issues impacting their workplaces and communities ranging from staffing shortages to artificial intelligence (AI). Guided by the theme of the professional issues conference (PIC) for their division, activists collectively set their “Focus on the Future: Rebuilding our Communities with a Strong Public Service.”

A national crisis, fueled by nearly a million unfilled vacancies in the sector, drove constructive conversations aimed at staffing the front lines of government agencies at all levels. Earlier this year, our national union convened a task force that includes AFT Connecticut Secretary-Treasurer Shawn Brown. The leaders were charged with developing strategies to reverse these shortages.

Click here for national reporting on the crisis and labor-led efforts to address it.

Many of the conference’s workshops and panel discussions drilled down on recommendations from the task force’s forthcoming report:

Negotiate a 35-hour workweek to help both recruit and retain workers; Evaluate public jobs for hybrid telework options whenever possible; Reduce the pay gap between public and private professionals; Create benefit options across the life cycle; Extend mental health support systems beyond short-term perks; Strengthen defined-benefit pensions to make them equitable and robust; Build a pipeline of workers through apprenticeships, internships, “service year” programs and “second chance” job opportunities; Invest in human resources professionals; Shorten the timeline for hiring staff; & Update all job descriptions regularly.

Click here for our national union’s previous update on the task force’s formation.

Brown’s colleagues in our affiliated University Health Professionals (in photo, above) brought their firsthand experience confronting the impacts of short-staffing at UConn Health, Connecticut’s only public academic medical center. They also shared examples of concrete solutions, including collaboration with their employer at a recent job fair organized by fellow state employee union members.

Click here to watch highlights from the “Staff the Front Lines” event in Hartford.

AFT Connecticut President Jan Hochadel teamed up with our AFT Public Employees division’s program and policy council chair to lead a workshop on digital technology and AI. They provided an overview of the ways these challenges are presenting themselves to government workforces, as well as legislative and collective bargaining strategies for addressing them.

“AI has the potential to revolutionize our work; to make it easier, faster, more accurate,” she told workshop attendees. “Our greatest challenges are the lack of transparency in understanding what’s happening in public services with this technology – and the lack of accountability when things go wrong.”

Hochadel shared her experience participating in a three-year Digital Rights Organizer training provided by Public Services International (PSI), where she co-chairs the inter-American regional executive committee. The global labor federation is helping to empower union members and hold public authorities accountable for how – and why – they introduce disruptive technologies.

Click here for PSI’s Digital Rights Organizer training material.

“We can’t allow ourselves to be intimidated by words and concepts we may not understand right now,” Hochadel added. “This is the future of our work and our union representation,” she added.

Editor’s note: includes contributions from Annette Licitra, AFT.

The post Tapping the Collective “Potential to Revolutionize Our Work” first appeared on AFT Connecticut.

- Matt O'Connor

Recent headlines touting continued job growth in Connecticut have obscured lackluster gains for the state’s chronically understaffed public sector. Sinéad Ruane, (right, in photo above), a chapter secretary in our affiliated CSU-AAUP, and fellow union member Jason Snyder (left), parsed the numbers in order to bring to light the broader implications in a recently published opinion editorial. Together, they warned that “public services will cease to be a mechanism to combat systemic racism if we fail to make the critical investments we need:”

The Connecticut Department of Labor (CTDOL)’s latest quarterly review of employment and wages (QCEW) indicated there was a strong economic forecast amid the post-pandemic resurgence. This supposedly is due to the state seeing a 3.2% increase in jobs during 2022. While at first glance this upward trajectory may show positive strides in the economy, without context this data point doesn’t paint a clear picture. It fails to examine the data through a broader lens – one that underscores the struggles that working families are facing, public and private, as the cost of living continues to soar.

Click here for the state labor department’s latest QCEW report.

As business professors in the Connecticut State Colleges and Universities (CSCU) system (Ruane is associate professor of management and organization and Snyder is professor and department chair of marketing at Central Connecticut State University), we believe it is important for that context to be provided.

The public sector, including public higher education, has always provided a ladder to advance the economic standing of generations of state residents. Not only are we proud to help our students work toward their dreams, but we acknowledge the role of state institutions in positioning faculty to help future generations.

One of us is a first-generation college student who benefited from public education throughout life. The other, who has studied in public universities in three different countries, understands that the commitment to making education accessible and affordable to all is a deliberate policy choice. Therefore, we feel compelled to help provide additional information as you consider the data.

The report highlights a 3.4% increase in total private industry employment but a minor bump in government employment which signals a well-known and data-backed fact – the public sector remains woefully underfunded and understaffed. And, since this increase includes local and federal employment and is following an historic state retirement wave, this small increase raises further concerns at the state level.

Click here to watch highlights of a recent joint labor-management public sector job fair.

One of the most striking revelations in the data is the growth in average annual wages. While this is undoubtedly positive, with an overall 4.4% wage increase across Connecticut jobs in 2022, it’s essential to view this wage growth through the lens of equity. The report indicates that private sector wages increased by 4.5% to $82,373, while government wages grew by 3.2% to $73,754. But even at the upper limit, living in Connecticut is increasingly unaffordable. The median rent in Connecticut is $2,000, utility rates remain nationally ranked for most expensive, health care costs are soaring, and these stagnant wage growth patterns are not keeping up.

Furthermore, public services have always served as a two-way path to the working class, especially for our residents of color, offering public services in an accessible manner while also providing good working-class jobs to lift families into the middle class. Public services will cease to be a mechanism to combat systemic racism if we fail to make the critical investments we need.

Click here for another union activist’s recently published op-ed demanding equity for the under-served.

It’s important to also recognize the economic benefits of strong workforce growth – in the public and private sector – and that they can be maximized through a well-educated and highly skilled workforce. This is where public higher education institutions play an indispensable role, providing affordable and local higher education options for students.

In fact, Connecticut State’s Capital campus, for example, ranks in the top five percent of two-year colleges nationwide when it comes to fostering upward mobility among its student body. Also, 55 percent of community college students are people of color and half of incoming students at state university campuses are racial or ethnic minorities.

Click here for our state employee union coalition’s recent online spot calling for public higher education investments.

So, as we celebrate the increase in job opportunities, we also must advocate for strategic investment in public higher education, which serves as a crucial pipeline for developing the skilled workforce demanded by emerging industries. For example, right now we are not graduating nearly enough civil engineering students to fill the jobs we expect to have in state employment over the next several years.

At a recent special legislative session, dozens of state employees from across state agencies came to the Capitol building with the hopes of urging lawmakers to address the $100 million deficit in public higher education funding. They explained to legislators that Connecticut’s trajectory toward prosperity hinges on a multi-faceted approach — one that combines private sector growth with robust public investments.

Click here for photos of lawmakers listening to union members’ “fund our future” message.

Public higher education is not a luxury but a cornerstone of this approach. By investing in public higher education, the state can cultivate a workforce that’s not only capable of driving economic innovation but is equipped to address the many challenges of our time. It’s a proven pathway to empower the working class, uplift marginalized communities and provide an avenue for upward mobility.

As experts dissect the QCEW data, we urge them to recognize that investment in public services isn’t an expenditure; it’s an investment in the future of our state. And, an investment in public higher education is an investment in the minds that will pioneer groundbreaking research, in the educators who will inspire generations, and in the workforce that will carry Connecticut into a prosperous tomorrow.

Click here for highlights of a recent demonstration members organized to denounce higher education cuts and tuition hikes.

So now we ask Governor Ned Lamont and members of the General Assembly, “what do you want your legacy to be?” One of groundbreaking development and unprecedented economic growth and development, or continued lackluster economic reports?

Click here for Ruane and Snyder’s original published commentary in The Courant.

The post Urging Investments in Public Higher Education first appeared on AFT Connecticut.

- Matt O'Connor

A new survey of adjunct faculty from our national union underscores the continuing crisis faced by millions of contingent workers at America’s colleges and universities. AFT’s latest “Army of Temps” report, the third in a series, finds little improvement to poverty wages and untenable conditions in the wake of the pandemic. It documents the troubling reality faced by millions of higher education professionals and illustrates adjuncts’ low pay, inadequate benefits, limited job security and lack of respect at work.

Click here for the full results of the latest survey.

As significant legislative incursions continue to impinge on their right to teach, fewer than half of those union members surveyed believe that employers will defend their academic freedom. More than two-thirds have contemplated leaving the academy in the past two years.

Despite all of this, faculty continue to give their all to support students under trying circumstances.

“Adjunct faculty teach the classes and do the research that makes universities run, but they are too often treated as second-class citizens,” said national AFT President Randi Weingarten. “Wages and conditions are so low that adjuncts are forced to cobble together three or four classes just to stay afloat – it’s untenable and unacceptable.”

The survey shows adjuncts and their unions are far from content to let this state of affairs persist in perpetuity. They are fighting back through political advocacy, organizing and collective bargaining to win fair treatment, with an eye toward social justice, for themselves, their students and the communities they serve.

Click here for recent press reporting on the survey results.

“Educators’ teaching conditions are students’ learning conditions—but it’s difficult to focus on the educational and social needs of your students when you don’t even know if you will have a paycheck coming next semester or whether that check will help you make ends meet,” added Weingarten.

The report contains feedback from 1,043 respondents at two-year and four-year institutions, both public and private. The 58-question survey, completed between May and June of 2022 follows up on previous studies conducted that showed strikingly similar results. The topline survey results show that:

More than one-quarter of respondents earn less than $26,500 annually; the percentage of faculty respondents earning below the federal poverty line has remained unchanged through all three reports, unsurprising with real wages falling behind inflation throughout the academy; Only 22.5 percent of respondents report having a contract that provides them with continuing employment, even assuming adequate enrollment and satisfactory job performance; For three out of four respondents, employment is only guaranteed for a term or semester at a time; Two-thirds of part-time respondents want to work full time but are offered only part-time work; Twenty-two percent of those responding report having anxiety about accessing adequate food, with another six percent reporting reduced food intake due to lack of resources; Only 45 percent of respondents have access to employer-provided health insurance, and nearly 19 percent rely on Medicare/Medicaid; Nearly half of faculty members surveyed have put off getting needed healthcare, including mental health services, and 68 percent have forgone dental care; Fewer than half of faculty surveyed have received the training they need to help students in crisis; & Only 45 percent of respondents believe that their college administration guarantees academic freedom in the classroom, at a time when right-wing legislators are passing laws curtailing educators’ curriculum control.

Click here for our national union’s previous report on adjunct faculty conditions.

“We’ve raised standards for Connecticut’s public higher education adjuncts at the bargaining table and in the statehouse,” said Dennis Bogusky (front row in photo, above), president of our AFT Connecticut-affiliated Federation of Technical College Teachers (FTCT). “None of the past gains made for contingent faculty and part-time staff were hand-outs; they were hard-fought and hard-won by keeping the pressure on.”

Over the last four decades, America’s academic labor pool has shifted dramatically. Forty years ago, 70 percent of academic employees were tenured or on the tenure track. Today, that figure has flipped; 68 percent of faculty are not eligible for tenure, and 47 percent hold part-time positions. Meanwhile, the numbers of management staff and their salaries have snowballed.

“These latest survey results add urgency to the current learning crisis,” added Bogusky, who also serves as our state federation’s vice president for higher education. “It shows that our elected officials must invest more – not less – in the frontline faculty and staff who instruct and support students in Connecticut’s public colleges and universities.”

Click here for recent reporting on local advocacy efforts to reverse public higher education budget cuts.

Of the AFT’s more than 200,000 higher education members nationally, 85,000 are contingent and 35,000 are graduate employees.

Editor’s note: includes contributions from national AFT communications staff.

The post “Keeping the Pressure On” for Improved Working Conditions first appeared on AFT Connecticut.