Senate Passes Union Power Grab Bill

Senator Joe Markley (R-Southington) released the following statement re: HB 5312, AN ACT CREATING A PROCESS FOR FAMILY CHILD CARE PROVIDERS AND PERSONAL CARE ATTENDANTS TO COLLECTIVELY BARGAIN WITH THE STATE. 

"During my three decades of public policy fights, this has been the most personal to me.

“That battle centers on a 49-year-old Manchester woman named Cathy Ludlum, who is one of the most remarkable people I’ve ever met.

“Confined to a wheelchair, Cathy employs 11 Medicaid funded Personal Care Assistants, known as PCAs.  Those PCAs care for Cathy because she suffers from a neuromuscular disease that severely limits her movement. Cathy’s team gives her a fantastic quality of life, and with their help she’s lived on her own for 20 years.  She lives independently and at lower cost to the state than if she were living in an institution.

“Through this power grab, state employee unions have reached right into the homes of Connecticut residents, like Cathy.

“The process has been suspect from the start, beginning with Governor Malloy's executive order, which ignored the will and the authority of the legislature.  The process also ignored the majority of disabled, elderly and day care providers who only ask ‘nothing about us with out us.’

“Now the vote of a small number of day care providers, who run a business out of the home and care for the children of a family that receives Care 4 Kids, will force the rest to pay dues to a union, and accept the deal negotiated on their behalf.

“If there is a movement for unionization, I believe it should come from the people in the industry, not be imposed by the governor in league with SEIU. This is part of a nationwide effort to create more dues-paying members of SEIU. At last count, this forced unionization has been attempted in fifteen states. Some have resisted it successfully; we will continue to fight it here in Connecticut.

“Along with Cathy Ludlum and the Connecticut Association of Personal Care Assistance and other state citizens and groups, I have filed a lawsuit challenging the executive order.  I will continue to fight this illegal order, and I have growing confidence that we will prevail.

“The biggest fear I have with the passage of this bill is the money to support an increase in wages and benefits will only result in less services for the very people who need them the most. 

“Cathy has said to me many time, ‘My PCA’s and I celebrate one another's successes; we mourn one another's losses.  We work as a team and we function like a family.’

“Personal care assistants didn’t ask for this and neither did daycare providers.  Thousands have lost their freedom to choose: they are paying dues and fees to a union, like it or not.  That should give all of us pause.”