L+M,Malloy, trade barbs

L+M Corporation is at it again.

First they lay off workers, move work to other L+M locations, hire new workers for substandard wages and more expensive insurance, deny them their rights under the contract, refuse a compromise with the unions, threaten kitchen and environmental staff with layoffs,  make plans to bring in scab workers before contract negotiations even begin, and now they're biting the hand that feeds them, the State of Connecticut.

I guess it wasn't enough that the U S Government has brought charges against them for breaking Labor Law.

As reported from New London in The Day, Governor Malloy, in a open letter, expressed "deep concerns" about the hospital's "current healthcare, employment and community service practices."

"After hearing from your healthcare workers and service employees, and in light of the decision by the National Labor Relations Board to file a formal complaint against you, I believe there are several serious areas of concern that deserve a response."

In his letter, the governor cited L+M's transfer of positions covered by collective bargaining agreements to newly created L+M affiliates whose employees are not covered by union contracts, and the hospital's recent layoff of 44 employees who were not offered jobs at the newly created affiliates.

The transfer, Malloy wrote, "appears to be a legal maneuver designed to avoid providing the wage rates and health insurance agreed to in existing union contracts."

The governor called on L+M "to take every possible step" to reach a new labor agreement before an existing one expires next month.

"Contacting town officials before contract negotiations had begun to discuss the use of replacement workers in the event of a strike clearly runs counter to that concept," he wrote.

Finally, Malloy wrote, the roughly 180 employees working in L+M's cafeteria and environmental services departments who are covered by union contracts "deserve to know if they are at risk of elimination."

L+M Corporation responded:

"It is ironic that Gov. Malloy is now expressing 'deep concerns about the current healthcare, employment and community service practices' at L+M after his budget cut funding to this institution...We would have expected better from our state's chief executive."

The National Labor Relations Board trial against L+M states Monday. 

L+M Corporation should take a lesson from the tea party government shutdown fiasco,

and ask themselves,

How does this end well?