Thanks Lori

I want to thank Lori Pelletier for a recent editorial in the Hartford Current https://t.co/BTbtjoq0s1
Lori points out that while it is popular to blame public sector workers for the state’s budget problems, it missies the mark.
There is a call for the legislature to set state healthcare and retirement benefits, as opposed to being collectively bargained as they are now.
Lori reminds us that this was the way it was until state workers gained the right to bargain in the 1970s.
She also reminds us that for 32 years, the legislature failed to put a single penny into the system that it established by law.
In fact, she reminds us, in 2017, 82 % of the  payment into the pension fund was to make up for this period on non funding.

So, we see how well the legislature did in managing the pension fund.
Why would we want to return to that?
Collective bargaining forced the state to do what it should have done 32 years prior, fund a system it had itself established!

While all of this is extremely important, I think Lori’s opening statement says the most.

“All working people who work hard and play by the rules should be able to retire with dignity.”

This is not a “public worker issue,” it is a worker issue.

They say that a rising tide lifts all boats.
The fancy yachts of the rich are rising with the stock market, but what about the rowboats of the workers?
Our muscles fuel the ecconomy in the same way that our muscles pull the oars of our boats.
The rich spend a lot of money trying to convince one group of workers that another group of workers is the reason that their own boat is not rising with the tide. They pit public sector worker against private sector worker, saying “your taxes pay for their benefits.”

No, my friends.

The tax breaks of the rich are the cause.
That’s why the tide lifts the yachts but not the rowboats.

Lori finishes her editorial with this statement and she is spot on.
“These attacks are nothing more than a concentrated effort by anti-worker politicians to distract from the mess created decades ago and pursue an agenda of austerity and union busting.”