Connecticut Senate and House Republicans have proposed a two-year wage freeze for state employees. No surprise. State employees under Governor Lamont have received six consecutive annual pay hikes that have elevated their pay by 33%, a whopping amount not seen in the private sector.
The first test of Republican resolve will come this week when a vote on a proposed wage increase in the fourth “open” year of a very generous contract for state police is expected to be called for a vote.
This vote is an obvious trap, with Democrats suggesting that a vote against the contract is a vote against law and order. Senate President Martin Looney (D-New Haven) said “The Republicans pay lip service to supporting law enforcement, except where it really counts [approving big pay increases]”
The trap is part of a strategy to maneuver the GOP into approving a robust pay raise for state police in order to justify an equal increase for the rest of state employees. If the ploy succeeds, it would leave Republicans to choose between calling the other 45,000 plus state employees second-class citizens, in effect, by denying them a pay raise – and proving themselves feckless by abandoning their wage-freeze stand.
Of course, this is all by arrangement. Having the state police (just over 1,000 employees) go first, on the bet that the GOP will not vote against them, is in effect, a “pattern bargaining” plan. Get a one-year raise for state police approved and, then, leverage that into another four years of pay hikes for more than 45,000 members of the State Employees Bargaining Alliance Coalition (SEBAC) which includes more than 30 other union bargaining units.
The GOP should take advantage of the difference between a “4th-year reopener” and a new contract. Tell the police that they need to take a one-year freeze and the GOP will support a reasonable new 4-year police contract one year from now. Turn the tables on the Democrats and their SEBAC allies. Have the police set the pattern of bargaining with a wage freeze, in their case for just one year, since that’s all that is on the table.
The state police are not hurting. Over the first three years of the current contract, they have received rich increases of 9.7%, 3.0% and 4.8%, or 18% overall for an average of 5.5% per year.
The CT Mirror reports that “The state police contract that was ratified in 2023 was specifically designed to boost compensation to stem a trooper recruitment crisis.” There’s a better alternative: signing bonuses which are targeted and a more efficient way to enhance recruitment.
That’s the financial dimension. Now to the political dimension. In 2020, I wrote a column for the Wall Street Journal outlining that virtually every police union in the country at every level had endorsed Republican candidates – Donald Trump at the national level, almost every GOP candidate in the 35 U. S. Senate and 11 gubernatorial races that year. In Connecticut, the state police held a formal vote of no-confidence in Ned Lamont after he and the Democrats rushed through the so-called police accountability bill in an emergency session that summer.
The state chapter of the Fraternal Order of Police endorsed virtually every Republican in the 187 races for the state legislature, except for four Democrats who broke ranks to vote against the police accountability bill. John Krupinsky, president of the Connecticut FOP summed it up, “There’s only one party when it comes to law and order.”
Nothing has happened in Connecticut to change that extremely strong sentiment.
Bottom line: No Republican is going to lose the support of the police by voting against the 4th-year raise. Yes, the state police will be angry, and, maybe, some sympathetic municipal police as well, but they will remain supporters. After all, their alternative is the anti-police Democrats, and it is just a one-year wage deal with the opportunity to craft something mutually agreeable next year.
Nevertheless, some Republican legislators may think, why vote against something even marginally unpopular, if it is going to pass anyway. The Democrats hold supermajorities in both houses of the General Assembly. Turn that around. Everyone understands that the state police will get the raise on the strength of one-party rule. The only question is whether Republicans will vote the way they talk.
If nothing else, Republicans should take on House Speaker Matt Ritter (D-Hartford) and his taunt and challenge “It will not be their entire caucus voting ‘no.’ No chance.”
Republicans should take pride in proving Ritter wrong. Yet, it is not only a matter of pride and shutting down Ritter’s arrogance. Voting against public sector unions in any state, especially in Connecticut, is a perilous undertaking. Unions will spend money in the next election cycle to take out their opponents. But they do not have enough money or manpower to take out every Republican.
The GOP should follow Ben Franklin’s famous quote in 1776: “We must all hang together, or assuredly we shall all hang separately.” Every Republican who defects, proving Ritter right, endangers every colleague who stands fast.
Red Jahncke is a nationally recognized columnist, who writes about politics and policy. His columns appear in numerous national publications, such as The Wall Street Journal, Bloomberg, USA Today, The Hill, Issues & Insights and National Review as well as many Connecticut newspapers.