Lori Pelletier: ‘Either you respect collective bargaining or you don’t’

Lori J. Pelletier, the president of the Connecticut AFL-CIO, raised eyebrows by organizing a picket line outside the state Democratic Party’s annual fundraiser last year to protest a Democratic governor and legislature for opting to lay off unionized state workers instead of raising taxes on the rich.

The party leadership wasn’t troubled when Pelletier subsequently failed to win a spot as a delegate to the Democratic National Convention, once an unthinkable snub for the head of the AFL-CIO. But these are complicated times for labor, especially for unions representing state workers. They just ratified a concessions deal with a governor they helped elect, Democrat Dannel P. Malloy.

Pelletier, whose path to leadership of the state’s labor federation began as a union machinist at Pratt & Whitney, talked about the labor landscape in our Sunday Conversation.

As the head of the Connecticut AFL-CIO, you’re the voice and the face of labor. What does that mean to you?

Well, I think my responsibility is making sure that every day workers have a voice. They don’t have the money to hire a big public relations firm or lobbying firm. So that’s our responsibility — to make sure that their needs, the problems they have, can come to a resolution.

As the number of unionized workers in the private sector has shrunk over the years, the issues of public-sector unions seems to dominate. How do you balance that?

It’s no different than 20 years ago, when the attacks were on workers at Pratt, saying, ‘They made too much. Their pensions are too high. Their benefits were too good.’ You know, it was the public sector workers that stood up and supported the private sector. Now they’re the new target. Everybody gets their chance in that barrel, and it’s up to the rest of the movement who doesn’t happen to be in the barrel at the time to stand up for the ones that are.

To continue reading the full interview, please go to the Connecticut Mirror.