Connecticut AFL-CIO Applauds Passage of UI for Striking Workers Legislation in State House

Ed Hawthorne, President of the Connecticut AFL-CIO, made the following statement in response to the State House of Representatives passing Senate Bill 8, which would allow striking workers to access unemployment insurance after being on strike for two weeks:

We thank the State House of Representatives for courageously standing with working people across Connecticut in spite of the Governor’s veto threat. We are very grateful to Speaker Ritter, Majority Leader Rojas, Labor & Public Employees Committee Co-Chair Sanchez, and all the state representatives who helped pass this pro-worker legislation.

The passage of this bill in both chambers with a bipartisan vote marks a critical victory for working people in our state. For too long, working families have had to choose between exercising their legal right to strike for fair treatment and putting food on the table.

All Senate Bill 8 would do is provide a basic safety net to ensure that working people can stand up for fair wages and job security without the risk of complete financial ruin.

Despite claims from RTX that providing unemployment insurance will encourage striking workers to stay out longer, both common sense and empirical evidence suggest otherwise.

Look at the UAW “Stand Up” strike two years ago where workers were striking in states with and without unemployment insurance for striking workers. When a fair deal was struck at the negotiating table, workers in New York and New Jersey didn’t try to stay out any longer than workers in other states.

What really scares RTX and other corporations is that this legislation would prevent employers from using the financial hardship of workers as a bargaining tool. And it would help create a more level playing field between working people and large corporations.

Once again, we’d like to remind Gov. Lamont that RTX, Electric Boat and other large corporations are not his constituents. The thousands of hardworking people who work there are.

We thank all of the state legislators who showed up on the IAM Union picket lines at Pratt & Whitney and backed it up with a vote in support of striking workers. Their support of striking workers wasn’t just talk and they didn’t treat it as just a photo opportunity. Gov. Lamont was also on the picket line, and we hope he’ll back up his rhetoric in support of striking workers with his signature on this bill.

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