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About 2,000 unionized workers at privately run group homes across the state agreed Thursday to delay a planned strike as the Lamont administration continues to work with both sides in the labor dispute.
Published May 18. 2021 7:58PM
By KEITH M. PHANEUF, The Connecticut Mirror
State legislators pushed back in bipartisan fashion Monday against Gov. Ned Lamont s plan for spending nearly $3 billion in federal pandemic relief, insisting on greater investments in business relief, tourism and recreation, and health care and social services.
The Appropriations Committee s proposal for American Rescue Plan Act funds also declined to leave large pools of discretionary funds for the governor to assign over the next three years.
The committee s proposal, coupled with a competing plan Lamont offered last month, now will be the foundation for final negotiations between executive and legislative branch leaders. A final plan for the federal money which includes more than $2.8 billion in flexible funding and $142 million specifically earmarked for capital projects is expected to be adopted before the regular 2021 General Assembly session closes on June 9.
By Keith M. Phaneuf, CT Mirror
Connecticut’s largest health care workers’ union announced Friday that more than 2,000 group home staffers who serve the developmentally disabled and people suffering from mental illness or drug addiction plan to strike on May 21.
The announcement by SEIU District 1199 New England comes just seven days before 3,400 of its member nursing home workers are set to hit the picket lines a move that dramatically increases the pressure on state officials to increase public support for health care services.
Union officials say negotiations are continuing and also that a formal strike warning does not commit the bargaining unit to a work stoppage on the notice date.