🔒Unions’ anti-business sentiments must be opposed

The following two stories tell us all we need to know about the mess in which the state finds itself.

First, the June 25th edition of the Hartford Courant featured an op-ed by Stanley Black & Decker CEO James Loree, in which he stated that most public company CEOs in the region are (for now) committed to staying in Connecticut and willing to do their part to help, but with three conditions:  the state must get its finances in order without major new taxes; life must be breathed into Hartford; and the “state in general must take actions to create a more hospitable business climate.”

Second, a June 2nd commentary posted on the CT Mirror website about an SEIU 1199 (part of the state employees union) advertisement — which accused state officials of favoring the wealthy — advocated for capital gains tax increases and suggested this explanation for, and solution to, the state's budget problems: “We've tried budgets that favor the wealthy. That has only led to more deficits. Connecticut is not one race, one gender, one tax bracket. Let's start having a budget that works for all of us.”

Connecticut is in the tank largely because of its hostile business climate, and the climate is hostile because the SEIU and its minions (the people who buy into its thinking whether they be other unions, elected officials, state employees, journalists, commentators, or academics) long ago were victorious in the battle to control the public agenda (the set ofideals and beliefs that dominate the state's politics and culture), and that agenda casts profit-making enterprises either as inherently immoral, and/or as an instrument that government should (by statute and regulation) manipulate to achieve a form of social justice to the SEIU's liking.

The point is that we have already done what they want. We have taxed the wealthy, businesses and everyone else to the tipping point (the point at which they leave); and the spoils of the SEIU's victory are found in our financial and emotional insolvency. Congratulations. High fives all around at SEIU headquarters.

In their march to victory, the SEIU's flag bearers have pilloried our world-class businesses (GE and Aetna), brought others to the edge (Stanley), and (speaking of social justice) driven our community-based nonprofit social service agencies (which really do care about the “most unfortunate among us”) to their financial knees by soaking up for themselves the resources nonprofits need to survive.

I speak to this topic passionately because I was long ago disabused of the notion that the SEIU cause had anything to do with what is fair. It is a lust for power driven by emotions that come from a dark place (resentment and its synonyms come to mind).

Years ago, I was on the board of directors of a nonprofit social-services agency, which, like the others in the state, lives off of what the state will reimburse, and pays its employees only what the state allots. The SEIU commenced a drive to organize the nonprofit's employees, which featured the following tactics:

• Sixteen “blue party” members of the legislature shamelessly signed an unsolicited letter to the employees urging them to vote for unionization.

• The union also circulated flyers with the pictures of board members (yours truly included) around the neighborhoods where we lived (a not so subtle form of intimidation) informing our neighbors that we were against “working people.” If we dared to push back on these tactics it would, each time, file unfair labor practice grievances with the Department of Labor to ratchet up our legal expenses.

• The SEIU won the election, the employees started paying union dues, and their wages and benefits have stayed about the same.

Think about it — If this is the way they treat nonprofits that care for the disabled, addicted, homeless, and poverty stricken, I can only imagine the tenor of their behind-closed-doors conversations about business given the overt hostility to business in their public communications, legislative agenda, messaging, memes, editorials, placards, and press releases — all of which our business leaders and owners (of all sizes) see and hear repeatedly. It does affect their thinking and planning. Would you want to open a business in a state with so powerful a force pushing an agenda of this type?

Our economy has three sectors — private, government and nonprofit. The business sector is the only one that creates the wealth and profits that are the sources of our paychecks, tax revenue and charitable contributions. Until and unless some balance is restored, businesses will continue to leave, and our nonprofits will be left in place (they cannot leave) with fewer and fewer resources to do the important work they do.

Let me close by saying that nonprofit organizations, civic groups, trade associations, and interested individuals (with or without the involvement of governmental officials) should find a way to take Mr. Loree up on his offer to help. Government is too badly broken to fix itself, and Connecticut will be rebuilt, if at all, from the ground up and not the top down.n

John M. Horak is the director of TANGO Nonprofit Education and Consulting. The opinions expressed are his own.