Republican gubernatorial candidate Tom Foley is wearing his lack of union support like a red badge of courage, with the apparent hopes that his lack of union endorsements will be offset by mainstream, non-union voters to propell him into office. Last week, in an interview, Foley criticized Malloy for joining in a picket line of union workers outside a nursing home on the morning of the August 10 gubernatorial primaries.
“He clearly cut a deal with unions to get support from unions,” Foley said, acknowledging that he has no support from organized labor. “He’s an old-school Democrat, a career politician and understands unions are important to get elected.” Still, Foley said he has reached out to state unions including the AFL-CIO, which has about 260,000 members in the state, SEBAC and AFSCME.
“I’m going to need to have an open dialogue to figure out how to best solve these problems,” Foley said. “But I’m not in their pocket and I’ll negotiate very hard on behalf of the best long-term interests of the state of Connecticut.”
Malloy said he was proud to join Local 1199 nursing-home workers on August 10.“We have had Republican governors of the state of Connecticut for 20 years and the lack of leadership and accountability and transparency is evident to all,” Malloy said. “We are perhaps at our darkest financial moment and I will provide leadership and expect union members to come to the table to resolve these problems.”
Malloy defended Foley’s charge that he’s too cozy with unions.
“Let’s begin with the specifics: there were four nursing homes with ongoing strikes where the employer violated specific rules with respect to the treatment of employees and refused to enter into a contact entered by other members of their association,” Malloy recalled. “I walked the picket line with people who worked there for 20 years and were still making only $12 to $14 an hour. I will walk with them any day.”
Democrats will never cut the union benefits. THe unions own them. The unions pension should be changed to employee contrubution type, they should pay something for medical, wages cut at least 10%, and they should not be able to retire until 60-65. We need less Democrats in the state house and the governor should be a Republican. We need the same type of medicine Christy of NJ has done.
In my opinion, Dan Malloy sees himself like an old Tammany Hall, Irish American, Urban machine, Pay to play-Mayor like a Jimmy Walker,(NYC)James Michael Curley,(Boston) Boss Frank Hauge (Jersey City)the likes of which we have not seen in over 50 years. He has been running for Governor non-stop since 2004 only because he believes that is the next step for the longest serving Stamford Mayor.
Contrast that to nominee Tom Foley,who is only going to accept $1 a year for his services. It’s clear Tom Foley likes to fix things, and is running for all the right reasons.
I’m sure Tom will do well with the 800,000 Connecticut Independent voters who seem to like fiscal prudence that will counter-balance the union-owned Malloy.
Pathetic. So much for putting the interests of the average man over that of those who serve. The tail will certainly wag the dog in Connecticut if Malloy and not Foley governs.
Yes Mitch, we know how tough Foley can be.
He has been arrested twice because of his ‘toughness’.
This is EXACTLY why Dan Malloy can NOT be our next Governor.
With unions being such a big part of the problem we need a Governor who has no strings and will sit down and not only talk tough but follow through on it.
His statement of, “I will provide leadership and expect union members to come to the table to resolve these problems,” is nothing short of comical. Oh sure the unions are going to sit down and say to him, “Danny-boy, we know we got you elected because we want to come into negotiations and give up jobs, wages and benefits…” Are the citizens of Connecticut really that dumb?
Tom Foley has a plan for the state of Connecticut. He is different than his Republican predecessors didn’t and that’s real-world experience in dealing with the unions and getting from them what was necessary to make businesses succeed… Now not EVERY time that works, but he didn’t get his wealth by having more failures than successes. He did it by being intelligent, a tough negotiator and by being smart…not by being a career politician that produced little to no results.