UPFFA

LEGISLATIVE ALERT

January 24, 2006

Re:  Binding Arbitration Reform in the 2006 Session of the Connecticut General Assembly

          The Program Review Committee of the Connecticut General Assembly met on Thursday January 19, 2006.  On the committee’s agenda was the matter of the staff report on the study of Binding Arbitration.  A motion was made to accept the report and to draft the study recommendations as a committee bill to be introduced during the 2006 Session (which convenes on February 8, 2006).  Senator Gary LeBeau (East Hartford) and Representative Kevin Witkos (Avon, Canton) made separate motions to amend the recommendations by deleting three different sections of the study report.  Their efforts to delete the sections failed when put to a vote.  The Committee Co-chair Rep. Sharkey, stated that if there were concerns with the recommended changes they could be addressed in more detailed language when the bill is drafted.  If anything, the detailed study submitted by the Program Review staff favors cities and towns over labor, and as characterized by one labor representative, any change in the Binding Arbitration statutes would be a ‘remedy in search of a problem’.  In the opinion of representatives of labor, the suggested deletions would have made any contemplated changes in MERA (Municipal Employees Relations Act) and TNA (Teachers Negotiations Act) less objectionable.  The study, when drafted as a bill, and will have to be voted out of the Program Review Committee and if that occurs, the bill will go to other committees of cognizance, including the Labor and Public Employees Committee, for further review and action.  The UPFFA will report further on this measure as it makes is way through the legislature.