Vol. 75/No. 19      May 16, 2011

The bill, sponsored by Democratic House Speaker Robert DeLeo, empowers local officials to unilaterally set health insurance co-payments and deductibles. Public workers can discuss proposed changes for 30 days, but government authorities have the final say. The bill also requires retirees to enroll in Medicare. Unions can still bargain over insurance premiums.

Gov. Deval Patrick, who earlier this year proposed similar legislation, praised the House decision as an “important vote,” though he hasn’t yet said if he will sign it.

Shortly after taking office in 2009 the Democratic governor signed a bill that restricted the right of public workers for the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority to bargain over health benefits by moving them into the state health-insurance system.

“Everybody’s pretty upset,” said Robert Haynes, president of the Massachusetts AFL-CIO, which backed the election campaigns of many of these Democrats. “It’s hard for me to understand how my good friends in the Massachusetts House, that have told me they support collective bargaining, could do this.”

Haynes, however, simply argued for a different method of imposing cuts. “We’re willing to give the savings,” he said. “All we wanted was an arbitrator, some kind of neutral process that would determine what’s fair.”

The drive against public workers in Massachusetts is one of a growing number of similar moves across the country. Democratic administrations from Andrew Cuomo in New York State and Edmund Brown in California to Republican-led governments in Wisconsin, Ohio, Indiana, and other states are attacking union rights, cutting jobs, and reducing health and education services vital to working people.

An April 29 Wall Street Journal opinion piece titled “Union Busting, Massachusetts Style” by Kimberley Strassel equates the Massachusetts bill with the Republican-sponsored legislation passed in Wisconsin attacking public workers’ collective bargaining rights. “The only difference is that Democrats have chosen to portray [Wisconsin governor Scott] Walker’s legislation as ‘union-busting’ while presenting their own as necessary reform,” she wrote.

The House bill now moves to the state Senate for a vote later this month.
 
 
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