As expected, the controversial legislative proposals to give collective bargaining rights to certain home care workers and day care providers have resurfaced as an amendment to a labor bill.
The proposals failed to make it out of the Labor and Public Employees Committee in March after Republicans ran out the clock debating one of the measures, preventing either from being voted on before the committee deadline. But opponents of the bill acknowledged that it was likely only a setback, not a fatal blow, to the proposals, and supporters said they expected them to return later in the session.
The new vehicle: An amendment to a House bill “establishing a task force to study the effect of collective bargaining for certain state employees.”
The proposal stems from efforts to unionize day care providers paid through the state’s Care 4 Kids program and personal care attendants paid through state home care programs. Gov. Dannel P. Malloy issued two executive orders in September granting both groups the right to form unions, but stopped short of giving either group collective bargaining rights. Instead, the orders established working groups to recommend ways to structure collective bargaining rights for the two groups, which have since both voted to unionize.
The legislative proposal would give both groups collective bargaining rights, but specifies that they would not be state employees.