After all, without $700 million in concessions already agreed to by the unions in SEBAC, Connecticut's budget deficit would be even bigger.

Union leaders would be more than happy to sit down with the governor's representatives to work on real solutions to closing our state's budget gap, but further concessions would only harm our members while hurting the Connecticut residents they serve.

Members of the Rell Administration are part of an ideological movement that hides its hatred of democratically-elected government and public sector workers behind the false veneer of a commitment to smaller government. This movement has been attacking public sector workers and the work you do for decades.

This same movement was there in 1965 when it "bitterly opposed" efforts to provide elderly Americans with access to healthcare. Ronald Reagan argued in 1961 that if Medicare wasn't stopped, "one of these days you and I are going to spend our sunset years telling our children and our children's children what it once was like in America when men were free."

George H. W. Bush called the plan "socialized medicine," and Barry Goldwater asked, "[h]aving given our pensioners their medical care in kind...why not a ration of cigarettes for those who smoke and of beer for those who drink?"

The Rell Administration blindly and proudly follows in these footsteps. The calls for more outsourcing and further concessions ring hollow when the governor's own Commissioner of the Department of Developmental Services (DDS), Peter O’Meara, admits in testimony to the Appropriations Committee that the privatizing of services has exacerbated the state's budget deficit.

As our Union's Executive Director said:

"We can and will continue to push for real economic solutions to the fiscal crisis. These include pursuing federal stimulus dollars that remain available to help save local services and moving the Rell Administration to put some effort behind the Contracting Standards Board so we can stop wasteful outsourcing."

Destroying Connecticut's social safety net and eliminating virtually all public spending will not make things better. Our members have given up all they can. It is time for the Rell Administration to appreciate the value our members provide the state and work with us. As we like to say, "We are stronger together."