I applaud The Courant for devoting an entire editorial to the recent Supreme Court decision regarding collective bargaining rights for state police lieutenants and captains [June 14, "Are They Managers?"].

However, the dispute is not an "arcane" legal scrimmage, as The Courant suggests, nor does the Union's claim necessarily invite a comparison to Karl Marx. (Middle managers unite!)

The litigation is simply a byproduct of a longstanding failure of the executive branch to address an obvious problem, which is that troopers and sergeants are paid more than lieutenants and captains. The problem is not the statute that provides the officers the right to organize. The problem is that the state has never admitted it has a wrong-headed compensation policy that it refuses to acknowledge and instead spends taxpayer funds to perpetuate that policy, all to the detriment of the state police department.

Robert J. Krzys
New Hartford

The writer is counsel to the Union that is a party to the case.