FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Wednesday, January 15, 2025

SENATE LEADERS ANNOUNCE PRIORITY LEGISLATION SUPPORTING WORKERS

Protecting Warehouse Workers, Unemployment for Striking Workers Top the List

HARTFORD – State Senate leadership today announced their intent to protect warehouse workers and allow longtime striking workers to collect unemployment benefits as part of their 2025 legislative agenda to support working people in Connecticut.

Senate President Pro Tem Martin Looney (D-New Haven), Senate Majority Leader Bob Duff (D-Norwalk), and state Senator Julie Kushner (D-Danbury), who is Senate Chair of the Labor and Public Employees Committee, announced their support today for these two concepts as incorporated in Senate Bill 8 – one of the Top 12 public policy priorities for Senate Democrats in 2025.

“There’s an insidious nature to modern fulfillment centers where employee safety often takes a back seat to corporate greed. Nowhere have we seen this exemplified more clearly than in the business practices of online retailers like Amazon, whose workplace rules and expectations seem straight out of the Gilded Age. We’ll address that this session,” Sen. Looney said. “At the same time, despite years of trying to adjust the scale, labor law in America continues to be weighted in favor of corporations over their employees. That’s where the concept of unemployment benefits for workers who are forced into extended strikes by the intransigence of their employer comes into play. Connecticut will be a leader on this issue as well.”

“So much of our modern economy is built on speed and convenience, but I wonder how often we stop and ask ourselves, at what cost?” Sen. Duff said. “The cost is in the draconian working conditions so many people experience in retail fulfillment centers, or on the increasingly frequent strike lines we see where people are advocating for better pay and working conditions. That’s who these bills are intended to benefit – average working folks in Connecticut, working for a living, just trying to get by, but who need a more level playing field to make ends meet.”

“The number one rule for Amazon and other online retailers is to maximize speed and profits at any cost, including worker health and safety. We’ve received evidence that there is a very high incidence of injuries at Amazon, and we have an obligation as a state to ensure that we are protecting workers at these jobs,” Sen. Kushner said. “What we’re doing with the striking workers bill is we’re providing them with the opportunity – through the extension of unemployment benefits – to exercise their rights under federal law, without the fear of being starved out. Other states have already done this, and it’s working.”

The concepts in Senate Bill 8 are not new.

Last year, Senate Bill 412 sought to protect warehouse workers (like those at Amazon) by requiring employers to give their employees a written description of the quotas they must meet, and any possible adverse employment actions they may face for failing to do so. The bill passed out of the Labor and Judiciary Committees on party-line votes but was never raised in the Senate for a vote.

Amazon has 16 warehouse facilities in Connecticut and is planning to build another 650,000-square-foot distribution warehouse on 183 acres at the Waterbury/Naugatuck Industrial Park. The corporation employs about 17,000 people in Connecticut.

The issue of warehouse worker safety in America was recently highlighted by U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont. Sanders launched an 18-month investigation into Amazon’s “abysmal workplace safety practices” that resulted in a 300-page report which found that in each of the past seven years, Amazon workers were nearly twice as likely to be injured as workers in other warehouses, and that more than two-thirds of Amazon’s warehouses have injury rates that exceed the industry average.

The Sanders report concludes that Amazon knows its productivity standards are the reason why workers are frequently injured, and that while Amazon developed proposals to lower worker injuries, they chose not to implement them due to financial considerations.

Senate Bill 8 also addresses the issue of striking workers that was raised last year in House Bill 5164, and in Substitute House Bill 5431, which sought to create a $3 million fund in the state comptroller’s office which could be used to assist low-income families and workers, including those who had been out on strike for at least 14 days (New York and New Jersey already have such laws). HB 5431 passed the House and Senate but was vetoed by Governor Lamont.

Under current state law, striking workers are only entitled to unemployment benefits if a company locks them out of the worksite – but not if a company negotiates in bad faith to cause a strike, or negotiates in bad faith to prolong a strike.

Many Connecticut resident remember the 11-day Stop & Shop union strike in April 2019 that involved more than 31,000 workers at 240 Stop & Shop stores in New England, including 92 in Connecticut. The striking workers received just $100 a week from their strike fund and had to resort to GoFundMe pages and food donations to eat and pay their bills. At the same time, Stop & Shop shareholders gave themselves an $880 million raise in stock dividends and were asking employees to contribute hundreds of dollars more a year to their health care premiums. It’s estimated that Stop & Shop lost $20 million a day in revenue during that 11-day strike.

Senate Democrats Announce Priority Legislation on Education and Housing

Today, Senate President Pro Tempore Martin M. Looney (D-New Haven), Senate Majority Leader Bob Duff (D-Norwalk), Senator Doug McCrory (D-Hartford), Senator Martha Marx (D-New London), and Senator Sujata Gadkar-Wilcox (D-Trumbull) joined their colleagues in the House of Representatives to announce priority legislation regarding education and housing for the 2025 legislative session. More information on the two Senate Bills is below.

Senate Bill 1: An Act Increasing Resources for Students, Schools, and Special Education

Connecticut has made consistent and deliberate strides to increase its support of education over the last several years. State budgets adopted by the General Assembly have boosted funding for education by a total of $364 million since fiscal year 2023. The legislature supplemented this support with an additional $150 million dedicated to Education Cost Sharing Grants.

This year, Senate Democrats aim to build on that progress by continuing to invest in Connecticut’s children while supporting towns and cities. Alongside increased funding, the legislature will prioritize reforms to enhance state oversight of boards of education and improve transparency in how education dollars are allocated and spent.

These reforms are essential to ensuring that taxpayer investments directly benefit students, focusing resources where they matter most: in the classroom.

Senate Democrats will specifically focus on assisting Connecticut communities struggling with a growing need for special education services. Special education programs are essential but costly, placing a significant financial strain on municipalities. The enrollment of a student with special needs can create unexpected challenges for local budgets.

One of the ways in which Connecticut provides financial assistance to towns and cities for special education services is through the Excess Cost Grant program. This program is designed to offset significant expenses associated with educating certain students with special needs.

In 2022, the legislature amended the Excess Cost Grant program to create a tiered reimbursement structure to ensure that the state’s poorest municipalities were given funding priority. Meanwhile, state budgets have increased funding for the grants by $50 million over the last two fiscal years.

However, these efforts have not been enough to keep pace with significant increases in the need for additional special education funding experienced by Connecticut towns and cities. From fiscal year 2022 to fiscal year 2023, the estimated cost of fully funding the Excess Cost Sharing Grant program surged from $175.7 million to $203.8 million. That number climbed to $255.1 million in fiscal year 2024.

Local communities must not continue to bear this growing and unpredictable financial burden with inadequate support. Addressing the rising costs of special education requires a stronger commitment from the state. Senate Democrats will work this session to ensure that every student receives a quality education regardless of their needs.

Senate Bill 12: An Act Concerning Connecticut’s Housing Needs

Connecticut needs more housing units to meet its economic needs. According to the Department of Labor, the state had 73,000 open jobs at the beginning of 2025, but low housing availability and high pressure on the housing market are impacting our ability to fill those jobs.

According to the Urban Institute, in a 2021 study commissioned by the Department of Housing and Department of Social Services, there’s a housing gap in Connecticut of nearly 90,000 units to support the population as a whole. The National Low Income Housing Coalition has a similar finding that the state needs nearly 100,000 units to increase affordability and help residents.

A higher prevalence of housing units benefits the economy, not only in filling available jobs but also in reducing pressure on renters. Reducing rents for residents provides them with more money left in their pockets, which allows for increased spending and bolsters the state’s economy. Connecticut renters on average spend about a third of their income on rent, which is considered a burden. Meanwhile, housing prices grew 7% year-to-year from 2023 to 2024, with housing stock too low and the housing market remaining wildly competitive. Connecticut has an apartment vacancy rate of just 3.5%, one of the lowest in the country; the national average is nearly double at 6.6%.

The continued housing crisis also creates societal and educational impacts. A 2024 Dalio Education report found that at-risk youth are hampered in their efforts by a lack of affordable housing—a third of the questioned individuals needed to live with friends or family to pursue opportunities. The report also found that the failures of the housing system impacted youth’s opportunities to succeed.

Housing costs also sever the connections we form in our communities, making it harder for families to stay together over time. According to the National Center for Education Statistics, 76% of all students seeking an undergraduate degree in the U.S. stay in-state for college. In Connecticut, the number drops to 61%. Fewer local opportunities to house new college graduates lead to children and qualified workers leaving for other states.

As towns lose population corresponding reductions in school populations strain our local education systems.

Consumer Reports considers Connecticut the worst state for renters due to high costs and low availability, with a high income-to-rent ratio dinging its results.

The Connecticut Economic Digest reported in 2024 that inventory is down and prices are increasing, with the state’s monthly housing inventory falling from up to 20,000 units pre-pandemic to as low as 3,071 in February 2024, with the median number of days a home is on the market falling from 50-80 days pre-pandemic to 18 post-pandemic.

Senate Democrats will pursue legislation this year to increase the production of all types of housing in the state. The creation of more housing units saturates the market and reduces pressures, with a long-term goal of stabilizing and reducing excessive costs impacting individuals, families, and businesses statewide. There is no single type of housing that will solve our housing crisis.

Solutions may include changes to zoning approaches to expand housing capability in communities, regulatory reform, development with a specific focus on local transportation options, and further advances in the state’s successful efforts to subsidize projects creating new units.