Governor Vetoes Minimum Wage Increase
by Christine Stuart | May 27, 2008 2:15 PM
Posted to Labor
Gov. M. Jodi Rell vetoed a bill that would increase the minimum wage in the state by 35 cents in January 2009 from the current rate of $7.65 per hour to $8 per hour. The bill also would have increased the minimum wage from $8 to $8.25 in 2010 and passed largely along party lines in both chambers of the General Assembly.
“There is no doubt that families, particularly low income families, have been hurt by our strained economy,” Rell said in a press release. “We all feel the pinch when buying groceries, filling up the gas tank and heating our homes. Yet we must also realize that Connecticut employers face these same financial pressures and are having an extremely difficult time making ends meet.”
“We cannot take a chance on hurting families or employers by signing another minimum wage increase into law at this time,” Rell said.
“Businesses have told me that they would not be hiring if the wage hike went into effect. Employers that are now operating on the margin may be forced to close or leave Connecticut to more business-affordable states, resulting in job losses that will undermine the already fragile foundation of financial security for thousands of families.”
Governor Rell signed the last increase in the minimum wage two years ago.
Democratic leaders like Senate President Donald Williams, D-Brooklyn, offered a different point of view on the minimum wage bill.
“Gov. Rell’s veto will hurt single mothers, working families, and the 65,000 people in Connecticut who are paid at or below minimum wage. For these families, the extra few dollars a week is crucial to just keep pace with the rising cost of groceries and gas. Gov. Rell says she understands this reality but her empty rhetoric is cold comfort to these families,” Williams said in an emailed statement.
Williams was joined in his criticism of the veto by his colleagues in the House. Labor Committee Co-Chairman Rep. Kevin Ryan said, “At a time when rising energy and fuel costs are hurting the hard-working families all over the state, Governor Rell missed a major opportunity to provide some relief.”
“By vetoing this bill the governor is ignoring the hardships that many of our residents feel on a daily basis,” Ryan said in a press release.
Click here to read her veto message to the Secretary of the State.
Comments (8)
Posted by: True New Havener | May 27, 2008 3:59 PM
She's disgusting.
Posted by: tinatorrington | May 27, 2008 5:45 PM
We need a new governor.
Posted by: joe | May 27, 2008 6:15 PM
yeah she feels the pinch at the pump my ass. I used to have a nice job making pretty good money, then I got sick from that job. now i work a minimun wage job and you know what as I have to use my car for that job, i put the gas in, not my boss, therefore, i am making less than minimum wage. thats ok, gues who i wont be voting for if i'm even in this ass-backward state at that time.
Posted by: jackie | May 27, 2008 6:46 PM
I love the way she had said that it's mostly students and the like that have min. wage jobs... Must play great out in nowheresville--but I'm sure it wasn't just my mom who took a job working days at a supermarket to make ends meet.
Just because someone doesn't work 40 hrs/ week doesn't mean that the job he/she works is not crucial to the income of a family.
Ugh.
Posted by: joe | May 27, 2008 10:11 PM
take a look ath the posted news article, not that I'm a slacker, after getting sick nobody will touch me. I put my ass on the line everyday and this is what I got in return.
Posted by: Joe | May 27, 2008 10:14 PM
Paramedic In Fight For His Life
GARY LUDWIG
Firehouse.Com Contributor
Aug. 29, 1998, began like any other shift for Joe Tomaso, a paramedic working in Danbury, CT. He checked his rig and equipment, did some paperwork and conversed with co-workers. Also during that shift, he went on what he thought was a routine call � an 83-year-old man, living in a basement, with only a mattress, box springs and a television, all propped up on milk crates. The elderly gentleman had been neglected by his own children who were living upstairs, and was covered in his own feces and urine, with open bed sores. Tomaso was wearing latex gloves and a paper body isolation sheet as he moved the patient from the bed to the stretcher, but they did not protect his forearms, where he had scratches and cuts from his recent chore of cutting the hedges around his home.
Unfortunately, this did not turn out to be a routine call and it changed Tomaso�s life forever. This is the call on which Tomaso believes he contracted Hepatitis C.
The Hepatitis C virus (HCV) is a growing epidemic in the United States and is a blood-borne infectious disease that is transmitted from person to person by blood or body fluid exposures. There is no known cure and there is no vaccination against Hepatitis C.
First reported in 1975, it was called non-Hepatitis A and B. It was not until 1989 that it was renamed Hepatitis C. No testing of blood products for Hepatitis C occurred until 1992. Most people who have contracted Hepatitis C did so through illegal drug use, blood transfusions, organ transplants, body piercing or tattooing, or sex with an HCV-infected person. There is also a high concentration of Hepatitis C among prisoners, HIV patients and intravenous drug users.
An estimated 4 million Americans are chronically infected and approximately 8,000 people die each year from Hepatitis C-related illnesses. The death rate is expected to triple in the next 20 years. Between 75% and 85% of people who contract Hepatitis C will develop a chronic disease, such as cancer or cirrhosis of the liver. While most of them contracted Hepatitis C through means already listed in this column, another cluster of contamination is found among public safety professionals who are exposed to blood and body fluids every day. Some of my previous columns discussed the situation with the Philadelphia Fire Department and the high incidence of firefighters and paramedics diagnosed with Hepatitis C and their efforts to have it recognized as an on-the-job injury.
Such is the case with Tomaso. Only recently, after a two-year battle and $124,000 in just prescription costs, besides all the medical costs, did the medical insurance company accept responsibility, but not liability for Tomaso�s illness. As of this writing, the insurance company has not paid any of the bills.
Tomaso documented the exposure with the 83-year-old man, primarily for the living conditions and what he found so that it could be referred to a social agency. Little did he realize that the documentation would later be crucial in his worker�s compensation case.
In November 2000, Tomaso suffered an on-the-job needlestick injury. As part of the procedure, baseline blood work was conducted to make sure he did not have a previous infectious disease. Although the patient involved in the needlestick incident was negative for any infectious disease, the baseline blood work did show that Tomaso had Hepatitis C.
Tomaso did not fit any of the risk profiles for contracting Hepatitis C except that he was a paramedic. The only other exposure he could recall was the 83-year-old man living in the basement. The family did confirm that the gentleman did have Hepatitis C, but refused to release his medical records.
Tomaso, who has been an emergency medical technician (EMT) since 1981 and a paramedic since 1998 in a variety of paid and volunteer positions, says the symptoms were always there � fatigue, loss of appetite and an occasional rash on his chest � but he always attributed them to a heavy call load. Never did he realize he had Hepatitis C.
For over 20 years, Tomaso fought to save lives. Now, he finds himself fighting for his own life. He is a non-responder to traditional treatment methods to hold down the viral load in his body. Hepatitis C is usually a slow-progressing disease and some people may be infected for 20 years before they find out they have the disease. But in Tomaso�s case, the disease is progressing rapidly and he finds himself no longer able to work. The doctor made him stop working last Sept. 30. He now has episodes where he passes out and sometimes the pain in his stomach is more than he can bear. Medications have little if any effect on the pain.
Until he wins his fight for worker�s compensation, he is receiving no income and his wife continues to financially support the family with three children. The insurance company won�t cut a check to cover his worker�s compensation because there is a dispute as to whether it is a New York or Connecticut worker�s compensation claim. To make matters worse, his car has been repossessed, gas and telephone service were turned off in January, there is the threat of foreclosure on his home, and Christmas was not the best for his three children.
Tomaso now finds himself, as he describes it, going from �guinea pig� to �experimental lab rat.� He has been accepted to the University of Connecticut�s �Halt C� program and will shortly start radical treatments of daily doses of interferon to stop the disease from ravaging his body. If it does not work, he faces a liver transplant costing $250,000 and anti-rejection drugs costing approximately $100,000 per year. Even then, a transplant will not rid his body of the disease. The new liver will also eventually be attacked by the Hepatitis C that will remain in his body.
One day, Tomaso would love to go back to work. When he found out he had the disease, he came clean to his co-workers and they were very supportive. He truly enjoyed his work and has no regrets entering the profession that may eventually cost him his life. In fact, he says that if he had the chance, he would do it over. He even spent time working at ground zero searching for friends who were missing after the 9/11 attack.
Why is Tomaso going public with his disease? He does not want anybody who works in public safety to go through what he is going through. He is also working with legislators to enact a law in Connecticut that would presume that a public safety professional suffering from an infectious disease contracted it in the performance of duties, unless proven otherwise.
Tomaso�s life will never be the same. Constant precautions need to be taken at home to ensure that his wife or children do not get the disease. This includes color-coded shavers for him and his wife, separate drinking glasses, etc.
Several years ago, Dr. C. Everett Koop, former U.S. Surgeon General, said of HCV, �We stand at the precipice of a grave threat to our public health. �It affects people from all walks of life, in every state, in every country. And unless we do somebody about it soon, it will kill more people than AIDS.�
Tomaso�s message to his fellow public safety professionals is to protect yourself and document any and all exposures. If you would like to contact Tomaso, he can be reached via e-mail at JoeTNYMedic@aol.com.
Posted by: poor person | May 29, 2008 6:42 PM
it could be worse we could have had john destefano for governor and have all of ct a haven for the illegals not just new haven.thats one reason things are high we support these illlegals
Posted by: BB | May 31, 2008 5:28 PM
I am so sick and tired of this Governorm making disgusting decisions under the guise of "protecting businesses" (does she remember CT is LAST in job growth in the country) like this when without their employees businesses would be no where. It is just deplorable.