Public service workers concerned proposal offers few solutions for poor leadership and creates additional bureaucracies that would impede delivery of quality services
HARTFORD—Public service workers say Governor M. Jodi Rell's proposal to split-up Connecticut's Department of Transportation (DOT) will not provide the cure needed to reform the ailing agency. The department's engineering, scientific, and technical professionals who are members of CSEA/SEIU Local 2001 are raising questions about the transportation proposals included in the Governor's mid-term budget address, delivered yesterday.
"Our members working at DOT wanted the Governor to lay out a bold vision" Michael O'Brien, a supervising sanitary engineer in the Department of Environmental Protection, said after the Governor's speech. "But decentralizing is a bit like shuffling deck chairs, and will do nothing to close the DOT's leadership vacuum" he continued. "And even though the Governor called the recent economic downturn a 'time for caution,' nowhere in her proposal did I see the kind of integrated transportation policy that would spur economic growth" O'Brien, the Local union's Executive Council President, concluded.
CSEA/SEIU Local 2001 members have advocated for a voice in reforming the infamous "culture of fear" at the DOT since Governor Rell formed a blue ribbon commission to reorganize the agency last spring. After a decade of mismanagement, corruption, and devaluing of the workforce, DOT’s front-line workers believe they must be empowered with a stake in delivering efficient, quality transportation services.
"Our rank-and-file members have been urging the Governor to look to the experience and perspective we can offer to reform the department" John Vitale, a property agent in the DOT, observed. "But she refused, and her reform panel has even restricted access to the results of last fall's agency-wide workforce survey" Vitale, the president of the union's Council representing DOT workers, continued. "We've been saying all along that if you want to know what is really happening on the ground in Falluja, for example, don’t ask a Pentagon official or a defense contractor, ask a Marine" he added.
The Governor's announcement that her budget would include resources for recruiting additional engineers and inspectors for the DOT was greeted with approval from the membership. However, the department has lost four hundred engineers, inspectors, and planners -- positions that impact public safety -- statewide since 1995. The reality is, even when combined with additional positions called for last year, the DOT is still far from being the efficient, quality-first provider of public services needed to meet Connecticut's 21st century transportation needs.
CSEA/SEIU Local 2001 represents 25,000 active and retired public sector workers across Connecticut. Visit www.csea-ct.com online for more information about its members' efforts to establish meaningful reforms at the State DOT that will ensure the transparency and accountability needed to deliver reliable, quality services to Connecticut taxpayers.