Lynch is a member of AFSCME 2663 and sits on the union executive board and helps represent the 200 AFSCME members who work at CJTS, which has a school, medical facilities, a basketball court and a cafeteria – all part of a plan to create a sense of community for the boys.

“We’re the first adults the boys see in the morning and the last adults they seen when they go to bed,” Lynch observed. “We are their role models.”

“We work as a team and want to see the kids leave with changed lives. We want them to be able to be part of a community, to have their own families, to raise new and positive generations,” she added.

Lynch and her co-workers often face volatile situations in which they suffer serious injuries. CJTS are classified as hazardous duty employees because of the inherent dangers of their jobs.

“Sure, the job is dangerous, but we never forget that we’re dealing with juveniles. You have more dialogue with the kids. They came here because they have problems. They need more from us,” she says.

A single mother of a teenaged son, Lynch bristles at the criticisms and cat-calls leveled toward state employees by right-wing politicians and the mainstream media:

“I do get mad when I hear somebody saying state workers are overpaid or that anybody could do our jobs. At CJTS, we are taking care of other people’s children.”

“Not for one second,” said Tina. “I love my job. I take care of 5 floors including 3 living floors, lounges, kitchens, laundry rooms and 10 bathrooms. But more than that, I take care of the students. When the parents drop them off, they know they are leaving their kids in a clean and healthy environment and that makes me proud.”

Asked if Tina is frustrated by the overblown media reports about state employee wages and benefits, she said “I certainly am not in this for the money. I work 37.5 hours of physical work a week for $17.16 an hour before the costs for benefits are taken out. I’m definitely not making $65,000 a year like the papers said. State employees are just trying to provide for our families like everyone else. And we pay for our benefits too. I pay $70 every two weeks for medical coverage and 3% of my pay goes toward my retirement. I’m tired of the false blame being placed on public service workers.”

Connecticut State Trooper First Class Kenneth Ray Hall, 57, of Hartford, beloved husband of Sheila Lorraine (Ramsey) Hall, died in the line of duty on Thursday, September 2, 2010. Born in West Palm Beach, Florida on August 15, 1953, son of Rosa Lee (Murray) Hall of Willingboro, New Jersey and the late Curly B. Hall, he was raised in Alabama and New Jersey and graduated from John F. Kennedy High School in Willingboro, New Jersey.

After high school, Kenneth enlisted in the United States Marine Corps and served during Vietnam as a sniper. Upon his discharge after 13 years of service, he attended the Connecticut State Police Academy and graduated on September 2, 1988 and began his career as a Connecticut State Trooper at Troop L in Litchfield. In 1990, Ken was transferred to Troop D, and then in 1992, he was transferred to Troop E where he served in patrol operations. In 1993, he was promoted to Trooper First Class and served in Central District Traffic and Traffic Services Unit. He also served at the Connecticut State Police Training Academy as an adjunct instructor and was assigned to many specialized details including Presidential details and other VIP protection assignments.

Ken loved his work and was very proud to be a United States Marine and a Connecticut State Trooper. In his spare time, he loved being outdoors and was an avid hunter. He was passionate about physical fitness and was a competitive power lifter while serving in the Marines and was known as “Suntan Superman”. During his career, he won over 100 trophies for power lifting and broke several records. Ken also excelled in martial arts and was a third degree black belt in Tae Kwon Do.

While at home, he enjoyed playing Blues and Jazz music on his guitar, cooking and grilling for his family and friends and spending time with his wife, children and grandchildren. He was a member of the. Kingdom Hall of Jehovah’s Witnesses on Tower Avenue in Hartford, and participated in mission work all over the Hartford area.

“We’ve still got to look out for each other,” Lucas said when asked about his continuing union activism two decades after he retired from the Connecticut Department of Transportation. “I learned that lesson when I was just a kid fighting in the fields of France.”

Hoover or FDR? The Choice is in Our Hands

Everyone agrees that we are in the midst of the worst economic crisis since the 1930s. Demand for goods and services — except for government services — is way down, and since people and businesses are not spending, businesses are laying-off or not hiring workers or cutting their wages and benefits. Very much like what happened after the stock market crash of 1929.

Though I was just a young boy at the time, I remember what it was like growing up in Bridgeport in the Great Depression. I remember the divide between those who believed in President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s “New Deal” plan to get America working again and the corporate elite who opposed it, saying that cutting government spending was the answer.

History proved who had the better plan for our country.

By the time I enlisted in the Army in 1942, America was well on its way to recovery. When I returned to Connecticut four years later, the nation had begun building the strongest economy in world history, leading to 50 years of prosperity and an unprecedented expansion of the middle class.

That divide emerged again two years ago when the current crisis erupted. Some political leaders and representatives of the very well-to-do began saying that we could cut our way out of a recession. Like the tycoons and financiers of the past, they claimed that if we just lowered government spending, everything would be all right.

These new voices have proposed reductions in infant nutrition services, nursing home care for seniors, support for towns and cities and local public schools, and cuts in wages and benefits for public service workers.

The other side of the divide is lead by economists and working families, who learned from my generation how we pulled ourselves out of the Great Depression.

The economists tell us cuts that in public services and reductions in spending during a crisis like this is exactly the wrong thing to do. It lowers demand for goods and services in the private economy. Lower demand means less hiring and a prolonged crisis.

And working families are beginning to recall what my generation did to address the crisis of falling wages in the 1930 and 40s. Workers came together from across all sectors of the economy and built unions to secure livable wages and a shot a better future.

But the answers we found to solve the Great Depression were not inevitable. The prevailing wisdom of the day was exemplified by President Herbert Hoover’s program of cuts.

And the prevailing reaction to workers coming together in unions was disdain, court injunctions, and even violence. As millionaire industrialist Jay Gould had suggested a half century earlier, defenders of the status quo did everything they could to divide working families, to “pay one half to kill the other.”

It took the courage and vision of millions of American workers, and the wisdom and backbone of leaders like FDR to make these answers real.

The current generation is coming together once again. State public service workers came forward last year with $700 million in cost savings — 10 times more than the budget eventually asked from those making over a million dollars a year, when compared as a percentage of income.

State workers made clear they were sacrificing in the hope of spurring long-term solutions, and not just for closing the budget gap. They expected to contribute to a real plan for protecting services, jump-starting the economy, and helping to create private sector jobs.

But instead of learning from her parents’ generation, Governor M. Jodi Rell seems to have taken her cue from Herbert Hoover. Rather than ask the wealthiest 1% who invest pay less than 5% of their income in state and local taxes to contribute the same 10% as the rest of Connecticut’s working families, she has offered a program premised on cuts.

And some of the rhetoric from the governor’s allies who are pushing for cuts is nothing less than scapegoating public service employees.

These workers, like their friends and neighbors in the private sector, have made sacrifices during this recession. Of course they resist giving up far more than their fair share when so little is asked of the very rich.

The days of hiring half the working class to kill the other may be over, but attempts to con half into blaming the other for a down economy apparently aren’t. Warren Buffet said it: “There’s class warfare, all right; but it’s my class, the rich class, that’s making war, and we’re winning.”

It’s time for Connecticut’s families, who have been losing that war, to come together and win.

Michael Lucas, Jr.

Michael retired as transportation driver from Fairfield Hills Hospital in 1989. He is currently the Vice-President of the Retirees Council in CSEA/SEIU Local 2001, one of the thirteen unions in the State Employee Bargaining Agent Coalition (SEBAC).

Bernie Vignali, Occupational Safety Consultant

I’ve worked in the Occupational Health and Safety Administration in the Connecticut Department of Labor for 25 years.

As a safety and health consultant I provide on site safety and health services to small businesses in manufacturing, medical facilities, contactors. I cover issues concerning OSHA regulations and how the company provides employees with a safe work environment. Helping companies reduce long term safety and health costs.

Barbara Dempsey, Retired RN on Call Back

I’m a retired RN on Call Back, working for the Department of Developmental Services. I worked for 33 years before retirement, and have worked for 6 more since being called back.

I work with 67 citizens who have mental and physical disabilities needing nursing services along with physical therapy and occupational therapy.

Cutting public services would cut the care citizens need.

And now, with the economy getting worse and worse, the timing couldn’t be worse — more people than ever will be using public services to keep themselves and their families healthy.

“Connecticut’s public higher education, especially its community colleges, are a great value and have incredible benefits for students, employers and the community. We prepare students for jobs, which feed back into the state and community.”

-Lorraine Li

Lorraine Li, Assistant Professor, Gateway Community College

Lorraine Li is an Assistant Professor of Economics at Gateway Community College.

Education is a key component to keeping our state on track during this economic crisis. People don’t stop depending on public services just because the Governor is cutting back. In fact, cutting public services is the worst thing that can be done in this economy.

Cutting public services will lead to a downward economic spiral that will take much longer to recover from if we cannot keep our heads above water. It’s time for Governor Rell and the state legislature to throw people a life preserver, not an anchor.

“Supporting public services is essential because these services help everyone. In my particular job as a probation officer if cuts are made, it affects community protection. Less employees equals less community supervision of offenders which leads to more crime and victimization of the community.”

-Thomas O’Neill

Tom O'Neill, Probation Officer, Hartford Adult Probation

Thomas O’Neill is a probation officer working
in Hartford Adult Probation.

He supervises individuals sentenced by the court to probation. Thomas monitors their criminal activity, therapy, counseling, community service and employment. Community protection is a vital part of his job.

Public safety is a core service provided by Connecticut’s public employees. Let’s work to insure it continues.

“I appreciate the Governor being so concerned about the welfare of the people of our state and I hope that translates to taking care of all our state’s citizens. But how do we take care of our citizens if government is cutting the services they depend on us to provide?”

-Susan McKinley

Susan McKinley, Social Worker, Connecticut Valley Hospital

Susan McKinley is a social worker in the Department of Mental Health and Addiction Services, working at Connecticut Valley Hospital in Middletown.

Everyone agrees we have an obligation to provide proper care for our state’s most vulnerable populations — young children, senior citizens, the disabled and the mentally ill. Even when they economy is tough, we can’t ask those groups to fend for themselves.

But if we’re really as committed to our children, to our parents and granparents, and to the disabled as as we say, we shouldn’t allow the programs they depend on to disappear.

They’re too important.

“Many of our students are returning to update their skills or change fields and it’s important for us to have a skilled, trained workforce that’s ready when the economy improves.”

- Michele Ganon

Michele Ganon, Associate Professor, Western CT State University

Michele is an Associate Professor at Western Connecticut State University where she teaches classes in accounting, taxes and finance. She has taught there for seventeen years.

A strong higher education system is even more crucial during hard times like these — and not just for kids right out of high school. People who lose their jobs can often go back to school and learn new skills so that when the economy picks up again, they can get back on their feet.

If we want our state to have the kind of highly skilled, flexible workforce, and to be the kind of place where employers know they can find the right kind of employees, we need to protect and support higher education.