As you may have heard, Governor Chafee opposed the 38 Studios deal.

After Curt Schilling’s game company collapsed into bankruptcy last spring, Chafee asked for the resignations of every R.I. Economic Development Corporation board member who voted in 2010 to approve the company’s $75 million taxpayer-guaranteed loan.

Nearly all the members complied in one way or another, with one noteworthy exception: George Nee, president of the Rhode Island AFL-CIO and the leading voice of organized labor in the state. Nee didn’t resign and continued to attend board meetings despite Chafee’s request.

And on Thursday it was Nee – not Chafee – who got the last word: the governor just nominated the union leader for another term on the struggling board, along with four other new members.

(more…)

Rhode Island AFL-CIO President George Nee says the CEO of Steward Health Care System, Landmark Medical Center’s would-be buyer, is wrong to criticize Attorney General Peter Kilmartin for his attempts to mediate the company’s dispute with Blue Cross & Blue Shield of Rhode Island.

“I don’t think it’s fair to the attorney general at all,” Nee told WPRI.com on Tuesday. “Having been sitting there, I don’t think it’s fair. But I don’t want to say too much because I want to see if I can maintain a good relationship and dialogue.”

Nee and Kilmartin, a first-term Democrat, started working together last month in an effort to resolve the Steward-Blue Cross dispute and keep the struggling Woonsocket hospital’s sale on track. Nee said he was asked to get involved in the talks by Chris Callaci, the lawyer for the nurses union at Landmark.

(more…)

Nee, left, Raimondo and Chafee

By Ted Nesi

PROVIDENCE, R.I. (WPRI) - Treasurer Gina Raimondo is urging lawmakers to reject a little-noticed proposal by Governor Chafee to shave $2.6 million off the amount taxpayers must put into the pension fund next year.

The governor’s proposed 2012-13 budget would scrap a seven-year-old law mandating that if the state’s required pension contribution rate falls from one year to the next, taxpayers must put 20% of the reduction into the pension fund anyway.

Raimondo said her staff examined the requirement while crafting last year’s pension overhaul. ”After thoughtful analysis, Treasury concluded that the policy should remain in effect and therefore did not recommend a change to this statute,” she wrote in a letter to House Finance Committee Chairman Helio Melo obtained by WPRI.com.

Rhode Island AFL-CIO President George Nee praised Raimondo’s position. “The labor movement appreciates the treasurer weighing in on the side of our members,” he said in an email. “The present law is sound fiscal policy and should remain unchanged.”

(more…)

Josh Barro of Forbes argues Chafee’s embrace of far-reaching changes to how cash-strapped municipal governments operate is part of a larger trend:

Chafee is coming out for mandate reform for the same reason that mayors like Chicago’s Rahm Emanuel and Los Angeles’s Antonio Villaraigosa are aggressively pushing pension reform. A majority of the typical local government budget consists of compensation costs. States and localities face significant political and economic barriers to collecting new revenue. When budgets get squeezed, the practical choice is often between reining in compensation costs per employee or cutting back on service delivery.

For politicians who care about providing high-quality government services, public employee compensation reforms have become the best available option.

Bob Plain of Rhode Island’s Future thinks I missed a crucial distinction between Chafee’s ideas and Carcieri’s:

[T]he big difference is Chafee’s bottom-up approach. Carcieri’s proposal was a blanket exemption to every municipality and Chafee’s is need-based. RI Future has held the former governor’s feet to the fire for cutting so much money from cities and towns that had so little. So did Chafee earlier this week.

Here’s hoping that Chafee’s proposal sparks a big debate in the General Assembly about the disparity between the haves and have-not communities in Rhode Island as this is arguably the biggest affliction affecting the entire state.

Monique Chartier of Anchor Rising thinks it’s foolish that some of the savings would go into pension funds:

Many cities and towns do not have the revenue to properly fund their pension plans. Some cities and towns do not have the revenue to maintain day to day operations, much less try to make up underfunded and very generous pensions. Accordingly, how could they have the money to reinvest, exclusively or otherwise, into their pension systems?

The Projo reports labor leaders are not happy:

Governor Chafee’s proposal to let financially distressed cities and towns make significant changes to union contracts represents a “fundamental assault” on the labor movement’s “core values,” according to George H. Nee, president of the state AFL-CIO. …

[James Parisi, lobbyist for the Rhode Island Federation of Teachers and Health Professionals] said giving certain cities and towns the ability to freeze annual salary increases for teachers and change medical benefits were particularly offensive, considering local chapters have, over the years, made concessions in their contract negotiations. …

Paul L. Valletta Jr., lobbyist for the State Association of Fire Fighters, said the proposal essentially allows executives of financially distressed cities and towns to “rip up” collectively-bargained union contracts.

“I actually thought this governor thought more of working men and women of this state,” he said. “This opens up everything. There are no protections anymore.”

And in case you missed it earlier this morning, my take is that Chafee sounds a lot like Carcieri:

Chafee’s pitch on Thursday sounded much like his predecessor’s in December 2009. ”I urge the General Assembly to pass the municipal tools articles immediately upon returning to session,” Carcieri said. “There is no need to debate them again this year. Pass them and free the cities and towns to manage their own budgets.”

Gov. Lincoln Chafee will work to block efforts by the state’s top labor leader to repeal a new law that protects bondholders from incurring losses if they loaned money to Central Falls and other bankrupt cities.

The Rhode Island AFL-CIO will submit legislation when the General Assembly returns in January that would scrap the law, union president George Nee said Wednesday at a Greater Providence Chamber of Commerce breakfast.

The law – which The Wall Street Journal said makes Rhode Island “a bondholder’s dream” – guarantees investors will get paid back even if a community files for Chapter 9, giving them a right to tax revenue that other creditors, like pensioners, don’t have. Chafee signed the first-of-its-kind legislation on June 12.

Nee said the law is fundamentally unfair because it requires workers and retirees to bear the burden of restructuring insolvent municipalities without making investors who placed bad bets share in the pain. But Chafee spokeswoman Christine Hunsinger said the governor “is still incredibly supportive” of the policy.

“The governor does not feel that it only protects bondholders – he feels it protects the citizens of Rhode Island,” she said.

“What it does is protect the bond rating of the state by allowing bondholders to have that extra confidence that they will get paid,” Hunsinger said. “It’s a stopgap to keep the lowering of a municipal bond rating from affecting Rhode Island as a whole. The governor feels that it is a greater good, and would work to oppose repeal.”

Nee, left, with Raimondo, Chafee and White

By Ted Nesi

PROVIDENCE, R.I. (WPRI) – The state’s leading labor union will fight passage of the Raimondo-Chafee pension bill, especially the proposed freeze on cost-of-living adjustments and hike in the retirement age, its leader said Wednesday.

“This is the first time in our state, and one of the first times in the country, where benefit reductions … have happened to people who are retired,” Rhode Island AFL-CIO President George Nee said. COLAs would disappear for 12 to 19 years until the plan is well-funded.

The bill would also raise the state retirement age to bring it in line with Social Security, which is 67 for workers born in 1960 or later. “It’s a major increase in the number of years that people are going to have to work,” Nee said.

The state will almost certainly face lawsuits in an effort to reverse the changes should they pass, Nee said, though it’s unclear whether unions could represent retirees in court or whether they’d have to band together on their own, as has happened in Central Falls.

Nee made his comments at a Greater Providence Chamber of Commerce Breakfast where he shared the stage with Governor Chafee and Treasurer Raimondo, less than 24 hours after the pair released their long-awaited pension bill.

Read the rest of this story »

(photo: Ted Nesi/WPRI)

I’m sure it won’t be long before organized labor’s opponents draw a connection between last Sunday’s crushing playoff loss and this news:

The New England Patriots are now members of the Rhode Island AFL-CIO, according to George Nee, the state president of the national labor organization.

“They affiliated all 53 members in all six states,” Nee said. “So now I have to figure out who the player rep is so that they can be on our executive board.”

Nee said the players have always been affiliated with the national AFL-CIO.

But “just recently the National Football Players Association decided that it would be advantageous to affiliate with the state and local federations. We just got notified two weeks ago. So the 53 [m]embers of the NE Patriots are now dues paying members of the Rhode Island AFL-CIO.”

(h/t: Providence Daily Dose)

Update: And credit where it’s due – I should have noted that the news was first reported by the Projo’s estimable Katherine Gregg. You can see why Kathy haunts my dreams as a fierce competitor for scoops.