The striking workers marched along the sidewalk in front of the capitol building with SEIU 1199 yellow and purple flags and signs that read, “On strike, be fair to those who care,” while the city traffic honked horns in support of the strikers.

The minimum wage for long-term care workers is currently at $17.25 per hour, a wage that has not kept pace with the current price increases.

“When you figure in for inflation, the $17.25 is less than what we were making 20 years ago, and we weren’t making anything 20 years ago either,” said longtime SEIU 1199 union member Clark Peters.

Because of low wages and little to no benefits, some long-term care workers are working more than 60 hours a week just to make ends meet.

The state is sitting on a $3.1 billion surplus for the year according to the CT Mirror. Representatives are expected to approve the states biennial budget on June 7.

The long-term care workers are expecting $400 million in additional Medicaid funding to be allocated to their field of work.

#HartfordCT #SEIU

Hartford, CT – On November 20, a dozen protesters rallied in front of the Hartford Supreme Court building to protest the mass evictions happening across Connecticut. The protest centered around Governor Ned Lamont’s inability to protect renters from evictions during the ongoing pandemic. There is a new bill requiring landlords to provide tenants with 30 days’ removal notice, being disguised as a continuation of the stay on evictions. Other issues included cancelling rent payments and investing in the community instead of police. “Cancel the rents, evictions must end,” chanted the protesters.

“The main message was clear: to deny people access to something as fundamental as shelter at any time, let alone during a massive pandemic is unacceptable and shameful,” said Benjamin Segal-Morris, a senior member of UCONN UNCHAIN, “to demand anything less than the bare minimum of ‘no evictions during the pandemic’ shows an intense lack of humanity of those involved.”

Over the course of the afternoon, activists’ calls were affirmed by the Hartford community honking from their cars or stopping to sit in with protesters. This culminated with a call for state legislators to put a stop on eviction hearings until the pandemic is over, and to end police involvement in tenant removals.

The protest was organized by UCONN UNCHAIN, Connecticut DSA, and community members.

#HartfordCT #HousingStruggles #Evictions