Hundreds of people turned out on Monday outside the governor’s mansion in Hartford to support a bill that would provide striking workers unemployment benefits — a demonstration that allegedly led to a billboard truck being damaged.
The rally was organized to push Gov. Ned Lamont to sign Senate Bill 8. Lamont vetoed a similar bill last year and has said he will veto it again. Calling it a tool to prevent strikes, union leaders say that allowing for workers to access unemployment benefits during a strike “levels the playing field” and serves as an incentive for companies with far greater resources to bargain with workers instead of trying to “starve them out.”
During the demonstration, a digital billboard truck operated by Yankee Institute was allegedly vandalized, according to Andrew Fowler, a spokesperson for Yankee Institute.
The vehicle displayed messages that were critical of the bill. Fowler alleged that the vehicle was struck by rocks. He also claimed that witnesses reported seeing rally-goers attempting to pry off the screen.
“Now, the vendor who owns the truck is reconsidering doing business in Connecticut,” Fowler said in a statement.
“There is no place for intimidation, violence or silencing in our political discourse,” Carol Platt Liebau, president of Yankee Institute, said in a statement. “We call on elected officials in our state to join us in telling union leaders and lawmakers — especially those who attended the protest — to reject this conduct, loudly and forcefully.”
According to Yankee Institute, legislators at the demonstration included Democratic Reps. Nick Gauthier and Steve Winter and Republican Rep. Tom Delnicki.
“Unions hold a lot of power in our state,” Liebau said. “But their privilege shouldn’t extend to being able to silence messages they oppose through intimidation and vandalism. That sort of behavior only reinforces that Connecticut is a risky place to do business.”
Officials with Yankee Institute are calling on union leadership to identify who was responsible for the damages and pay for them.
“If union officials and our elected leaders truly believe in fairness and the free exchange of ideas, now is the time to prove it,” Liebau said. “The damage didn’t just strengthen our resolve — it exposed the weakness of their arguments. When people resort to intimidation and violence, that’s not strength. That’s desperation.”
But Ed Hawthorne, president of the Connecticut AFL-CIO, was surprised by the allegations and narrative account of the rally.
“There were over 500 union members, multiple police offices and no complaints filed,” he said Tuesday afternoon. “It was a peaceful protest.”
“There was a mobile billboard that pulled up, it parked across the street in a no-parking zone briefly and once they parked, union members went around it, turned their back and held their signs so you couldn’t see the billboard,” Hawthorne said.
The driver of the truck asked the protesters to move, which they did, and then the truck moved down the road, Hawthorne said.
“If a rock was thrown at the truck we would have heard it. Everything would have stopped and it would have been addressed,” he said. “We would have heard it, the cops would have heard it and it would have been addressed. The police had all our contact info and we didn’t hear a word so I was shocked when we heard (the vandalism allegations) because it was a peaceful protest.”
Instead Hawthorne said the protest was filled with solidarity of workers coming together “to fight against the Trump administration’s attack on working people” and to lobby for another tool he said would level the playing field for workers seeking a fair contract.
The bill would allow striking workers to access unemployment insurance after being on strike for two weeks.
“We thank the State House of Representatives for courageously standing with working people across Connecticut in spite of the Governor’s veto threat,” Ed Hawthorne, president of the Connecticut AFL-CIO, said in a statement. “We are very grateful to Speaker Ritter, Majority Leader Rojas, Labor & Public Employees Committee Co-Chair Sanchez, and all the state representatives who helped pass this pro-worker legislation.
“The passage of this bill in both chambers with a bipartisan vote marks a critical victory for working people in our state,” Hawthorne said. “For too long, working families have had to choose between exercising their legal right to strike for fair treatment and putting food on the table.”
In a statement issued last month, Hawthorne contended Lamont “has once again sided with corporate CEOs over the hardworking people of Connecticut.”
“This legislation would provide a safety net for working people who are standing up for fair wages and safe working conditions,” Hawthorne said. “Similar laws have been on the books for years in New York and New Jersey and they have not experienced longer or more frequent strikes. In fact, Washington State recently passed a comparable bill, and nine other states provide unemployment insurance to striking workers in some circumstances.
“This veto threat sends a clear message: Gov. Lamont is more concerned with protecting corporate profits than supporting the working people who make our economy run,” Hawthorne added.