McKinney Blames Paid Sick Days For Manufacturing Losses

From WTNH:

Unilever announced Thursday that they will be closing their Clinton plant, leaving nearly 200 people out of work. The plant will be closed by the end of 2012, the company said in a written statement. The move will affect 49 salaried and 135 hourly employees.

"It is regrettable, but not surprising that Connecticut businesses are choosing to move jobs and opportunity to other states. As Unilever clearly stated, Connecticut is simply too expensive. This year, Governor Malloy and legislative Democrats have made it even more expensive to do business in Connecticut by passing the largest tax increase in state history, doubling the corporate tax surcharge, and imposing costly new mandates such as paid sick leave. We need to reverse these trends in order to have any chance at putting Connecticut's unemployed back to work," says Senate Minority Leader, John McKinney in a written statement.

Jon Green, Executive Director at Connecticut Working Families, released the following statement in response to Senator John McKinney's remarks on the closing of the Unilever plant in Clinton, CT:

Senator McKinney’s comments about the closing of the Unilever plant are just plain dishonest. He knows that the paid sick days law does not apply to manufacturers like Unilever.

Senator McKinney's political rhetoric has never created a single job in Connecticut. In his years as one of Connecticut’s most powerful politicians he has watched thousands of jobs leave our state without contributing a single honest and useful idea to remedy this situation. Instead he delights in each new announcement of job losses as an opportunity to score cheap political points.

Jon Green's remarks may be a little over the top, as McKinney was just throwing paid sick days in as to the environment in Connecticut, not specifically blaming it for the loss of jobs. McKinney has a history of blaming paid sick leave for manufacturing job losses, however, even though the law doesn't apply. So Green's being perturbed is understandable.

Also, McKinney attacking Malloy and the Democrats for raising taxes is beyond disingenuous. The huge deficits created during the Rowland/Rell Republican administrations had to be addressed in some way, and the tax increases passed were the least possible.