The chief steward at the state's toughest prison is asking a fellow union official to tone down his criticism of the savings-and-concession deal reached with Gov. Dannel P. Malloy.
Kevin Brace, the steward at the Northern Correctional Institute, wrote a letter to Moises Padilla, an outspoken union leader in Cheshire, to say that he should not have made critical comments before all of the correctional officers had voted in all union locals around the state.
"I believe our union made a huge mistake by voting the SEBAC agreement down,'' Brace wrote. "It was our members' self-imposed ignorance that kept them away from the informational meetings that we held. Meetings that if you had attended might have put your apprehensions to rest.''
Brace specifically complained that Padilla talked about the deal before the correctional officers in his union, Local 391 in northern Connecticut, had a chance to cast their ballots. As such, Brace said, "We never got a chance for a fair vote in our local.''
Brace added, "I am pleading with you to please stop talking to the press about SEBAC, and to let things work themselves out. I am not censoring your right to free speech. I am just pointing out to you that sometimes the best intentions don't always produce the best results. I shudder to think about all of my co-workers who are going to be without jobs and the impact that it will have on all of our safety. I am dreading the days that I will have to spend at Johnson Memorial Hospital comforting the victims and the families of these assaults. Because at the end of the day, what good is the money if you don't make it home to spent it?''
Padilla could not immediately be reached for a response to Brace's two-page letter, but he remained outspoken in a recent interview with Capitol Watch by ripping the SEBAC leadership for blaming the failure of the deal, in part, on the conservative Yankee Institute.
"The Yankee Institute had nothing to do with it,'' Padilla said. "I knew all along they were looking for a scapegoat, and they found one in the Yankee Institute. It's the joke around the institution. We blame everything on the Yankee Institute. It's a running joke now.''