Hartford Business Journal

8 HARTFORDBUSINESS.COM | FEBRUARY 10, 2025 POLITICS & POLICY legislative session. Williams was 39. "They're not his," Sanchez says of the Crocs, but they are meant as a memorial. "He was supposed to be co-chair of Labor, and he was really excited about the opportunity," Sanchez said. "I was going to move on to other committee assignments." Instead, Sanchez agreed to assume the role at the request of House Speaker Matt Ritter (D-Hartford). "Q would always tell me, 'You don't pass up on great opportunities and opportunities to serve the state,'" Sanchez said. For a man who was born in Hartford, and raised there and in New Britain by his mother after his parents divorced, it was another impressive achievement. It joined his earning a bachelor's degree in urban and community plan- ning from the University of Connecticut. "I wasn't a traditional student," Sanchez said. "I got my degree at (age) 27." As a child, he had attended the Benjamin E. Mays Institute at Fox Middle School, a boy's academy that provides mentors for adolescent Black males. There, his mentors included Sen. Douglas McCrory (D-Hartford) and state Rep. Bobby Gibson (D-Bloomfield). "They were instrumental in my educational journey," Sanchez said. He attended high school at the Watkinson School in West Hartford. That was followed by working as an instructor at the Opportunities Indus- trialization Center (OIC), the oldest employment and training program in New Britain. "They took a chance on me, but they saw a skill set," he said. He eventually left OIC to work at Goodwin University in East Hartford, where he served as the employer Lamont's budget plan raises R&D tax credit to 90% A ddressing a room of bioscience executives and state officials, Gov. Ned Lamont said he believes the industry is "invaluable to the future of the state," and he wants to boost the research and development tax credit to make Connecticut more competitive. He also asked for the execu- tives' help in getting prescription drug prices under control. Lamont was the keynote speaker for the 2025 legisla- tive breakfast in New Haven presented by BioCT, a nonprofit that supports and serves as the voice for the state's bioscience industry. He told the gathering of about 200 people he is a strong supporter of the bioscience industry, which he wants to grow in the state. To help with that, Lamont's budget proposal increases the R&D tax credit cap from 65% to 90% — a move the governor said would make the state "much more competitive." Connecticut offers a broadly available R&D credit based on nonincremental or incremental research and development spending. The state currently allows corporations to use R&D credits to reduce up to 65% of their corporation business tax liability. Gov. Ned Lamont speaks during BioCT's 2025 legislative breakfast in New Haven. HBJ PHOTO | DAVID KRECHEVSKY Hard Labor Continued from page 7 relations coordinator. He also, at the age of 22, became a New Britain city councilman, a position he held for 10 years. In January 2018, he was hired by the University of Hartford as a development officer, and in 2020, he was promoted to senior development officer. Sanchez says his school and work experience have made him an open-minded legislator. "I like to say that everybody is welcome to my table," he said. "I never want to just take a one-sided view." As for the idea that the committee should favor workers, he says he agrees, but only to a point. "If educa- tion takes up education issues, labor is labor related," he said. "So, that literally has been my focus." He added, however, that the focus doesn't eliminate his responsibility to talk to businesses to determine how bills could affect them. "I think that's also my responsibility to have those conversations," he said. 'A false premise' There are those who disagree with the idea that the committee should be weighted toward labor. That includes Chris DiPentima, president and CEO of the CBIA. While he says his organization's relationship with the Labor co-chairs over the past few years has been "as good as it ever has been in my five years at CBIA," there is still a need to translate that into legislation that better balances supporting workers while growing the workforce and making the state more affordable. DiPentima said neither the striking workers bill nor the warehouse bill, which would regulate the use of production quotas for warehouse workers, accomplish those goals. "Warehouse businesses are growing," DiPentima said. "It's one of the top-growing businesses in Connecticut post-pandemic. So, Sen. Julie Kushner (D-Danbury) said the state's paid family and medical leave program helps small businesses compete with big corporations that offer more benefits. HBJ PHOTO | DAVID KRECHEVSKY why would we look to pass bills that would stymie that growth?" Rep. Steve Weir (R-Hebron), a ranking Republican on the Labor Committee, also disagrees with the co-chairs about the committee's mission. "I think it's a false premise," he said of the need for legislation to be weighted toward workers. In fact, he believes Democrats on the committee generally push legislation that favors unionized workers. "A lot of these concepts have nothing to do with the nonunion sector," he said. "So, if we're really being honest about what it means to protect employees, we would include all of them, not just certain ones that pay union dues." To make his point, he cited a comment that Senate President Pro Tem Martin M. Looney (D-New Haven) made about the warehouse bill during a Jan. 15 news conference about Senate Democrats' top labor priorities for this session. "Well, I think, clearly, if a union were in place, these practices would not be allowed to go on, and we hope at some point soon, unions will be in place," Looney said. "And I think that in cases like this, it points out why unions are needed, but in the absence of that, when we see a real need and an abuse going on, in some circum- stances we can't wait for unioniza- tion, the state has to take action, as we hope to do now." "I think it sends a bad message that we're going to hone in on an industry, and we're going to target that industry," Weir said. "Obviously, the goal is to get these Amazon workers unionized," he added. "If the Amazon workers want to be unionized, let them. We should not be encouraging or discouraging it." DiPentima agrees, saying unions in the state carry far more influence than they should. He said unionized workers make up less than 20% of the state's workforce, and less than 10% of the population. In fact, according to a recent report from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, 16.5% of the state's 1.634 million employed residents were union members in 2024, up from 15.9% in 2023. "A lot of the pro-workplace bills that have been approved the past five or six years — including minimum wage increases, paid sick leave, captive audience — were intended to make Connecticut a more family-friendly place," DiPentima said. "But it may also explain why over the past 12 months, Connecticut's job growth was just 0.6%, which is 46th best in the country." He continued, "So, our job growth has been small and the legisla- tion has not had the intended effect. They haven't driven the people to Connecticut to grow the workforce."

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