Charlie Baker: The Faker

After eight years of working in state government, Charlie Baker told the Boston Globe that his greatest regret was that he had not done more to communicate with organized labor. Now that he is running for Governor he has apparently forgotten his own advice, instead choosing to vilify unions in his ads and campaign rhetoric to fire up the anti-union conservative base. Charlie Baker is more than willing to contribute to the damaging misrepresentation of unions and their members for the sake of political expediency. Read the quote directly below and then explore the rest of this page to see how “Baker the Faker” has ditched his principles and is attacking workers in order to get elected.

What was your greatest regret?  Baker: "I have a lot of those. I wish I worked harder to communicate with a lot of the folks in organized labor...just to work through stuff."

Click on an issue to read more on how Charlie Baker stands on it:

Project Labor Agreements

Pacheco Law

Health Care Costs

Collective Bargaining

Unemployment Insurance

Prevailing Wage

This is How Charlie Baker Plans to Communicate with Unions as Governor:

• Proposes laying off 5,000 state employees.

• Supports removing health care plan design from municipal collective bargaining agreements.

• Wants to eliminate the use of PLAs on any state construction project, and has been vehemently opposed to the UMass Boston Project Labor Agreement.

• Supports a complete repeal of the Pacheco Law, favors privatization in all areas of government.

• Supports anti-worker Unemployment Insurance reforms, such as requiring workers to work longer in order to be eligible to collect UI and cutting the length of time that laid off workers are eligible to collect.

• Plans on attacking public employee pensions.

• Recklessly proposes lowering sales tax to 5%, lowering state income tax to 5%, and drastically lowering corporate and business taxes.

• Chastised Governor Patrick for tapping into the state's rainy day fund, claiming that “it hasn’t even started raining.”

Maybe it hasn’t been raining on Charlie Baker and his millions, but for the over 300,000 unemployed workers in Massachusetts and the tens of thousands of people who can barely afford their healthcare, it sure has been raining…in fact it’s been pouring.

PROJECT LABOR AGREEMENTS / PREVAILING WAGE

  • # 1 on Charlie Baker's "Baker's Dozen", is to ban the use of Project Labor Agreements if he is elected.
  • Charlie Baker supports eliminating the prevailing wage requirement on public construction projects.
  • Banning the use of PLAs would result in more out-of-state workers on taxpayer funded construction projects and drag down community standard wages. PLA's ensure a high standard of safety and quality wages for workers on the job, and save taxpayers money by making sure projects are completed on-time and on-budget.
  • The prevailing wage law remains the best possible assurance that the entire community benefits from public construction. When workers are paid community standard wages, they spend that money in the local economy.

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THE PACHECO LAW

  • # 4 on Charlie Baker's "Baker's Dozen", is to repeal the Pacheco Law, in effect since 1993.
  • The Pacheco Law prevents the state from privatizing state jobs to private companies without the proper accountability measures.
  • Repealing the Pacheco Law would ultimately cost the state money over time, as private contractors hired to do state work raise their fees from year to year.

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HEALTH CARE COSTS

  • In 2009, Charlie Baker made almost $2 million. During Charlie's tenure as CEO of Harvard Pilgrim Healthcare, premiums rose nearly 150% on working families while Charlie's personal salary tripled. As unemployment continued to rise and the recession hit, Charlie's salary grew as he continued to raise premiums on working families across the Commonwealth.
  • Charlie Baker has stated he would not use the power of the Governor's office to deny unfair premium hikes from private insurers, as Governor Patrick has done.

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COLLECTIVE BARGAINING

  • Charlie Baker favors taking health care plan design out of municipal collective bargaining agreements.
  • Baker also favors legislation that would force municipal workers out of their current health care plans and into the state Group Insurance Commission, resulting in higher premiums and co-pays for working families.
  • Both of these measures do not take into account the wage concessions made over the years by municipal unions to maintain quality healthcare coverage.

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UNEMPLOYMENT INSURANCE

  • Charlie Baker has proposed increasing from 15 to 20 weeks the length of time you must work in order to be eligible to collect Unemployment Insurance.
  • Wants to cut the maximum length of Unemployment Insurance benefits from 30 to 26 weeks.
  • Charlie Baker's UI reforms would cut off benefits to over 12,000 laid off workers during the worst economy in a generation.
  • Baker joined Republicans to oppose federal legislation to extend unemployment benefits
  • Click here to download a Comparison between the Gubernatorial Candidates directed toward Unemployment Insurance by The Mass Building Trades

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PREVAILING WAGE

  • Baker would eliminate prevailing wage requirements on public construction projects
  • His running mate, Richard Tisei, filed an amendment to eliminate the prevailing wage on all projects under $1 million
  • Click here to download a Comparison between the Gubernatorial Candidates directed toward Prevailing Wage by The Mass Building Trades

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