About 60 employees -- center's cleaning and maintenance staffs -- lost their jobs Wednesday, according to those on the picket lines.

"It's called union busting," said Brookfield's Ed Burke, the former chief engineer for the building's maintenance crews, who worked at the center for more than 20 years. "They didn't give us anything. They just walked us out of the building."

Burke, who has a wife and two children, said he doesn't know what he's going to do. His wife is a stay-at-home mom.

"There just aren't any jobs out there anymore," he said, adding that he also lost his and his family's health benefits.

The former employees said they were walked off the job by security guards Wednesday afternoon, less than an hour after the sale of the building to Matrix Group Realty of New York.

"This is disgusting," said Courtney Hibert, an employee of one of the building's tenants. "It's not right. Now all these people are out of a job. Nobody will be able to take care of the building like they did."

[...]

Former employees said there were rumors months ago that their jobs were on the line as a result of the sale. Their positions were posted on Monster.com -- a popular job posting Web site -- this spring.

Several of the employees who lost their jobs said they had sent their resumes to the new owner by registered mail but received no response.

[...]

An official with the International Union of Operating Engineers Local 30, which represents the 10 maintenance workers who lost their jobs, said they plan to file a complaint with the National Labor Relations Board alleging unfair labor practices.

"This is union busting and it's against the law," said Tony Calandrino, the union's business representative for the state. "They didn't even give these people a chance to interview for their own positions."

Mayor Mark Boughton said he toured the facility with the new owner a couple of months ago and expressed his concern that the employees be accommodated.
"Ultimately they have their business model and will manage the property the best way they know how," Boughton said Thursday.

...The Brookfield Town Treasurer has been unavailable to discuss the Brookfield Town Pension Plan. For months on end. Even though the town has been paying him $1,000 a month to be treasurer. Incommunicado.

Unavailable since December 2008. People have been dead longer folks.

In the fall of 2008 he assured everyone in a Brookfield Journal interview that the pension fund was secure in "government securities" (See Brookfield Journal, Oct 17th edition) and not subject to losses. Fat chance.

Information is now “leaking’ that the fund is actually down from $24 million to about $19 million, but since nothing has been shared with Freedom of Information requests that are months and months old that is only unofficial. Why unofficial?

OOPS!

While that is certainly no disaster given the current economic down turn, having reported to neither the Board of Finance nor the Board of Selectmen since late 2008, (over six months) certainly is. And his annual treasurers report, printed for the annual town meeting, alleges that the town has a 5 year financial plan. Questions at the public Board of Finance meeting and to the First Selectman all came back with a resounding "No Such Thing".

[...]

Keep in mind that the only a single person, with a tax lien on their property, is managing and signing checks for the tens of millions of dollars of funds entrusted to his financial management acumen.

[...]

Only the Brookfield Town controller (currently a vacant position), the subject of an earlier columns and the Brookfield Town Treasurer currently have “control” over the employees payroll deductions made to the pension fund as well as the towns contribution.

Remember, just because you don't pay the taxes you owe the town for years, doesn't mean the Republican Party won't endorse you...Vote for RepubliCrat-endorsed candidates in November 2009 and get More-of-the-Same for More-of-YOUR-Money!

Answers, not excuses. Results, not rhetoric.