One Two Punch - Christie Subverts Labor, Divided Government At Same Time

by: KendalJames

Tue Mar 01, 2011 at 07:04:57 PM EST

Today's Star Ledger reports on Mintz's January termination, the first ever of its kind in state history. Because while the administration dismissed the firing as the kind of standard deck-shuffling that comes with new state leadership, nothing could be further form the truth.

"I think that my termination is directly related to my work on collective bargaining for public employees in New Jersey," Mintz told Blue Jersey. "The administration didn't like the neutral and independent results in recent PERC decisions." Specifically, Mintz and some of his colleagues believe that the firing came as a result of a decision made by PERC last year; the Council opposed Christie's attempt to void an agreement, made by Corzine administration, in which employees would work on Lincoln's birthday in exchange for no work the day after Thanksgiving. For whatever reason, the governor opposed this.

In other words, Mintz's firing was retaliation for ....

contiune reading below

I think he fired a warning shot. All the PERC professional staff now know that if they issue decisions that the administration doesn't like, they can be terminated. None of the lawyers or professional decision makers at PERC have any form of legal job security. So they're all technically at-will employees, and if the administration doesn't like a decision, that person can be fired just like I was... they're all looking over their shoulders as a result of this action.

It's a lot to consider- so let's take Governor Christie's attitude toward independent bodies and divided government, and get it out of the way. After all, we all know that Chris Christie would love to be a totalitarian if he could - just ask former Justice John Wallace, Public Defender Yvonne Smith Segars, the State Commission of Investigation and Lord knows who else. The tea leaves are easy to read - Chris Christie doesn't respect divided government and the independence of neutral bodies. Mintz says:

I think that's quite clear. The quotes associated with his decision to not re-nominate Justice Wallace are directly related to the decision that he said he didn't like. So I'm assuming that this is a similar termination - there is no other basis for my being terminated. I wasn't given a reason for being let go - simply that, like the administration said in the Star Ledger today, this is what happens typically. But it's not at all typical - I've worked through Republican and Democratic administrations alike, and this is the first administration that ever terminated a career professional for political reasons. This is new and different, and this is an assault on the independence and neutrality of PERC.

Which would be bad enough. But the timing is difficult to ignore; in context, this all smacks of an attempt to cripple labor - at a time when that's THE thing to do if you're an ambitious Republican. So the politicization of PERC - this warning shot sent across their bow in the firing of Ira Mintz - is a critical component of Chris Christie's attack on public worker unions: the destruction of PERC as a place that independently and neutrally oversees public sector collective bargaining. Such an event would pave the way for any number of unfair labor practices to be foisted upon workers throughout New Jersey. (It also meshes perfectly with last week's assessment by Charlie Stile of The Record that Christie's strategy is to short-circuit collective bargaining instead of attacking it outright.)

"What happened here is the administration didn't like the results of the game. So instead of fighting harder, or working harder, or reorganizing their team, they fired the referee," said Mintz. "Governor Christie has been set up as being different from the kinds of attacks that have been going on against collective bargaining rights in places like Wisconsin and Ohio and Indiana. I think this points out that while it may not be a frontal attack in the same way, it's an end run on the collective bargaining system."

"I'm not going to compare Governor Christie to other governors." Mintz paused. "But all is not well in New Jersey's collective bargaining system."