Today is a major day for Democrats in Wisconsin. Earlier this year the party stood as one against an onslaught from Tea Party and rank and file Republicans against working Americans and public union members. As a result, the party and the grassroots were able to pull together and set up recall elections against enough state Senators to move control to the Democrats with three wins.
Once upon a time in the State of New Jersey, we had a situation where the public workers (of the state) such as teachers, nurses, police, and others were blatantly violating the laws of NJ by not contributing into their pension funds. In fact for 11 of the last 15 years, these irresponsible people paid ZERO DOLLARS into the funds. During this time the State of New Jersey has been paying its full share amount into each pension fund all along. Now the pension system is severely underfunded and it is time for those who have not been paying into the system to pay up. Why should the State/taxpayers have to make up the difference when these people were so irresponsible? Those who have been paying their fair share should not be made to bear the burden for the irresponsibility of those who did not.
In an admirable bipartisan spirit, Governor Chris Christie (Republican) has worked closely with Senate President Stephen Sweeney (Democrat) and Assembly Speaker Sheila Oliver (Democrat) to forge a Pension-Benefits Reduction Bill that will restore solvency to the pension system. This bill will hold those who have not paid their fair share responsible for restoring solvency to the system through additional deductions, reduced health care benefits, no cost of living increases for pensioners, the establishment of a board that would offer plans with fewer benefits as well as increased co-pays and prescriptions and most importantly the stripping of the unions' right to negotiate their health-care insurance coverage and contribution levels.
THE ONLY PROBLEM WITH THE ABOVE PARAGRAPHS IS THAT THE ROLES ARE EXACTLY REVERSED AND IT WAS THE STATE THAT WAS PAYING ZERO FOR 11 OUT OF THE LAST 15 YEARS. THE WORKERS WERE PAYING THEIR FAIR SHARE DURING THIS ENTIRE TIME! Unfortunately it is the workers who have been responsible all along that are now the victims of this bill.
So again, why should those who have been paying their fair share be made to bear the burden of the irresponsibility of those who did not? The pensioners will no longer receive cost-of-living increases until the system is "determined to be solvent". These are people who paid faithfully into the system their entire professional lives. While this might sound like a reasonable concession on the surface, if you look deeper, it will devastate this group. According to a well respected data site, shadowstats.org, the current annual inflation rate is 12% and is climbing. This means that pensioners will lose half their buying power in 4 years. In 8 to 12 years they will be living in poverty!
During the courtship of Governor Christie, Senator Sweeney and Sheila Oliver failed to strong arm their Democratic Caucuses to support the bill and were not successful at getting a majority to do so. However, in North Jersey (Essex area) and in Southern New Jersey, the very powerful party bosses were able to order enough Democrats to betray their principles, so that when combined with the Republican minority in both houses, the Pension-Benefits Reduction Bill was able to pass.
In a cynical move, to protect themselves from the inevitable backlash for their betrayal, the vote on this Pension-Benefits Reduction Bill was purposely withheld until after the primary elections had been completed and the deadline had passed for adding names to the coming election ballot.
This betrayal of organized labor by the South Jersey Democrats has ignited a firestorm among this core constituent group as well as others who recognize the injustice of making some pay for the irresponsibility of others. Meetings were called and the NJ Progressive Democrats of America (no affiliation to the Democratic Party) charted a strategy. During these meetings the Democratic legislators who betrayed their constituents were renamed "Christiecrats".
These Christiecrats claim that they are looking to make the fund solvent, but where were they during all the years the Democrats controlled the Senate and Assembly and the state was not making its contributions into the fund? Their silence was deafening.
On Monday, August 8, at the War Memorial in Trenton, the NJ Progressive Democrats of America will be starting a petition drive for the removal of Stephen Sweeney from the Senate Presidency and Sheila Oliver from the Assembly Speakership. The petition will be presented to NJ State Democratic Committee chair John Wisniewski.
In these times when public workers are under increasing attack by the corporate controlled media, it is important to remember that:
1. it was not the public workers who instigated multi $trillion bond fraud on Wall Street
2. it was not the public workers who lobbied for financial deregulation
3. it was not the public workers who gambled in derivatives with other peoples' money
4. it was not the public workers who accepted $billions in bailouts
5. it was not the public workers who paid themselves huge bonuses
6. it was not the public workers who brought the economy to its knees
Remember, the media will try to redirect your anger away from the Wall Street aristocracy. In a classic case of divide and conquer they will try to turn you against other middle class workers, and then place the question in your mind, "why does the bus mechanic who works for the state have full benefits?" WRONG QUESTION! You should be asking why you do not have them.
Update: I found this table of where and what the stopped projects are. All of NJ's are at the same emerging South Jersey airport; search the table for Atlantic City.
Nearly 650 South Jersey workers were furloughed over the weekend at the FAA William J. Hughes Technical Center near Atlantic City, as the FAA halted work on air travel infrastructure projects across the country. Construction workers. Planners. Engineers. All were sent home after Congress failed to pass legislation re-authorizing federal ticket taxes - these are used to fund building projects for facilities like new runways and new control towers and modernizing air traffic control systems. Nearly 4,000 FAA employees across the country are furloughed without pay. Plus 87,000 construction jobs stopped, across the US. To maintain a safety baseline, the shutdown can only be partial. Unaffected are air traffic controllers and safety inspectors, who will remain on the job. So will FAA employees who inspect planes and test pilots.
Today, senators Lautenberg and Menendez fired off a letter to Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell urging him to steer his GOP conference to resolution that gets FAA back up. Our senators peg Republicans in both the House and Senate for the failure. GOP lawmakers tacked on a list of provisions to a long-term spending bill for the FAA approved by the GOP-led House this spring. On that list is a GOP-driven proposal, sought by the airline industry, that would make it more difficult for airline workers to unionize.
And they're not budging, even as the FAA warns that grinding these projects to a halt could significantly increase their ultimate cost to taxpayers. Even though FAA's also unable to collect the full measure of taxes on airline tickets bought, depriving the government of revenue (with most airlines pocketing that as a bonus instead of passing that savings on to you).
Senators' letter, after the jump.
Michele Bachmann says we can reduce unemployment by eliminating the minimum wage. Is that the kind of economic "recovery" we want—$4 and $5 and $6 per hour jobs? Van Jones is absolutely right. Too many of us are already sacrificing plenty. Too many of us are already paying for Wall Street’s recklessness with our personal austerities and anxieties. The Tea Party’s solution is to discredit our ideals and dismantle our government. But we can do better. We can build a movement to make OUR democracy work for OUR American Dreams. Let’s take the first step together by meeting on July 16th to get acquainted and share ideas.
Blue Jersey's TGIF News Roundup will be a little late this morning, yesterday was a very long day.
Meanwhile, Gov. Christie will be on The Today Show (NBC) sometime this morning, if you want your chance to see him talk about what had to be done, and how proud he is of New Jersey's new bi-partisanship.
Update 9:08: Yes 46 No 32 Bill now going to 2nd reading for purpose of amendment, to alter the in-state-requirement. Asm Gusciora, in a point of order is delaying because the amendments are not on their desks in paper form. He is informed by Speaker Oliver that they're on each assembly member's computer.
Update 8:50: A first for us: Twitter has shut down our feed, for a few hours at least, it looks like. We have exceeded the allowable number of Tweets. We're going to switch our coverage of the Assembly hearing to @deciminyan Update 6:26 Nearly 5-and-a-half hours late, the NJ Assembly session LIVE video feed begins. Watch here. NJN is now also broadcasting LIVE.
Update 6:08 OK, here we go. Follow Deciminyan's Tweets @bluejersey.
Update 6:04: 5 hours late, and counting. It may be a foregone conclusion but Star-Ledger is reporting Gov. Christie told the New York Times today is an "extraordinary day for New Jersey.
Outside, the pro-labor rally - with its signs, its unifying tee shirts and inflatable rat meant to provoke anti-labor Democrats - is winding down, after a day when rain threatened more than it poured.
But inside, now at three-and-one-half hours past the posted start time of the session, the New Jersey Assembly has still not settled down to meet.
Deciminyan is in the room - has been for hours - and is on his second power charge of his laptop. He's live-Tweeting. And we don't know whether they'll get started in 5 minutes or an hour. Right now, there are almost no Assembly members in the chamber.
Follow us at @bluejersey. Thank you to all of you who have retweeted us today, and a big Welcome to all our new Twitter followers and new members of the Blue Jersey community.
Steve Sweeney - Meanwhile, adopting a defensive posture once again against the pro-labor rally outside, 'union man', Democrat and NJ Senate President Steve Sweeney has once again messaged the press by sending widely a copy of Bob Ingle's column, Public unions' stunts sure to backfire. I'll leave it to today's Assembly vote, history, and better-paid commentators than myself to decide who's pulling "stunts" and whether they will "backfire".
I'll just say that Sweeney's shipping out articles favorable to him to reporters strikes me as coming from a position of weakness, and not of strength. If there's a tipping point in the balance of whether he can really continue to lead Democrats, he may have already exceeded it. Time will tell. But I think it looks bad for the mighty muscled Sweeney to show such naked interest in how he looks to reporters.
To begin to dissolve the collective bargaining rights that New Jersey's public workers have counted on for decades, Gov. Chris Christie employed a masterful communications strategy. It isn't easy to convince well-educated voters that the people who live down the street, or across town, are your enemy.
To do it, Christie had to turn ... the bus driver you see every day ... your kid's math teacher ... the guy who works at the library ... the lady who makes lunches for the folks at Vineland Developmental Center .. the cop ... the firefighter ... the woman sitting up all night helping a WWII veteran die peacefully ... into caricature. They are middle class, or working class. But he calls them rich, tells you they're cheating you every day, that they're the ones responsible for a deadened economy. Because they're greedy. Bloodsuckers.
He has to depersonalize them in order to do all that. He's good at it, too. We hear he's going places. And some Democrats stand behind him. The ones that do not deserve to know how many people are standing behind them. Waving across the country now, with some powerful interests behind it, is an effort to get people to turn against each other, blame each other, instead of seeking better governmental solutions, better lawmakers, better spending priorities.
Tomorrow, the NJ Assembly votes on a bill hostile to our public workers. It will make national news. If you can get there, come to the State House at noon. Thousands of people will await the vote. As Couch Potato Politics tells us, it's not too late to call Assembly members.
Meanwhile, here's a reminder of who Chris Christie's talking about when he tells you who New Jersey's public workers are:
S2937, the Christie-Sweeney plan to dramatically alter collective bargaining rights in New Jersey, passed the Senate this afternoon 24-15. The Assembly version - A4133, as introduced by Lou Greenwald (D) and Declan O'Scanlon (R) - is next, first in Assembly Budget (which Greenwald chairs), then to the full Assembly for a vote. Gov. Christie will almost certainly sign it into law if it reaches his desk. Assembly Speaker Sheila Oliver, who has pushed this bill despite a body that may not be warm to it, said "bold, demonstrative large steps" are what's needed now.
Labor - CWA Political Director Bob Masters told the Assembly minutes ago that "real Democrats" would have killed this bill. Charlie Wowkanech, NJ AFL-CIO President said, "Where labor has no voice, democracy has no future."
Gov. Christie owes Steve Sweeney - Senate President, Democrat and 'union man' - a great deal for introducing and championing this bill. Its motive and agenda is largely Republican, as any student of current events can see. And Sweeney is choosing to use his position in the Senate to ram home legislation that threatens the long tradition of pubic employee labor having the power of collective bargaining negotiation to help determine working conditions, a fundamental of the Party he leads.
As 12mileseastofTrenton notes, Sweeney's own caucus voted against him 2-1, and the calls for his ouster as Senate President may grow louder.
The Norcross Provision As we noted earlier, the Senate bill was amended today to remove a much-disputed and cost-ineffective provision to limit public workers' access to out-of-state medical care. But Assemblyman Greenwald appears interested in restricting public worker medical care to inside-Jersey, a highly debatable concept given for example that of the top 50 cancer hospitals in the U.S., none is in New Jersey. The part of the bill snidely referred to as the "Norcross provision" comes about as New Jerseyans calculate who might have stood to benefit from this legislation, or at least that part of it. Several of the world's best hospitals in the world are just outside New Jersey's borders, in NYC and in Philadelphia. Norcross, Sweeney's benefactor and South Jersey Democratic Party boss, is Chair of Cooper Hospital in Camden, which has recently stepped up advertising to compete with premiere hospitals in Philadelphia. Restricting public workers to NJ facilities would certainly have boosted traffic to Cooper, and the fact that the provision would have furthered Sweeney's benefactor's interests added to the sense that this was payback to Sweeney's benefactor for Sweeney's monumental effort to ram this home against a rich ethical tradition of his own Party.
Recently, when I was at Netroots Nation, I spoke with AFT President Randi Weingarten about the candidacy of public school teacher Marie Corfield for the New Jersey State Assembly from the 16th District. Along with many of the participants at the conference, we agreed that more teachers need to be elected to public office. Weingarten was enthusiastic, and handed me a button to give to Marie in support of Marie's candidacy. Marie is wearing that button in this video where she addresses Blue Jersey readers at today's Trenton rally.
Disclosure: I am working on Marie Corfield's campaign
Note: We don't normally post press releases, but I thought this info was interesting and germane to the proceedings going on right now in the State House, in terms of their impact, according to NAACP, on a particular population segment of African-American women & professionals. And, with all that's going on, I don't have time to tease this into a diary. So, here word-for-word is what NAACP has to say -
Study: Black Women, Professionals Would be Disproportionately Affected by Trenton's Cuts
Ben Jealous, President and CEO of the NAACP issued a strongly worded statement, calling on Trenton leaders to respect the right to collective bargaining as a new report says moves to significantly cut the health care and pension benefits of state workers could fall hardest on New Jersey's black middle-class - particularly on black women and black workers with professional degrees. Ben Jealous:
We see this same pattern in many states and cities across the nation. Public sector jobs are critical in communities of color and attacks on bargaining rights and health care disproportionately affect our communities. The NAACP nationally and in NJ supports bargaining rights, not stripping these rights at this critical time. This recession will never end if benefits and wages continue to decline in all sectors. Now public workers are under attack everywhere and we stand with them.
Public sector jobs have served as the gateway to the middle-class for thousands of black New Jerseyans," said Jeffrey Keefe, a professor of Labor and Employment Relations at the Rutgers School of Management and Labor Relations and author of today's report. "But those quality jobs are now threatened by Trenton's proposed cuts to public workers. These cuts will fall disproportionately on African-American workers and their families, further damaging a community still struggling to recover from the economic downtown. Black women, who make up 78% of the black public sector workforce, and Black workers with professional degrees will be particularly hard hit.
The report's key findings include:
Black workers earn 93% more each year working in the public sector than the private sector ($38,091 compared to $19,698).
89% of Black public employees have employer-provided health insurance, compared to just 50% of Black workers in the private sector.
Public sector jobs are particularly important for Black women. 78% of the Black public sector labor force is female, compared to 53% of the private sector Black work force.
The public sector employs five times the proportion of Black professionals as the private sector. 40% of Black workers employed in the public sector are professionals.
The public sector employs college-educated Black workers at 2.5 times the rate of the private sector.
Approximately, 37% of Black public employees are college-educated, compared to 15% of private sector Black workers.
This is an open thread. Won't have time to live blog this today, but your comments and reactions to the video streaming of the hearing (link below) is welcome.
UPDATE - Senate Hearing begins about 45 minutes late - a full gallery in the Senate chamber will hear an historic vote on a bill proposed by 'union man' Steve Sweeney, President of the NJ state Senate. Watch here. Feed is not embeddable or we would post it. The hearing is starting late, with the Full Senate link still at this time showing Pending, which may mean there are furious negotiations going on outside the chamber.
#StandUpNJ - Twitter hashtag being used by union participants and their supporters.
Section 76 repealed - As we reported earlier, Senator Sweeney and Assemblywoman Oliver have backtracked on one of the most fiscally unwise and damaging parts of the plan, which would have blocked state employees from using their own health insurance at out-of-state hospitals.
Sen. Loretta Weinberg told Blue Jersey this morning she will not support the bill as currently construvted
Early this morning, outside a fundraiser in Trenton for Assembly Democrats, protesters jeered Assembly Democrats supporting the Christie-Sweeney plan, and cheered Democrats they know will not be selling them out today. Shouts of: "We will remember in November!"
A Tent City has sprung up behind the Trenton War Memorial - dozens of tents constructed there legally or illegally, I don't know yet.
March for Collective Bargaining - Led by historical re-enactors, union folks and their supporters marched into Trenton this morning to stage what they call Trenton Battle Two. Video:
Deciminyan is there, but couldn't get into the hearing itself. The room is full, and fire regulations prohibit any further crowding. Deciminyan's now headed over to Tent City.
This is long, but interesting to read something of the man who was an inspiration to a young seeker of municipal office. Stephen, who as a teen was the first person to get a Blue Jersey account after founder Juan Melli, is a candidate for municipal office in Berkeley Heights. - Rosi
After I published my last article here (thank you to everyone who commented on it), I received an e-mail from a New Jersey friend of mine, and a sometime-Democratic activist. My friend wrote, in part:
"What the **** gives you the right to call out Sweeney? He was a labor leader when you were in diapers."
No, I'm not in a union. I don't believe graduate students have a union to join, although I could be wrong. And no, I don't have the "credentials" of Senator Sweeney when it comes to a labor background.
But I can tell you this - the movement for workers to gain their freedom is in my blood. Were it not for organizers like my Grandpa Harry, a Gloucester County ironworker could never have become the leader of the New Jersey State Senate.
(I'm lucky to be here at Netroots Nation which starts today, surrounded by sane and rational progressives. People I've talked to already lament the demise of democratic principals in the Democratic Party. Mr. Liberal's diary hits the nail on the head for the New Jersey incarnation of the new DiNoism. - promoted by deciminyan)
"I do let loose my opinion, hold it no longer"
- The Tempest, William Shakespeare
This is probably the least politic diary I have written on Blue Jersey in the last 5 1/2 years. As a young Democratic activist, I've thought, wouldn't it be politically inane to speak out against the leaders of my own Party? As a candidate for local office in a conservative part of New Jersey, I thought, wouldn't it make more sense to stay silent rather than alienate potential constituents?
Yet I cannot stay silent. I am a Democrat because I believe in the rights of workers - blue collar and white collar, male and female, of all races and creeds - to seek a just and better world for themselves and their families. It is that fundamental freedom - the right to organize - that I see under attack in New Jersey tonight.
Via Capitol Quickies, pretty much at the last minute, the pension and benefit reforms bill is out and will be formally introduced today.
It's 120 pages long. A plain-language conclusion starts at the bottom of Page 114, concluding on page 120. Haven't got time to parse it at the moment, so let's call this an open thread, for your comments as you read it.
We have learned that you are considering legislation that would strip health care from the bargaining table for tens of thousands of public workers in New Jersey. Nothing is more central to the future than the ability of working people to have a voice in decisions about their living standards, and that is why the entire labor movement has been fighting similar attacks in Wisconsin, Ohio and other states. The preservation of collective bargaining is critical to the very existence of unions in this country.
In this era of cynicism and declining trust across the board, working people are looking to stand with leaders who stand with them. We expect you, as a Democrat, to stand with working families and to defend collective bargaining rights. This is a vote we take very seriously.
The pension system is a mess. If the guarantees in the deal are in place, then the 1% pension increase is fair.I know I am taking a leap of faith by saying that I " hope " the state pays its fair share from now on, but I am willing to do that.
The Health Reform plan is fair. It is fair because EVERYONE must pay,not just CWA members. To keep arguing about Health care being a Collective bargaining " right" is silly. It is not a " right" . The truth is that groups like the NJEA and PBA want CWA to fight for this " right" so that THEIR MEMBERS do not have to pay. Unions cannot individually bargain their fair payment into a plan that is multi-union.That makes no sense.
I have said this many times. The Government Health Plan is a multi-union plan which cannot be supported by just one union,CWA. In a multi-union plan ALL UNIONS must pay and that can only be done through legislation.
The pontificating of CWA has gotten old. They GAVE AWAY health care in their very first negotiating session.
This Sweeney/Christie plan is fair to low wage earners .It is fair to present employees. It is fair to CWA members.
If government employees must pay more,then it is only fair that ALL GOVERNMENT EMPLOYEES PAY MORE.
With Christie at the top of the national GOP's wannabe list, you can expect more progressive and labor leaders to flock to the state to provide a counterbalance of better sense, show the Democrats how it's done (those who need it), raise economic injustice's profile and rally the public worker unions Gov. Christie has spent a year propagandizing against.
Richard Trumka, and Al Sharpton have been and gone. Jesse Jackson is spending today and Wednesday here.
Jesse Jackson in Camden this morning
A few days ago, we posted the strike notice to the Red Cross of nurses and blood donation collection staff, and that is where Jesse Jackson began a tour of New Jersey and Philadelphia with labor and community groups, at an 8am picket line rally, in Philly (with NJ union members attending). HPAE and AFT are charging chronic safety violations, inadequate training, understaffing at blood drives, and repeated labor law violations, our members report conditions that they believe are unsafe for donors and for themselves at American Red Cross sites across both New Jersey and Philadelphia.
Jackson's schedule, and my disclosure, after the jump
If you're out at lunch today you might see one of the pickets staged all over the state by thousands of CWA workers today, as the largest union representing public workers in NJ as their union reps sit down to another day of bargaining with reps from the state.
A few days ago, CWA filed unfair labor charges against the governor, requesting for failing to counter its health care proposal, made in 4 negotiation sessions, and requesting the Public Employee Relations Commission (PERC) order Christie to negotiate those benefits. The governor prefers an end-run to that, pressuring lawmakers to enact permanent changes to medical benefits, and increased contributions. That, says the union, amounts to bad faith.
The lunchtime rallies start in a few minutes, in Hackensack, Newark, Paterson, Randolph, Plainfield, Trenton, Piscataway, Camden, and West Deptford.
Every one is aware of the work the American Red Cross (ARC) does on disaster relief operations around the world. However, this is just a fraction of what they do. What many don't know is their blood services division brings in more than $2 billion a year, amounting to over two-thirds of their national revenue.
We appreciate the role they are playing in our communities and around the world, but that does not mean they get a free pass when it comes to ensuring the safety of blood donors and complying with fair employment practices. In fact, the real disaster is how the American Red Cross Blood Services Division treats its blood donation collection staff, and how that affects the safety of our blood donors and blood supply.
ARC's record speaks for itself. Since 1993, over $37 million in fines have been levied by the Food and Drug Administration because of significant violations of blood safety rules. As recently as last summer $16 million in fines were paid to the FDA - money HPAE believes would be better spent on safe staffing and other improved safety practices. Red Cross has also been cited over and over for labor law violations, violating terms of their collective bargaining agreements with many of the 3000 blood service workers across the country.
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In an admirable bipartisan spirit, Governor Chris Christie (Republican) has worked closely with Senate President Stephen Sweeney (Democrat) and Assembly Speaker Sheila Oliver (Democrat) to forge a Pension-Benefits Reduction Bill that will restore solvency to the pension system. This bill will hold those who have not paid their fair share responsible for restoring solvency to the system through additional deductions, reduced health care benefits, no cost of living increases for pensioners, the establishment of a board that would offer plans with fewer benefits as well as increased co-pays and prescriptions and most importantly the stripping of the unions' right to negotiate their health-care insurance coverage and contribution levels.
