Photo of the Day: Boots

by: Rosi Efthim

Tue Feb 08, 2011 at 11:54:08 AM EST

Are you safe?

Photo: AP

When All Else Fails… Lie. Christie Claims NJN Workers Not Entitled To Severance Pay

by: Couch Potato Politics

Tue Nov 16, 2010 at 10:16:10 PM EST

After handing NJN Workers 45 day layoff notices, in another cruel twist of the knife, Chris Christie has followed that up by refusing to recognize the state's contractual obligations to NJ Public Workers entitlement to the Displaced Workers Pool (4 months severance pay) outlined in their contract.

Mr. Christie might want to head back to law school for a contract law refresher or hire some lawyers who can read a contract and amendments before making claims that are false.

Follow link below for citation

SIDE LETTER OF AGREEMENT #35

Displaced Worker Pool

Given the tendency for documents like these to be written in mind-numbing legalese, the text of this document is actually pretty plain.

continue reading below the fold

Hypocritical Tears

by: brendanod

Fri Oct 01, 2010 at 11:16:37 AM EDT

The Star Ledger had one of the best editorials - http://blog.nj.com/njv_editori... - I have ever read today.  The editorial calls for unequivocal equality, including marriage and military.  Two issues that the party of the fastest rising star within the GOP enjoy using as wedge issues to keep religious fanatics voting for them.

The governor must live in some parallel universe.  Why can't he imagine his children living in the inner city.  Why can't he imagine his child living in a public housing project with a very young, single mother.  A neighborhood where violence and drug use are the norm.  A neighborhood where dropping out of school is more normal than graduating.  Instead of trying to correct the social problems of this neighborhood, our governor wants to privatize social programs and schools, while demonizing teachers.  He sheds no tears for these kids.

Why can't the governor imagine his child is poor and lives in the south or the midwest.  This child decides to join the military, because it offers the only job opportunity currently available in a recession, caused by Wall Street and bank thieves that the GOP placates to.   The only problem with this job opportunity is that it was made up.  It was a big lie fabricated to pursue twisted ideology. Thousands of these kids have returned home in flag draped coffins.   Gov. Christie is "touring" the country, stumping for candidates, in appreciation for the guy who appointed him to his last job and to further this ideology.  He sheds no tears for these kids.

Why can't the governor imagine his child was an Atlantic City police officer.   An officer that managed to graduate high school, with the help of a teacher who is now unemployed due to layoffs.  An officer that got the job fair and square, through civil service.  An officer that was patrolling neighborhoods to make them safe, so that other children could escape the drugs and violence.  An officer that was patrolling the streets and keeping order to maintain and improve the tourism business.  An officer that was making a good wage so that she could raise her own children and provide them with a safe, comfortable home.  This officer was laid off yesterday.  He sheds no tears for these kids.

Government Extortion

by: brendanod

Tue Aug 03, 2010 at 10:28:41 PM EDT

http://www.trentonian.com/arti...

about how the Ewing Township PBA have filed a lawsuit against Ewing Township for extortion.

I  applaud the Ewing PBA for the action.  Christie has made it fashionable to threaten public employees with layoffs in order to extort concessions from contract obligations.

Here is how it works.  A municipality will have a multi-million dollar shortfall because Christie stole all of our income and sales tax money that should have been legally redistributed to municipalites for tax relief.  A lot of mayors take this opportunity to extort concessions from union contracts by threatening mass layoffs.  Instead of being honest and moral, the mayor will threaten to layoff dozens of cops (reducing labor costs by hundreds of thousands), but will accept a wage freeze or change in benefits only reducing labor costs by tens of thousands. It is another case of being intellectually dishonest, which is Christie's forte. A lot of mayor's now enjoy the accepted practice of being intellectually dishonest and immoral.

I enjoyed Senator Weinberg's diary about the governor being a hypocrite.  This is another example.  Can one imagine if the governor entered into a contract with a carpenter to have his kitchen remodeled, only to have the carpenter come back half way through the job with a bunch of excuses or hardball maneuvers as to why he now wanted more money or otherwise change the contract?

Christie is advocating union busting as a means to an end.  Instead of tackling the main problem which is an overpopulation of municipalities and taxing authorities, he chooses to continue the class warfare and anti-labor theme.  He is just hurting the citizenry.

Christie: I was wrong

by: Hopeful

Tue Mar 09, 2010 at 05:00:00 PM EST

Christie said he was "wrong" in previously claiming that he would not be "bound by" the contract struck between unions and former Gov. Jon Corzine last June. The agreement called for 10 unpaid furlough days while deferring a wage increase in exchange for a no-layoff pledge through December 2010. It means two 3.5 percent wage increases are scheduled to take effect in the upcoming budget year, one in July and one in January.

No doubt Christie will try to drive a very hard bargain on the next contract, but Corzine did a good job in re-opening an existing contract, where he had traded pay increases for state workers having to pay for health care. When Corzine then wanted to take away the pay increases, he saved the state money while properly negotiating with the unions. Josh Zeitz puts it more unkindly:

"Chris Christie should be thanking Jon Corzine for saving him money," Zeitz said. "It's not Jon Corzine's fault that he doesn't understand the job ... He should try negotiating."

Another question is whether Christie knew he was wrong all along? I bet he did, his budget stories never held up to scrutiny, but after all, it worked. For unkindness and hilarity, let me go this time to conservative Rick Shaftan:

#RINO #Fraud @GOVCHRISTIE  WON'T LAYOFF ONE STATE WORKER

Where things stand on furloughs

by: Jason Springer

Sat Apr 18, 2009 at 02:23:11 PM EDT

"Given the economic crisis confronting the state and nation, and the fluid and rapidly unfolding circumstances in which we live, we find the statement of 'imminent peril' to be sufficient," the panel of three state appellate judges said in its decision.

But the ruling wasn't a complete win for the Corzine administration, as the judges also expressed concern that the sections of the rule allowing the temporary layoffs to be staggered, rather than done department-wide in one fell swoop, might not be appropriate because they change work conditions without negotiations with workers. The court put such furloughs - which are planned by almost all state departments, to at least a small degree - on hold while the Public Employment Relations Commission hears the matter.

State furloughs are scheduled to begin in three weeks for this budget year. But then we'll go through the process again. Whether it's a negotiating tactic or not, the Governor now says that unless union accepts 12 furlough days in the upcoming year and a wage freeze, he will be forced to lay off 9,000 state workers. That's up from the original number of 7,000 layoffs. The union still feels they are being scapegoated and plan to fight those efforts it appears. They say the governor should focus more on the wealthy and negotiate with the unions:

"We're in serious financial straits, but that doesn't give the state the right to single out the people who serve the public as it looks for savings," Rosenstein said.

Legislators will furlough, Union will fight, Corzine looks at rebates

by: Jason Springer

Thu Feb 19, 2009 at 09:27:16 PM EST

Senate President Richard J. Codey and Assembly Speaker Joseph J. Roberts Jr. today agreed to honor Gov. Jon S. Corzine's call for a two-day furlough of employee salaries in the legislative branch to close the mounting gap in the state FY 2009 budget.

Under Corzine's plan, employees would be required to take one furlough day in May and one in June to help close the gap in the current budget.

Codey (D-Essex) and Roberts (D-Camden) said they will furlough the Senate and Assembly majority and minority offices in accordance with Corzine's plan.

They said they will also direct the Office of Legislative Services to do the same, while also directing the clerks of each legislative house to research how Senate and Assembly members can furlough two-days of pay and apply the two-day furlough to their district offices.

Hetty Rosenstein, New Jersey state director for the Communications Workers of America, said the CWA will file an unfair labor practice complaint with the state's Public Employment Relations Commission.

"We think that in fact in our contract we have negotiated an annual wage. We think they need to respect that contract, and the furlough is in fact a violation of that," Rosenstein said. "They're going to try to pretend it's a layoff. Our attorney doesn't think you can gimmick your way out of it."

The governor has repeatedly said all options, including rebates, are on the chopping block as he tries to balance New Jersey's finances, though he has so far declined to discuss rebates specifically. But behind the scenes, discussions on how to trim the rebates are occurring daily, the sources said, because there are very few budget areas left to cut that could save hundreds of millions of dollars.

Unemployment Overwhelmed

by: Jason Springer

Sat Dec 06, 2008 at 08:45:11 AM EST

Recently laid-off workers have told NJBIZ that they cannot get to a real person when calling one of the state?s three unemployment insurance information telephone lines; at least one state senator is calling on New Jersey to take action.

When an NJBIZ reporter called one of the state's unemployment information telephone lines, he was placed into voicemail oblivion. After dialing through nine prompts and punching in a ZIP code, the reporter was informed by the automated voice that, "Due to a high volume of calls waiting, we cannot take your call at his time. Please call back later."

NJBIZ called two times this morning and once this afternoon - each time seeking information on unemployment benefits - and got the same result.

Phone menus lead nowhere - huge call volumes lead to "forced disconnections," the state says - and some callers report waiting on hold for an hour or more. Unemployment offices employ too few clerks to handing rising caseload, and claimants can wait hours to simply get questions answered.

Gov. Jon Corzine directed his labor commissioner today to deploy 130 workers, some new hires and others transfers from across state government, to deal with a growing backlog of unemployment claims.

The announcement accompanied the release of stark new figures showing unemployment at a 15-year national high. It also came the same day The Star-Ledger quoted unemployed workers in New Jersey saying they were having trouble getting through to telephone claim centers to file for benefits.

Numerous other workers emailed or called the newspaper yesterday voicing similar complaints, and Labor Commissioner David J. Socolow confirmed call volumes are extremely heavy.

Kevin Smith, department spokesman, said unemployment claims are no longer accepted in person anywhere in the state. Instead, they must be filed online or by telephone at Reemployment Call Centers.

Unemployment claims are nearly double what they were this time last year, with 140,000 New Jerseyans collecting a check last week and 15,000 new claims.

Corzine Thinking Layoffs

by: firstamend07

Sat Nov 08, 2008 at 01:21:54 PM EST

It seems Corzine is ready to turn his back on the CWA. He knows that a state worker layoff will be necessary if he wants to sell other cutbacks. Apparently he has no fear of a CWA backlash since he knows , like most other politicians know , that CWA is a paper tiger and incapable of mounting any response that would be more than a " huff and a puff ".

You've Been WARNed, Governor Corzine

by: evdebs

Fri Nov 02, 2007 at 10:52:35 AM EDT

Tell Gov. Jon Corzine to sign into law this small attempt to help workers hit with mass layoffs in New Jersey communities.