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Battle Against Gov. Whitman’s Cronyism Continues
Even as the state of New Jersey started spewing out layoff notices like pieces of confetti on Sept. 21, CWA members and local officers were fighting back with a mock New Orleans-style funeral to protest the death of state-run auto inspections.
The issue has become a political hot potato for the administration of New Jersey Gov. Christine Todd Whitman — not only because it’s costing jobs but appears to be costing taxpayers and car owners cash.
At the same time CWA was decrying the auto inspections deal, local leaders were savoring an apparent victory. The administration backed off a proposal to shift state purchases for institutions, such as jails and hospitals, to a private company. CWA had attacked the plan — which would have affected another 200 jobs — as squandering taxpayer money.
Car inspections and food services, however, are viewed as only the tip of the iceberg. "Whitman’s real target is the entire Civil Service system that protects state workers’ rights. She wants to wipe out protections for workers," says Alan Kaufman, a CWA Representative assigned by Vice President Larry Mancino of District 1 to work with the state worker locals.
The Whitman administration is "trying to destroy good jobs so they can hand all this over to private sector corporations which pay people $7 an hour without benefits," Kaufman told Suzette Parmley of the Philadelphia Inquirer’s Trenton bureau.
Whitman set the immediate confrontation on car inspections in motion on Aug. 7 when State Treasurer James DiEleuterio signed a contract valued at more than $400 million with Parsons Infrastructure & Technology Group of Pasadena, Calif., to take over the auto inspections.
Caskets & Grim Reaper
Several hundred members of CWA Local 1033 participated in a Sept. 21 protest outside the Statehouse in Trenton, which featured a raucous Dixieland band and a black-coffin-shaped box adorned with flowers and signs reading "Death of State-Run DMV Inspections Stations."
Rae Roeder, president of the local, said that about 80 inspection station supervisors represented by Local 1033 have received the layoff notices — although more than 3,700 notices are in the works for other state workers whose jobs may be affected by the layoffs. About 300 inspection station workers are represented by the Service Employees union, although CWA is the largest public employee union in New Jersey.
A total of 382 persons work at the 35 inspection stations scattered throughout the state — and all have been told they can bump into other jobs in the state or apply for their old jobs with a new employer, Parsons.
"We had to send out 10 times more layoffs (notices) because that’s what the rules require," Bob McHugh, a spokesman for the state Personnel Department, told the Philadelphia Inquirer. "We had to notify everyone who might be affected, because it’s sort of a domino effect. It will be a crapshoot: you don’t know how it’s going to play out until it plays out."
Roeder rejects promises by state officials that no workers would lose their jobs, however, saying that when all the bumping rights have been exercised, as many as 10 percent will be on the street and hundreds of others will find themselves in lower-paying jobs. The bumping started Sept. 24 and was to last 14 days.
Whitman Cronyism
The Parsons contract not only privatizes a system that has worked well for New Jersey motorists but it even stipulates plush jobs for cronies of Whitman and the Republican party, CWA staff and local leaders say.
Parsons has come to the job loaded with baggage — including accusations that it had dumped $94,000 into Whitman’s campaign coffers for her 1997 reelection bid and that its pricing structure for the tests will end up costing motorists as much as $46 million more a year.
In addition, Parsons has agreed to hire Carl Golden, a former PR flack for Whitman and a hired consultant for the Republican State Committee, to manage a $15 million a year public information campaign. Another odorous appointment involves Anthony Sartor, described by the Newark Star-Ledger as "a close personal and political friend" of Whitman and Senate President Donald T. DiFrancesco, a Union, N.J., Republican. Sartor’s plum: A $63 million engineering and construction contract with Parsons.
CWA went into court on Aug. 7 — the same day the state entered into the contract with Parsons — to seek an injunction to halt implementation of the pact. A state appeals court panel refused to grant the court order. The appellate panel did, however, order that the case be heard on an accelerated schedule.
The issue has become a political hot potato for the administration of New Jersey Gov. Christine Todd Whitman — not only because it’s costing jobs but appears to be costing taxpayers and car owners cash.
At the same time CWA was decrying the auto inspections deal, local leaders were savoring an apparent victory. The administration backed off a proposal to shift state purchases for institutions, such as jails and hospitals, to a private company. CWA had attacked the plan — which would have affected another 200 jobs — as squandering taxpayer money.
Car inspections and food services, however, are viewed as only the tip of the iceberg. "Whitman’s real target is the entire Civil Service system that protects state workers’ rights. She wants to wipe out protections for workers," says Alan Kaufman, a CWA Representative assigned by Vice President Larry Mancino of District 1 to work with the state worker locals.
The Whitman administration is "trying to destroy good jobs so they can hand all this over to private sector corporations which pay people $7 an hour without benefits," Kaufman told Suzette Parmley of the Philadelphia Inquirer’s Trenton bureau.
Whitman set the immediate confrontation on car inspections in motion on Aug. 7 when State Treasurer James DiEleuterio signed a contract valued at more than $400 million with Parsons Infrastructure & Technology Group of Pasadena, Calif., to take over the auto inspections.
Caskets & Grim Reaper
Several hundred members of CWA Local 1033 participated in a Sept. 21 protest outside the Statehouse in Trenton, which featured a raucous Dixieland band and a black-coffin-shaped box adorned with flowers and signs reading "Death of State-Run DMV Inspections Stations."
Rae Roeder, president of the local, said that about 80 inspection station supervisors represented by Local 1033 have received the layoff notices — although more than 3,700 notices are in the works for other state workers whose jobs may be affected by the layoffs. About 300 inspection station workers are represented by the Service Employees union, although CWA is the largest public employee union in New Jersey.
A total of 382 persons work at the 35 inspection stations scattered throughout the state — and all have been told they can bump into other jobs in the state or apply for their old jobs with a new employer, Parsons.
"We had to send out 10 times more layoffs (notices) because that’s what the rules require," Bob McHugh, a spokesman for the state Personnel Department, told the Philadelphia Inquirer. "We had to notify everyone who might be affected, because it’s sort of a domino effect. It will be a crapshoot: you don’t know how it’s going to play out until it plays out."
Roeder rejects promises by state officials that no workers would lose their jobs, however, saying that when all the bumping rights have been exercised, as many as 10 percent will be on the street and hundreds of others will find themselves in lower-paying jobs. The bumping started Sept. 24 and was to last 14 days.
Whitman Cronyism
The Parsons contract not only privatizes a system that has worked well for New Jersey motorists but it even stipulates plush jobs for cronies of Whitman and the Republican party, CWA staff and local leaders say.
Parsons has come to the job loaded with baggage — including accusations that it had dumped $94,000 into Whitman’s campaign coffers for her 1997 reelection bid and that its pricing structure for the tests will end up costing motorists as much as $46 million more a year.
In addition, Parsons has agreed to hire Carl Golden, a former PR flack for Whitman and a hired consultant for the Republican State Committee, to manage a $15 million a year public information campaign. Another odorous appointment involves Anthony Sartor, described by the Newark Star-Ledger as "a close personal and political friend" of Whitman and Senate President Donald T. DiFrancesco, a Union, N.J., Republican. Sartor’s plum: A $63 million engineering and construction contract with Parsons.
CWA went into court on Aug. 7 — the same day the state entered into the contract with Parsons — to seek an injunction to halt implementation of the pact. A state appeals court panel refused to grant the court order. The appellate panel did, however, order that the case be heard on an accelerated schedule.