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CWA Launches All-Out Battle In New Jersey for Seniority
CWA hopes to write a history book this holiday season that portrays New Jersey Gov. Christine Todd Whitman as the grinch who tried to steal seniority — and failed.
Whitman, who has been in a constant attack mode against public workers, unveiled her latest plot — to substitute “merit points” for seniority — through a handpicked state personnel commissioner, Janice Mintz.
“We view seniority as sacrosanct,” said CWA Vice President Larry Mancino of District 1, who pledged the union will use every possible weapon to protect workers’ rights.
Dozens of members of CWA Local 1033 took their protest against the governor’s plan straight to Mintz’s home in a rousing rally on Nov. 27. Hundreds of CWA members from all of the union’s eight public worker locals are expected to jam a meeting scheduled for Dec. 8.
“We plan to pack the meeting of the Merit System Board and hope to shut it down,” said a defiant Susanne P. Dyer, president of CWA Local 1039, Trenton. The board is the personnel rule-making body for state and local government employees.
CWA, the largest public workers’ union in New Jersey, will have plenty of allies in its battles to thwart the Whitman administration, including the statewide AFL-CIO and other unions that represent workers at both state and local levels. CWA represents 36,000 state of New Jersey workers and another 15,000 local government workers.
“We plan to fight this proposal on every possible level,” said CWA Vice President Brooks Sunkett, whose responsibilities include public and health care workers. He said that the union would target the courts, the state legislature and the state Public Employee Relations Commission, the state agency that oversees public employee disputes.
Rae Roeder, president of CWA Local 1033 in Trenton, called the Mintz plan a “sneak attack” on public workers. She pointed out that the commissioner didn’t reveal the plan until late on a Friday night, after most workers had already left for the day — and only a few days before the Thanksgiving holiday.
“They’re hoping to slip it past us but we will organize and we will fight back,” she said.
The Mintz proposal would eliminate seniority as the basis for order of layoff. Instead, the commissioner proposes that managers be empowered to grant “merit points,” to certain favored workers — which could be used to protect them in layoff situations.
The proposal would also limit “bumping,” the right that state workers exercise to relocate in the face of administrative downsizing and layoffs. The plan would also let Whitman cabinet officials narrow the range of layoffs and make it harder for laid-off workers to rejoin state service.
Seniority is also used as a yardstick during promotions and during vacation selections.
Whitman is also expected to introduce some kind of merit pay plan in the near future.
Civil Service Reform
Also moving toward the front burner in the union-Whitman battlefield is a proposal the governor made earlier in 1998 to award a contract to a private consultant to recommend major reforms in the state’s Civil Service laws.
Although the state budgeted the bid at $800,000, CWA quickly jumped in with its own bid — offering to undertake the study for free.
CWA filed its zero-based bid with the state Treasury Department in late October but by early December, the state still had not acted to award the contract. Virginia Wolf, executive vice president of CWA Local 1038, reported that New Jersey Attorney General Peter Venerio has given Whitman an informal opinion that CWA’s bid on the reform study must be rejected. Venerio reportedly told the governor that for CWA to undertake the study would pose a conflict of interest.
Paul Alexander, president of CWA Local 1038, made it clear at a news conference announcing the union’s bid on the project, that CWA was dead serious about winning the contract.
Giving the job to Whitman’s cronies, Alexander said, would be “an $800,000 rip-off,” adding: “You don’t have to hire a bunch of overpaid friends of whomever to come in and make the study.”
Dyer made the same point, noting that it would be foolish for Whitman to squander hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars on a study the union is willing to perform free.
CWA already has its own team of researchers, computer analysts, technical experts and lawyers ready to hammer out the plan, Dyer told Suzette Parmley of The Philadelphia Inquirer’s Trenton bureau.
Whitman, who has been in a constant attack mode against public workers, unveiled her latest plot — to substitute “merit points” for seniority — through a handpicked state personnel commissioner, Janice Mintz.
“We view seniority as sacrosanct,” said CWA Vice President Larry Mancino of District 1, who pledged the union will use every possible weapon to protect workers’ rights.
Dozens of members of CWA Local 1033 took their protest against the governor’s plan straight to Mintz’s home in a rousing rally on Nov. 27. Hundreds of CWA members from all of the union’s eight public worker locals are expected to jam a meeting scheduled for Dec. 8.
“We plan to pack the meeting of the Merit System Board and hope to shut it down,” said a defiant Susanne P. Dyer, president of CWA Local 1039, Trenton. The board is the personnel rule-making body for state and local government employees.
CWA, the largest public workers’ union in New Jersey, will have plenty of allies in its battles to thwart the Whitman administration, including the statewide AFL-CIO and other unions that represent workers at both state and local levels. CWA represents 36,000 state of New Jersey workers and another 15,000 local government workers.
“We plan to fight this proposal on every possible level,” said CWA Vice President Brooks Sunkett, whose responsibilities include public and health care workers. He said that the union would target the courts, the state legislature and the state Public Employee Relations Commission, the state agency that oversees public employee disputes.
Rae Roeder, president of CWA Local 1033 in Trenton, called the Mintz plan a “sneak attack” on public workers. She pointed out that the commissioner didn’t reveal the plan until late on a Friday night, after most workers had already left for the day — and only a few days before the Thanksgiving holiday.
“They’re hoping to slip it past us but we will organize and we will fight back,” she said.
The Mintz proposal would eliminate seniority as the basis for order of layoff. Instead, the commissioner proposes that managers be empowered to grant “merit points,” to certain favored workers — which could be used to protect them in layoff situations.
The proposal would also limit “bumping,” the right that state workers exercise to relocate in the face of administrative downsizing and layoffs. The plan would also let Whitman cabinet officials narrow the range of layoffs and make it harder for laid-off workers to rejoin state service.
Seniority is also used as a yardstick during promotions and during vacation selections.
Whitman is also expected to introduce some kind of merit pay plan in the near future.
Civil Service Reform
Also moving toward the front burner in the union-Whitman battlefield is a proposal the governor made earlier in 1998 to award a contract to a private consultant to recommend major reforms in the state’s Civil Service laws.
Although the state budgeted the bid at $800,000, CWA quickly jumped in with its own bid — offering to undertake the study for free.
CWA filed its zero-based bid with the state Treasury Department in late October but by early December, the state still had not acted to award the contract. Virginia Wolf, executive vice president of CWA Local 1038, reported that New Jersey Attorney General Peter Venerio has given Whitman an informal opinion that CWA’s bid on the reform study must be rejected. Venerio reportedly told the governor that for CWA to undertake the study would pose a conflict of interest.
Paul Alexander, president of CWA Local 1038, made it clear at a news conference announcing the union’s bid on the project, that CWA was dead serious about winning the contract.
Giving the job to Whitman’s cronies, Alexander said, would be “an $800,000 rip-off,” adding: “You don’t have to hire a bunch of overpaid friends of whomever to come in and make the study.”
Dyer made the same point, noting that it would be foolish for Whitman to squander hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars on a study the union is willing to perform free.
CWA already has its own team of researchers, computer analysts, technical experts and lawyers ready to hammer out the plan, Dyer told Suzette Parmley of The Philadelphia Inquirer’s Trenton bureau.