N.J. Assembly Strips Public Employees of Health Care Bargaining Rights

Through rallies, lobbying and testimony, thousands of CWA and other union members never stopped fighting the legislative attacks on their collective bargaining rights.

In a devastating blow to a half-million public workers in New Jersey, including 65,000 CWA members, the state Assembly on Thursday stripped them of their right to collectively bargain health care benefits and voted for steep increases in what workers pay for health care and pensions, while CWA is in contract negotiations with a June 30 expiration.

CWA and other union leaders and allies in the workers' struggle condemned the vote.

"This is a dark day for workers' rights as the race to the bottom continues," CWA President Larry Cohen said. "We thank those who stood up and voted 'no' despite the pressure. We will never forget them. We will also never forget those who moved New Jersey back 50 years, stripping bargaining rights from public workers and imposing health care cuts that will destroy living standards for hundreds of thousands of families."

At 1 p.m., as debate was scheduled to begin inside the statehouse, 10,000 CWAers and other union members filled the streets to defend workers' rights. They were joined by more than two dozen Assembly Democrats, who bucked party leaders and stood with us.

"There's one group of people who don't bear the responsibility for the system being broken...and that's everyone standing here today," Assemblyman and state Democratic Chair John Wisniewski told the thousands of workers, as quoted on NJ.com.

But other lawmakers and Gov. Chris Christie have treated workers with nothing but contempt, even ignoring detailed bargaining proposals from CWA that showed how the state could save money without doing long-term harm to its employees. CWA and other public workers have made sacrifices for years, but have done so through negotiations. Now, with regard to health care benefits, they no longer have that right.

"This debate is not about money, it is about rights," CWA District 1 Legislative/Political Director Bob Master said, testifying before the Assembly Budget Committee on Monday. He described how CWA attempted to bargain early on with Gov. Chris Christie's representatives.

"CWA put on the table — on the first day of bargaining — a proposal that would save the state $200 million in health care costs when fully phased in," Master said. "We did this because we understand what is going on in New Jersey today. We understand that private sector workers are struggling, that they are losing their pensions and they are paying too much for health care, that property taxes continue to be excessive. We don't believe these problems will be solved simply by slashing our members' standard of living or by simply cutting government spending. That wouldn't work and it is not fair. But we are prepared to do our share."

CWA New Jersey State Director Hetty Rosenstein also testified Monday, as well as Local 1036 President Adam Liebtag and Steward Jack Greenberg, a 30-year state employee.

Every Assembly and Senate seat in the legislature is up for election in November. Workers are pledging to expose Republicans and Democrats who chose to stand with Christie and abandoned New Jersey workers.