State Workers Tell Corzine: 'Don't Balance NJ Budget on Our Backs!'

At more than a hundred work locations from Cape May to Sussex County, over 5,500 New Jersey State Workers took to the streets on Apr. 7, sending a loud, clear message to Governor Jon Corzine:  "Don't balance the state budget on our backs!"

Corzine, who faces re-election this fall, has proposed that state workers be hit with a wage freeze and 12 unpaid furlough days in the fiscal year 2010 budget which must be adopted by June 30.  For a typical state worker making $51,000 a year, Corzine's plan translates into a pay cut of over $4,100 or 8.1 percent.  Meanwhile, wealthy New Jerseyans making nearly ten times as much – $500,000 a year – will make no sacrifice whatsoever in terms of increased taxes.

"We're out here to let the governor know that we want to help with the budget crisis, but we're not willing to take the budget on our backs," Kathy Taddei, vice president of the Rowan University branch of Local 1031, told the Gloucester County Times. Some 75 members of Local 1031 picketed at Rowan on Apr. 7.

"There are other places where he can get the money," Jackie Friedman Collins, a shop steward for CWA Local 1037, told the Bergen Record at a picket line in north Jersey.  "We are the middle class. Tax the rich, not us. We have people living paycheck to paycheck, how are they going to pay their rent with this?"

In addition to the blatant unfairness of Corzine's budget proposals, CWA members in both state and local government are furious with the Administration for ramming an emergency rule change through the Civil Service Commission that stripped public sector unions of their rights to bargain over the effects of furloughs.  Hundreds of CWA members turned out for the meeting on a day's notice to protest the rule and four leaders – Local 1032 President Patrick Kavanagh, Local 1037 President Ken McNamara, Local 1034 Staffers Paul Alexander and Shawn Ludwig – were arrested when police overreacted to the angry crowd.

"The Corzine Administration claimed they had to have the emergency rule change because the state faced 'imminent peril' from the financial crisis.  But any projected savings from the May and June furlough days are insignificant and could be achieved in half a dozen other ways," said CWA Area Director Hetty Rosenstein.  "There is no 'imminent peril.' This is just an excuse for what may be the worst assault on public worker collective bargaining rights we've seen in 25 years.  To have it come from a Governor who once posed as a champion of collective bargaining is just appalling." 

CWA is preparing a major media and mail campaign against the Governor's budget to force him to come to the table and to negotiate with state workers over a fair way to resolve the budget crisis.  In addition, state workers are preparing by the thousands to turn out on Apr. 23 for a public hearing on the proposed Civil Service Commission rule change.