Thousands of NJ CWAers Rally Statewide for Rights, Budget Fairness

Activist Jesse Jackson Helps Put Spotlight on Workers’ Solidarity Tour

District 1 Vice President Chris Shelton said attacks on workers' rights had created a "firestorm among state and public workers."

Below: In Trenton, Jesse Jackson told workers not to let the attacks on their rights break their spirit. "You have the votes," he said. With Jackson, at left, is District 1 Legislative/Political Director Robert Master.

For two days throughout New Jersey this week, thousands of CWAers rallied against brutal and unfair health care cuts, and to preserve their right to bargain over health care, pensions and other benefits.

Billed as the "Solidarity Tour for Bargaining Rights and Budget Fairness," the rallies took place as tough negotiations covering 40,000 CWA state workers continue with the state and its anti-union governor, Chris Christie.

Kicking off the tour Tuesday at the Camden City Hall, civil rights leader Jesse Jackson urged state workers to stand firm against the "toxic wind" that is blowing across America trying to eradicate collective bargaining rights.

"Workers are being dumped on as if you are the reason we're in an economic crisis," he said. "State workers must hold ranks and fight back. You have the votes. You must not let this governor break your spirit."

David Bittner, a member of CWA Local 1033 with the New Jersey Motor Vehicle Commission told a NJ.com reporter that he had never experienced so much pressure as a state worker. "We're hard workers and we just want to try to save what we have," he said. "They want to strip away everything. They are touching our pensions, our medication, they just chip away at everything.”

In Trenton, more than 700 CWAers, members of the New Jersey Education Association and other state workers gathered at the city war memorial, for a rally Wednesday. Speakers included CWA District 1 Vice President Chris Shelton, who said the attacks are "creating a firestorm among state and public workers that is fueled by the hopes and dreams of the middle class and working people."

Jackson accused Christie of hypocrisy for blaming the state's budget deficit on workers while he cuts taxes for the rich and was even caught this week using a state police helicopter to take him to his son's baseball game. "Here you cannot get public transportation to work and you send somebody out to the ball game in a helicopter?" Jackson asked.

Around the state, more than 1,000 state workers rallied in Newark, and scores of others also demonstrated in Jersey City, as well as in neighboring Philadelphia to support 150 striking Red Cross workers who are members of the Health Professionals and Allied Employees-AFT.

CWA joined with a large coalition of workers and allied organizations for the Solidarity Tour, including the New Jersey Working Families Alliance, New Jersey Citizen Action, the NAACP, the New Jersey AFL-CIO, the New Jersey Black Issues Convention, the Latino Action Network, SEIU 1199, RDWSU, and leading African-American members of the clergy.

View pictures and videos from the rallies here and here.