Christie and Labor: Ready for the Next Round

The following story was written by Tom Johnson and published by our partners at NJSpotlight.com. 

It's Labor Day -- Chris Christie's third as governor of New Jersey -- and a particularly apt time to consider how labor is faring statewide. Christie's bombastic, highly publicized attacks on public employees are well known -- and something of a favorite on YouTube. But the governor is walking a peculiar tightrope. While he brawls and battles with public sector unions, he offers tacit, if not outright, support to construction jobs he hopes will benefit private unions and companies.

The fights have only begun, and this coming year will be a pivotal one for both Christie and public employees. The state workers' contract has expired. And the teachers' union, Christie's favorite foe, will have to square off against the governor on everything from tenure to school vouchers.

While Christie's attitude toward public unions is clear, his relationship to the building trades is almost murky. Meanwhile, how he treats both has major implications on the state economy. Forcing deep cuts on the public side of the balance takes money out of the economy. Favoring some -- though far from all -- high profile construction projects may benefit the building trades and the New Jersey economy.

What remains to be seen, however, is if the unions will ultimately act in concert.

United We Stand

Charles Wowkanech, president of the New Jersey State AFL-CIO, which represents both the state’s private and public sector, recently warned, "Now, more than ever, it is important that the labor movement speak with a unified voice on the most important issues facing working families in our state and our nation.

Gov. Christie and other enemies of organized labor would like nothing more than to see the house of labor divided into competing factions" – as it was during a State AFL-CIO’s August session, when angry public sector unions blocked the endorsement of ironworker and Senate President Stephen Sweeney (D-Gloucester) and two other legislators from the building trades.

National AFL-CIO President Richard Trumka echoed the same note last spring when he and 10 national union presidents representing unions ranging from the Service Employees International Unions to the United Auto Workers and the United Steel Workers urged Sweeney and other Democratic legislators in New Jersey not to follow the lead of Wisconsin in stripping public employees of their collective bargaining rights.

Yet Sweeney has done exactly that, working hand in hand with Christie to pass legislation that will require public employees to pay more toward their pension and health benefits – the equivalent of a 6 percent to 8 percent pay cut over three years for most teachers, police, firefighters, state, county and municipal government workers.

That bill included a provision banning unions from negotiating on health benefits for four years and followed earlier legislation imposing a strict 2 percent cap on annual school and local government spending increases that will effectively limit future pay hikes to that level or less.

But that's just the beginning. Christie is in the middle of a contract battle with the state government unions. State employee contracts expired June 30 without a settlement. Christie last spring demanded a 3.5 percent pay cut for all state workers, and state law effectively gives him the power -- never before exercised by a governor -- to impose a contract settlement if he and the state government unions cannot reach an agreement.

Christie is girding up for all-out battle in the upcoming year with the New Jersey Education Association (NJEA), over legislation to abolish tenure, expand charter schools and pass the Opportunity Scholarship Act (OSA) to provide vouchers to children in selected school districts to attend private and religious schools.

But the governor isn't simply cutting benefits, he's cutting public sector jobs as well: 29,100 that Christie qualifies as excess baggage whose jettisoning , he believes, will ultimately lead to more private sector job growth. Meanwhile, the public sector job cuts rank third in the country behind only the much larger states of New York and California. Nevertheless, the state has gained 50,000 private sector jobs since Christie took office 19 months ago.

On balance, however, New Jersey’s unemployment rate remains the 13th highest in the nation heading into this Labor Day.

Continue reading this story in NJ Spotlight.

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