Jonathan Tamari
Philadelphia Inquirer
4/6/2010
TRENTON – New Jersey’s public employee labor unions, long seen as a potent political force and often depicted as an 800-pound gorilla looming over the Statehouse, are running short of friends in Trenton.
Gone is Gov. Jon S. Corzine, who regularly sided with unions. In his place stands Gov. Christie, a Republican who has sharply criticized labor’s influence, leadership, and benefits.
Public labor unions have found no refuge among Democrats, their traditional allies. Democratic labor leaders in the Legislature have been among the most vocal supporters of cuts to government benefits, saying taxpayers can no longer afford the perks.
Senate President Stephen Sweeney (D., Gloucester), business officer for an ironworkers’ local, made cutting public employee pensions and health coverage his first priority as head of the chamber. Fellow Democrats, sensing unease with high taxes and public resentment toward government workers’ benefits, joined behind him and the governor…
…”People in the labor movement feel like Democrats are abandoning their friends, are being intimidated by the governor’s attack on public workers, and are failing to articulate a clear defense of the workers who provide the education for our kids and the services that the people of the state depend on,” said Robert Master, the Communications Workers of America’s regional political director. “It’s very disappointing.”
He raised the possibility of unions’ fielding their own candidates in next year’s elections.
At a hearing on the benefit proposals, Bill Lavin, president of the state Firemen’s Mutual Benevolent Association, told lawmakers he was “disgusted.”
“Normally I say it’s an honor to speak before this body,” he told the Assembly Appropriations Committee. “I don’t feel that way today.”
He said he understood that Republicans would side with their new leader but sharply criticized the Legislature’s majority Democrats. “Because we have a new king in town, our Democratic friends tuck and run,” Lavin said…
Read the entire article at the Inquirer.
