Nagesh Rao teaches at The College of New Jersey and is a member of TCNJFT Local 2364. In this article first posted at his blog LeftyProf, he looks at the looming battle for New Jersey's unions in the face of attacks from both parties.
September 30, 2010
IT IS now nearly a year since Republican Chris Christie won the gubernatorial elections, and some nine months since he took office and stepped up his predecessor's efforts to balance the budget on the backs of working people.
Christie's unapologetic anti-union stance, his publicly professed determination to cut back on "entitlements" (read: union benefits), and his shameless attempts to divide public- and private-sector workers have, in these few short months, had a devastating impact not only on the livelihoods of thousands across the state but on the ideological climate as well.
To wrap your head around this crisis, take a look at the excellent analysis and commentary by Mark Magyar, who teaches at Rutgers University's School of Labor and Management Relations. As Magyar points out, New Jersey faces a shortfall of $45.6 billion in its state pension system, and $68.9 billion in unfunded liabilities for retiree health care benefits!
Where has all this money gone? Put simply, what should have been money that was held in the public's trust has been plundered and squandered away by a combination of financial manipulation, tax cuts and giveaways, and fiscal mismanagement, by the politicians who have ruled the state for the last two decades. And while liberal commentators often lay the blame on the Republican administration of Christine Todd Whitman (1994-2001), her three Democratic successors--Jim McGreevy (2002-2004), Richard Codey (2004-2006) and Jon Corzine (2006-2009)--did little to stem the bleeding, let alone reverse course.
A bankrupt system is now setting its sights on the living standards of working people, forcing them to accept "austerity" to restore it to financial health... "During his first eight months in office, Christie lowered pension benefits for new government workers, made deep cuts in state aid to schools and municipalities that forced thousands of layoffs, and imposed strict limits on future government spending increases..."
http://socialistworker.org/2010/09/30/desperate-times-in-new-jersey
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