JUNE 8, 2015, 10:06 AM LAST UPDATED: MONDAY, JUNE 8, 2015, 2:28 PM
BY SALVADOR RIZZO
STAFF WRITER |
THE RECORD
The state Supreme Court will hand down its ruling Tuesday in a major legal battle between Governor Christie and public-sector unions who say his move to cut $1.57 billion from pension funding violated workers’ rights.
The high court’s decision will be released at 10 a.m. Tuesday, according to a news release from state judiciary officials.
The ruling is expected to have a far-reaching impact on New Jersey’s state finances and workers’ rights. At stake is a pension-reform law Christie signed in his first term, which pledged large payments to the strapped pension system for seven years until the funds regained their health. Christie is asking the court to strike down his law during difficult economic times.
Christie’s pension reform was once his signature legislative achievement, a bipartisan agreement that raised worker costs but also pledged more tax dollars to rescue the pension system from collapse. The Republican governor said it was government at its best, protecting 770,000 pension beneficiaries. To this day, Christie boasts about his “pension reform” efforts on frequent trips out of state as he explores a presidential run.
MAY 19, 2015, 10:14 PM LAST UPDATED: WEDNESDAY, MAY 20, 2015, 10:42 AM
BY LINDA MOSS
STAFF WRITER |
THE RECORD
Around 150 members of Bergen County building trades unions attended an East Rutherford Council meeting on Tuesday urging the borough to pass a resolution and introduce an ordinance for the bonds necessary to pave the way for completion of the American Dream project. The Council passed the resolution.
EAST RUTHERFORD — About 150 members of area trade unions came to Borough Hall on Tuesday evening to urge the Borough Council to take the next steps necessary so the American Dream project can get fully under way, and the governing body did just that.
Taking action before a standing-room-only audience that overflowed into the halls, the council — despite several dissenting members — passed a resolution revising terms of its bond agreement with developer Triple Five for the shopping and entertainment complex. In addition, the council introduced an ordinance relating to the Payment-In-Lieu-of-Taxes, or PILOT program, associated with the development.
With those actions, part of a plan to have the borough act as a no-risk conduit for construction loans, the state Local Finance Board will now be able to review the amended finance agreement for approval. The goal is to get the ordinance on the agenda for the board’s June meeting.
The actions came as Rick Sabato, president of the Bergen County Building and Construction Trades Councils, implored the local governing body to support the project so that many of the area’s unemployed union members can get back to work. A year ago, Sabato estimated that American Dream will create jobs for 9,000 of his members over the next three years and beyond.
Shari Puterman, Asbury Park (N.J.) Press11:12 a.m. EDT May 15, 2015
ORANGE, N.J. — A New Jersey teacher has been fired after having her students write “get well” cards to a man convicted of killing a Philadelphia police officer in 1981.
Marilyn Zuniga, a third-grade teacher at Forest Street Elementary School in Orange, was first suspended April 10, after her students wrote to former Black Panther Mumia Abu-Jamal. Orange School Superintendent Ronald Lee confirmed Zuniga was fired.
Abu-Jamal is serving a life sentence for the 1981 murder of Officer Daniel Faulkner. He was recently admitted to a Pennsylvania hospital after suffering complications from diabetes. He has since been released and remains incarcerated at State Correctional Institution – Mahanoy in Frackville, Pa.
AP New Jersey Supreme Court Associate Justices Lee A. Solomon, left, and Jaynee LaVecchia, right, listen as Associate Justice Anne M. Patterson asks a question during a hearing Wednesday, May 6, 2015, in Trenton
Taxpayers Face Tax Increase as N.J justices appear divided along partisan lines in pension battle
MAY 6, 2015, 12:45 PM LAST UPDATED: WEDNESDAY, MAY 6, 2015, 11:30 PM
BY SALVADOR RIZZO
STATE HOUSE BUREAU |
THE RECORD
The state Supreme Court appeared split along ideological lines Wednesday on one of the biggest legal questions in New Jersey: Can Governor Christie ignore a pension-reform law he signed in 2011 and cut funding for the distressed retirement system?
Associate Justice Barry Albin, a veteran of the court’s liberal wing and a Democratic appointee, hammered Christie’s attorney and sounded incredulous that the Republican governor wanted to strike down a key part of his own pension overhaul. At one point, Albin suggested the courts could order a tax increase to meet pension-funding requirements.
Associate Justice Anne Patterson, a Christie appointee on the court’s conservative side, grilled the attorneys for public-worker unions suing over the funding reductions. Patterson said the courts were no place to be deciding state budget priorities and noted that Christie would have to make deep cuts to hospitals or schools in order to round up the funds missing from the pension system.
The outcome may hinge on the court’s lone independent, Associate Justice Jaynee LaVecchia. She asked tough questions of both sides and did not indicate which way she was leaning.
How the Midwest Is Scaling Back Big Labor’s Special Privileges
James Sherk / @JamesBSherk / April 25, 2015
Labor unions have traditionally been the 800-pound gorilla of special interest groups. They have secured handouts and subsidies that other organizations’ lobbyists could only dream about. But that may be changing.
This year a raft of Midwestern states have scaled back some of organized labor’s special privileges. States are starting to treat unions no differently from other private membership organizations.
Many politicians—of both parties—fear that crossing organized labor could cost them reelection. Unions use this clout to engage in massive “rent seeking”—pursuing legislation that transfers others’ wealth to them.
Most prominently, unions in half the country can force workers to pay dues, even if they do not want to join the union. The ACLU, the National Rifle Association, and other private organizations must persuade Americans to voluntarily join and donate. Not unions.
Once they organize a workplace, unions can (but need not) force workers to accept their representation. In 25 states they can also force workers to pay union dues. The other 25 states have “right-to-work” laws that make payment of union dues voluntary.
Unsurprisingly, unions prefer compulsion. They fight right-to-work tooth and nail, and their opposition usually blocks it. Between 1980 and 2010, only two states passed right-to-work laws.
Compulsory dues are just one union handout. Thirty-two states enforce “prevailing wage” laws that effectively require contractors to pay union wage scales on state or local government construction projects. This makes public construction projects a lot more expensive by insulating construction unions against competition from non-union workers.
Many state and local governments go even further by virtually mandating that their construction contractors use union labor. Government bodies often require construction companies to agree to “Project Labor Agreements” in order to bid on public-works projects. PLAs require contactors to use union wage scales and union work rules, and to hire all their workers through union hiring halls. This raises the cost of public construction projects by 12 to 18 percent. Few other organizations’ lobbyists can even dream of getting such special treatment.
Fortunately, all this is changing. Michigan and Indiana both passed right-to-work laws in 2012. At the time, unions promised electoral retribution, but a funny thing happened on the way to the voting booth: nothing.
Conservatives expanded their legislative majorities in both states after the laws passed. Union bosses opposed voluntary dues, but the voters did not. In Michigan, just one legislator who voted for right-to-work lost reelection: a moderate state representative defeated in the primary by a Tea Party challenger. Unions turned out to have more bark than bite.
This victory has given more policymakers the courage to tackle labor reform. Now many Midwestern states have begun reining in unions’ coercive powers. Governor Scott Walker just signed legislation making Wisconsin the 25th state with workplace-freedom laws. Unions can no longer compel Badger State workers to pay their dues.
Missouri may soon follow suit. This year the state House passed right-to-work legislation for the first time in its history. The state Senate will probably do the same. Democratic Governor Jay Nixon has promised to veto it, but term limits will force him out of office in 2016. If the voters elect a conservative replacement, Missouri may soon become right-to-work.
In Kentucky, right-to-work stalled in the legislature, so local governments have taken matters into their own hands. A dozen Kentucky counties have used the “Home Rule” power the legislature delegated to them to pass local right-to-work laws.
Even Bruce Rauner, the newly elected moderate-Republican governor of Illinois, has embraced right-to-work. He has proposed local workplace-freedom zones and filed a lawsuit to block forced union dues for state employees.
The rent seeking rollback has gone far beyond union dues, however. The Indiana legislature just repealed the state’s prevailing wage law, which means Indiana no longer requires taxpayers to pay union rates for construction work. Similar bills have been introduced by high-profile legislators in Wisconsin and Michigan.
Now the Ohio House has also taken a small step toward reform. After the voters repealed SB 5, which placed limits on government unions, in 2011, the state legislature avoided labor issues—until now. With bold new leadership in the Ohio House, the new budget would prohibit state agencies from requiring PLAs on construction contracts. If it becomes law, unions will compete for those projects on an equal footing with everyone else.
Americans have every right to associate with unions, or not, as they choose, but the law should not give them special treatment. Many Midwestern states are finally taking steps to help return unions to membership in voluntary civil society.
APRIL 23, 2015, 8:57 PM LAST UPDATED: THURSDAY, APRIL 23, 2015, 9:02 PM
BY TODD SOUTH
STAFF WRITER |
THE RECORD
HACKENSACK — Bergen County Executive James J. Tedesco presented his budget to the freeholders Thursday afternoon, showing that a combination of mandated expenses and debt coming due would mean a $17 million increase to the tax levy.
For the owner of the average home in the county, assessed at $324,000, that translates to a property tax increase of $12.73.
Tedesco illustrated that figure as the cost of two foam-topped Starbuck’s specialty coffee drinks with extra expresso shots and caramel — drinks that he placed on the freeholders’ round table.
Under Tedesco’s $531 million spending plan, the total $387 million tax levy would mean the county portion of the tax bill on an average home would be $762.28, up 1.7 percent from 2014.
by DAVID FRENCH April 20, 2015 4:00 AM From the May 4, 2015, issue of NR ‘
THEY CAME WITH A BATTERING RAM.” Cindy Archer, one of the lead architects of Wisconsin’s Act 10 — also called the “Wisconsin Budget Repair Bill,” it limited public-employee benefits and altered collective-bargaining rules for public-employee unions — was jolted awake by yelling, loud pounding at the door, and her dogs’ frantic barking. The entire house — the windows and walls — was shaking. She looked outside to see up to a dozen police officers, yelling to open the door. They were carrying a battering ram.She wasn’t dressed, but she started to run toward the door, her body in full view of the police. Some yelled at her to grab some clothes, others yelled for her to open the door. “I was so afraid,” she says. “I did not know what to do.” She grabbed some clothes, opened the door, and dressed right in front of the police. The dogs were still frantic. “I begged and begged, ‘Please don’t shoot my dogs, please don’t shoot my dogs, just don’t shoot my dogs.’ I couldn’t get them to stop barking, and I couldn’t get them outside quick enough. I saw a gun and barking dogs. I was scared and knew this was a bad mix.”Read more at: https://www.nationalreview.com/article/417155/wisconsins-shame-i-thought-it-was-home-invasion-david-french
APRIL 21, 2015, 1:45 PM LAST UPDATED: TUESDAY, APRIL 21, 2015, 10:08 PM
BY MELISSA HAYES
STATE HOUSE BUREAU |
THE RECORD
The New Jersey Education Association will no longer work with Governor Christie on revamping pension and health benefits for public employees, ending what the governor had called an “unprecedented accord” at the heart of his plan to reform the system.
Instead, the NJEA said on Tuesday that it would focus on a lawsuit filed by more than a dozen unions that challenges Christie’s decision to significantly cut the state’s pension contributions. A Superior Court judge has sided with the unions, ruling Christie must make the larger payments, and the state Supreme Court will hear the governor’s appeal next month.
“If we had it to do over again, we would never have signed the memo describing concepts we discussed with the commission,” NJEA President Wendell Steinhauer said in his statement, referring to the panel the governor appointed to make recommendation shoring up the pension system. “It was misrepresented by the governor, and that distracted everyone from the real priority: requiring the state to fund the pensions for which our members have paid their share on each and every payday throughout their careers.”
Christie, who had trumpeted the deal with his biggest political foe, turned to social media to respond to the union and to attack Democrats who joined the unions’ lawsuit and called for him to make larger pension payments.
Today, let’s talk about what I have decided to call time-bomb bonds: securities that blow up in the issuer’s face years or decades after being sold to investors.
The case in point: $1.14 billion of pension bonds that my home state of New Jersey sold in 1997, securities that I came across while working with Cezary Podkul of ProPublica for anarticle about New Jersey’s finances that was published Saturday by The Washington Post. (Sloan/Washington Post)
Chris Christie is promoting his tell-it-like-it-is style of governing with town-hall meetings in New Hampshire before a possible White House run. Back home, attendees of such forums haven’t heard the whole story of the pension mess throwing New Jersey’s budget into disarray.
What’s missing from the Republican’s weekly narrative, during which he blames Democrats and public unions for the employee costs crowding out other spending, is that he shares the culpability. Record retirements in response to his first-term benefit reductions contributed to the state’s $83 billion pension-funding shortfall; Another wave of departures looms as Christie seeks a second round of cutbacks. (Young/Bloomberg)
Pushback by Atlantic City’s police and firefighter unions will likely be the single biggest impediment to the financial rescue of the city. The unions cannot – must not – be allowed to win this fight. And the only questions are: How long will the battle take and how ugly will it get? (Perskie/for PolitickerNJ)
No repair in sight for N.J. transportation fund; talks collapse in hunt for revenue
MARCH 25, 2015, 3:51 PM LAST UPDATED: WEDNESDAY, MARCH 25, 2015, 11:07 PM
BY CHRISTOPHER MAAG AND MELISSA HAYES
STAFF WRITERS |
THE RECORD
Negotiations to fix New Jersey’s depleted transportation funding system have broken down, the state transportation commissioner said Wednesday. That means any permanent fix — including a possible gas tax increase — probably will not happen this year, elected officials and transportation experts said.
“The likelihood of it being resolved for the moment is not ideal,” said Commissioner Jamie Fox in reference to the upcoming November election when all 80 seats of the state Assembly are on the ballot. The primary filing deadline for that race is Monday. “It’s election time, which makes it a much more difficult thing |to do.”
Since the beginning of the year, Fox and leaders of both political parties have said the state’s transportation system faces a serious budget shortfall, and they pushed to fix it immediately. The fund that pays for major transportation projects takes in $1.2 billion annually, mostly from motor fuels taxes and turnpike tolls. Nearly all the money is dedicated to paying off more than $18 billion in debt, however, with little left for big maintenance projects and new construction.
NJEA experiences an honest moment, admits not giving a damn about school quality
March 13, 2015
By Matt Rooney | The Save Jersey Blog
You and I know that the New Jersey Education Association (NJEA) cares about two things, Save Jerseyans: preservation of their power, wielded through the accrual of money and politics.
Kids, parents and yes, teachers, be damned. But they don’t always come right out and say it.
Sometimes they do. Who can forget how back in 2012 then-NJEA Executive Director Vincent Giordano went on TV and told New Jersey’s poor families stuck in crappy public school districts sorry, “life’s not always fair.”
Next up: at the 2015 NJSCERA Conference on Virtual & Blended Learning held on Wednesday, the NJEA’s Marguerite Schroder (note: their website says she’s a “student organizer” but, no offense, she looks a little long-in-the-tooth to be a student so I’m not exactly sure what her duties include… maybe it’s like community organizing?) admitted to Bob Bowdon of the pro-school organization Choice Media that NO, her organization wouldn’t support a non-unionized school even if it was high quality:
James Sherk / @JamesBSherk / Alex Belica / March 09, 2015
Today Republican Gov. Scott Walker signed legislation making Wisconsin the nation’s 25th right-to-work state.
The victory is a historic moment for the growing right-to-work movement. Workers in half the country are now free to stop paying dues to a union they feel is not representing their interests.
Despite vehement pushback from union officials, Walker stood with the majority of voters nationwide and in Wisconsin who support workplace freedom. Without right-to-work, workers have little protection from their own union, which can seize part of their paycheck without their consent. Right-to-work lets workers decide whether or not their union has earned their support.
Even some union officials recognize this makes sense. Gary Casteel, now the secretary-treasurer for the United Auto Workers, told the press last year:
This is something I’ve never understood, that people think right to work hurts unions. To me, it helps them. You don’t have to belong if you don’t want to. So if I go to an organizing drive, I can tell these workers, ‘If you don’t like this arrangement, you don’t have to belong’ versus ‘If we get 50 percent of you, then all of you have to belong, whether you like to or not.’ I don’t even like the way that sounds, because it’s a voluntary system, and if you don’t think the system’s earning its keep, then you don’t have to pay.
Perhaps unsurprisingly union officials pay themselves less in states with right-to-work laws.
The new law will also mean more jobs for Wisconsinites. Unions organize aggressively in non-right-to-work states. Convincing 51 percent of employees to unionize means all of them must pay dues in perpetuity (unions do not generally have to run for re-election). Right-to-work reduces the financial incentive for unions to target companies with satisfied workers, which makes businesses more likely to locate there.
Wisconsin joins its Midwestern neighbors Indiana and Michigan, which both passed right-to-work in 2012. Many counties across Kentucky have enacted similar provisions at the local level.
Unions protested vehemently against right-to-work in all these jurisdictions. One high-profile union supporter in Michigan even vowed “there will be blood.” It never happened. Instead many workers opted out, while many more kept paying dues for union representation they liked. And almost every politician who supported the policy got re-elected.
In face of protests from the left Walker did the right thing. Unions do not like voluntary dues, but workers and voters do.
Reader says starting in 2018 the BoE and the Village will start having to pay a 40% tax on top of those benefits just because they are so valuable
But let’s raise taxes more to pay to subsidize all of the annual increases in healthcare premiums for our BoE and Municipal employee, right? While they pay a minimum amount out of pocket for what are classified as “platinum” plans under the ACA, the rest of us are paying for both our own health care coverage and then subsidizing public workers – how on earth is this fair? And starting in 2018 the BoE and the Village will start having to pay a 40% tax on top of those benefits just because they are so valuable, worth well over $22,000 according to divorce settlement findings on the value of the health plans. Why are Village taxpayers footing all of the annual increase, which was almost $700K (+12% compared to 2013) just for our municipal employees in 2014? This taxpayer give away has to stop, as this article says, we’re already have the fifth-highest average property tax bill in the nation and pay well over 2% of our property value annually in property taxes… we’re literally being taxed to death to pay for essentially free health care benefits. This has to stop.
