Just wondering what you all think....

[donkeyjon.livejournal.com]

Any folks here from NJ who can comment on this? If the information he's giving is factual, it sounds like the teacher's union is screwing over their own members.

Comments

[udoswald.livejournal.com]

Chris Christie is a jerk just in general so I wouldn't give too much weight to his claims on anything. His brash, uncompromising attitude, seemed to work when he was US Attorney but it's not doing him any favors now that he's the Governor. He's decided to continue being an attention whore, and try his hardest to get his ugly mug on TV every single day, instead of actually trying to save the state.

Christie came into office and immediately started lobbing bombs at the state's schools and especially at the teachers. He's decided he's going to balance the budget on the backs of the schools in this state (which, as the teacher stated, were some of the best in the country at least under past administrations).

There are strong teachers' unions in this state, which is necessary since administrations of both parties have tried to score political points and save money by screwing the teachers. The fact that they didn't bow down and take a huge pay cut/fee increase, in a year when I'm sure every teacher's rent went up and other costs increased, is hardly a mark of shame.

The unions aren't "screwing over their own members", they're trying to keep the state from balancing its budget solely by hurting the teachers. If Christie is so worried about decreasing state revenue, he could easily stop his plan to give the rich in this state a huge tax cut. That would certainly help increase state revenues.

Oh, and if Christie is so concerned about increased costs/decreased revenue for the schools maybe he shouldn't have screwed up the whole Race to the Top thing. Those hundreds of millions of dollars would have been helpful in closing that billion dollar gap.

[donkeyjon.livejournal.com]

While I agree that the unions should try to force the governor to take money from elsewhere, when he reveals that he's not bluffing and that he will be laying off teachers, the union has a choice to protect its employees or lose some.

I also should point out that at least in KS and MI, state employees haven't gotten raises for a couple of years now. Expecting to receive a raise in this economy is not really seeing the whole picture.

That having been said, thank you for providing context and pointing out that this isn't a black and white issue. Christie has an entire budget available to him, and he is positioning this as a decision that cannot possibly be fixed in any other way, which is false.

[udoswald.livejournal.com]

Christie doesn't have the power to lay off any teachers. What he did was demand that individual school districts lay off as many teachers as possible so he could castrate the teachers' unions.

He then went to the people of the state and used the pulpit provided to him as Governor to suggest people vote against their local property tax levies (why the Governor should be getting involved in local school board elections is beyond me, especially when he's doing it to negatively effect local town finances). After he was successful in getting New Jerseyans to vote down many local school levies, he went further and cut funding drastically to the schools (meaning schools lost revenue from local taxes and lost revenue from the state making massive layoffs inevitable). Schools are now in such a financial hole that they're requiring students to bring in things like Windex and paper towels and clean classrooms because the schools had to fire the janitor. He also took control of the budget surpluses that had been accumulated by local governments essentially punishing towns for being fiscally responsible and further damaging their budgets.

I doubt giving in to Christie's terroristic demands would have saved a single teacher's job. Christie is not a negotiator, he's used to getting what he wants and is unwilling to compromise on anything. This was a decent personality trait when he was US Attorney (even though even then he was a jerk) but it's a horrible trait now that he's managed to buy the Governorship. What he wanted was to get lots of teachers fired and that's what he would have gotten no matter what.

Obviously it's a hard financial time but unions should still fight to get the best deal possible for their members. If a union just bends over and lets management get whatever it wants pay cuts can't be far off. It's the union's job to represent its members, not to worry about what other people are getting. Besides, the deal wasn't more than just keeping pay stagnant. Christie was expecting teachers to pay more for their benefits which, absent a raise, is a pay cut.