New Jersey's 'Day of Reckoning Has Arrived'

New Jersey's 'Day of Reckoning Has Arrived'

Government Union Monopolists Have Brought State to Brink of Ruin (Source: May 2010 NRTWC Newsletter) From 1999 to 2009, according to the U.S. Labor Department, New Jersey's private-sector employment fell by 2.4%, a percentage decline seven times worse than the national average. Over the same period, New Jersey's state and local public employment jumped by a whopping 15.2%, substantially more than the hefty-enough nationwide increase of 12.5%. For most hard-working Garden State workers and employers, these statistics sum up why New Jersey is in even worse shape, economically, than the nation as a whole. For years, the state's heavily unionized public sector has been sucking resources and vitality out of beleaguered private-sector employees and businesses. But for government union officials, the relentless expansion of the Garden State's public-sector employment from 1999 to 2009, even as the state's private-sector employment alternately stagnated or shriveled, is a magnificent achievement that must be preserved and built upon, whatever the cost. During his successful campaign for the state's highest executive office and since he was inaugurated in January, GOP Gov. Chris Christie has sided with the vast majority of New Jerseyans who appreciate that state and local government must now be rolled back to give the private sector room to grow.
New Jersey's 'Day of Reckoning Has Arrived'

New Jersey's 'Day of Reckoning Has Arrived'

Government Union Monopolists Have Brought State to Brink of Ruin (Source: May 2010 NRTWC Newsletter) From 1999 to 2009, according to the U.S. Labor Department, New Jersey's private-sector employment fell by 2.4%, a percentage decline seven times worse than the national average. Over the same period, New Jersey's state and local public employment jumped by a whopping 15.2%, substantially more than the hefty-enough nationwide increase of 12.5%. For most hard-working Garden State workers and employers, these statistics sum up why New Jersey is in even worse shape, economically, than the nation as a whole. For years, the state's heavily unionized public sector has been sucking resources and vitality out of beleaguered private-sector employees and businesses. But for government union officials, the relentless expansion of the Garden State's public-sector employment from 1999 to 2009, even as the state's private-sector employment alternately stagnated or shriveled, is a magnificent achievement that must be preserved and built upon, whatever the cost. During his successful campaign for the state's highest executive office and since he was inaugurated in January, GOP Gov. Chris Christie has sided with the vast majority of New Jerseyans who appreciate that state and local government must now be rolled back to give the private sector room to grow.
Iowans Again Defeat Forced-Union-Fee Scheme

Iowans Again Defeat Forced-Union-Fee Scheme

But Hawkeye State's Popular Right to Work Law Still Under Fire (Source: May 2010 NRTWC Newsletter)  Over the past four years, union lobbyists in Des Moines employed every conceivable tactic to ram through the Hawkeye State Legislature legislation gutting Iowa's popular, six-decade-old Right to Work law. Again and again, union officials have threatened to recruit and bankroll primary challengers to run against Democratic legislators who refused to back forced union fees. This March, one union lobbyist is even alleged to have told a state lawmaker, "You could have $100,000 in your account to fight off any challenger," if he switched his position and voted for the forced-union-fee bill then pending in the Legislature. However, the National Right to Work Committee and its grass-roots ally, the Des Moines-based Iowans for Right to Work Committee, energized freedom-loving Iowans to fight back every step of the way. And this spring, the Big Labor politicians who run the Iowa House and Senate finally backed down and adjourned the 2010 session without ever bringing up for a vote H.F.2420, the Right to Work-gutting measure introduced in the 2009-10 Legislature. Union Bosses Remain Determined To Destroy Right to Work Law Not taking anything for granted, the National Right To Work Committee legislative department kept the heat on until the Iowa Legislature called it quits after an unusually short 2010 session on Tuesday, March 30. And the battle to save Iowa's Right to Work law is far from over even now.
California Public-Sector Union Bosses Proving They Can Squeeze Blood From a Turnip

California Public-Sector Union Bosses Proving They Can Squeeze Blood From a Turnip

(Source: April 2010 Forced-Unionism Abuses Exposed) By declaring bankruptcy, an insolvent municipality may avoid paying its bondholders anything near what it owes them.  It may even succeed in cutting public employees’ health benefits.  But it will not succeed in doing one thing that the bankrupt city of Vallejo, California absolutely must do to get back on its feet:  Rescind labor policies that encourage healthy municipal employees to retire when they are 50 or 55 with lavish pensions. That is what public-sector union bosses are now out to prove in the Golden State.  Two years ago this spring, Vallejo, a seemingly prosperous San Francisco suburb of roughly 120,000 residents, voted to file for Chapter 9 bankruptcy. In 2008, Vallejo’s budget, like those of many other California municipalities, had been driven deep in the red by government union bosses.  Union officials wielding monopoly-bargaining power handed to them by state law had driven up taxpayer costs for compensation of public-safety employees and retirees so high that they consumed 74% of Vallejo’s $80-million general budget. Public-safety employee wages, though surely generous, were not the reason municipal spending was out of control.  The real culprits were overtime costs, driven by complicated and counterproductive Big Labor work rules, and pension costs, driven primarily by union boss-instigated retirements of employees still in the prime of their lives.