NJ Supreme Court: Striking Workers Entitled To Unemployment Benefits
In yet another outrageous decision by the reckless, runaway New Jersey Supreme Court, the 7 lawyers in black robes in Trenton have now ruled that striking workers are eligible for unemployment benefits. Via mycentrtaljersey.com:
Unemployment benefits are normally reserved for people who are forced from their jobs, not people who simply walk off their jobs — except in New Jersey, that is, where all common sense was toppled this week in an odd and strained ruling by the state’s Supreme Court, which determined that nurses who went on strike at a South Jersey hospital are entitled to receive jobless pay. As troubling, the decision upheld a backward state law that says strikers can receive unemployment benefits so long as their company remains open.
It is a “pro-labor decision,” said Fred Askin, a professor at Rutgers Law School in Newark. “It’s a progressive decision.”
No kidding.
And so the high court let political bias shape its thinking by rearranging long-established law.
The Social Security Act of 1935, which created the Federal-State Unemployment Compensation Program, is clear and unambiguous in its intent and language. The program’s main objective is “to provide temporary and partial wage replacement to involuntarily unemployed workers who were recently employed,” with emphasis on “involuntary.”
The ruling was 6-1. The lone court member to get it right, Justice Roberto Rivera-Soto, called the decision “perverse,” noting it “upends the common sense notion that striking employees have left their employment voluntarily and, hence, should be disqualified from unemployment compensation benefits.” His was a direct, succinct and accurate rendering of the flawed thinking of his fellow Supreme Court justices.
It’s bad enough that so many politicians in Trenton are beholden to Big Labor in New Jersey but for the highest court in our state to thumb their nose at the Rule of Law to support a liberal constituency is utterly unethical and shameful.
The Court has yet to come up much in the gubernatorial race but it ought to. The New Jersey Supreme Court, with its outrageous decisions on affordable housing (COAH), Abbot Districts and voting on state borrowing, has consistently overstepped its bounds and unleashed havoc on the people of New Jersey.
Electing Republicans to state goverment is just a first step towards fixing this state and addressing this particular problem. Once elected, Republicans will need to confront the Court head on by using the power of the elected branches to hold it to the authority it has constitutionally been given. Conservative justices will need to be appointed and those who consistently rule with no basis in law need to be held to account. To put it simply: Enough is enough!
Cross-posted at Conservatives with Attitude!
February 6th, 2009 at 9:40 am
In this case the court was doing its job in upholding “a backward state law” instead of making law from the bench.