CWA Sues To Block Furloughs
TRENTON — Three public employee unions, headed by the Communications Workers of America, filed papers today with a New Jersey appeals court seeking to block the emergency rule allowing state workers to be furloughed.
The state Civil Service Commission last Wednesday adopted an emergency rule that permits the furloughs, which Gov. Jon S. Corzine says are needed on a once-a-month basis starting in May to help balance the state budget.
The appeal seeking to block the staggered furloughs says the rule was illegally adopted. The Corzine administration is also seeking a separate rule, adopted along the regular timeline, to permit furloughs for the fiscal year that begins in July.
CWA state director Hetty Rosenstein said the average state worker making $50,000 would lose nearly 10 percent of their income under Corzine’s budget plan, while a New Jersey resident making $500,000 would pay $625 more in taxes.
“Not only did the Corzine administration adopt this plan illegally, without the public notice and input required by law, the administration is continuing to ask public employees to bear the burden of our state’s fiscal crisis — while requiring only token contributions from the state’s wealthiest individuals,” Rosenstein said.
Quite frankly, I am growing weary of the whining of unions and union workers. If these people lived in the real world like everyone else, then they would be losing jobs not having them protected by way of furloughs. Unfortunately for New Jersey taxpayers, the last thing Democrats like Corzine want is for a government job to disappear.
Yet, the CWA would try to have us believe that Corzine is trying to balance the budget on their backs? When NJ taxpayers bear the highest burden in the country, one of their leaders has the gall to complain that they aren’t going to pay even more?
Sorry, spare us the sob story.
Cross-posted at Conservatives with Attitude! and Red County.
