CWA NJ AREA DIRECTOR HETTY ROSENSTEIN ON SIGNING OF QUARTERLY PENSION PAYMENT LEGISLATION
Below please find a statement from CWA NJ State Director Hetty Rosenstein on Governor Christie today signing legislation requiring quarterly pension payments.
“CWA supports quarterly pension payments. However, unless the full amount due to the plan is appropriated, quarterly payments are meaningless. History shows we simply cannot rely on the word of the Governor or legislature when it comes to the pension. For well over two decades, politicians have proven themselves incapable of making full payments. If Governor Christie was actually committed to funding the pension, he could have signed this bill when it was first sent to him two years ago. Instead, he’s simply passing the buck to the next governor without giving working families the guarantee of a payment. Simply put, without a Constitutional Amendment requiring payments, New Jersey’s working men and women could be getting quarterly payments of nothing.” – CWA NJ State Director Hetty Rosenstein
Today in Trenton: Quarterly Payments Bill Signed into Law, Unions Testify in Various Committees
The fight to fund pensions saw a victory today with the Governor doing the right thing by signing the quarterly pension payments bill into law despite vetoing it twice before. The law requires pension payments on a quarterly basis, allowing for increased investment returns and minimizing the risk of reduced payments at the end of the fiscal year. We recognize the diligent efforts of affiliates and elected officials who were essential to bringing this law to fruition.
In addition, many bills of concern to working families moved through committee today during a busy day at the Statehouse. The New Jersey State AFL-CIO lobbied and took positions on several bills. Below is a summary of legislation and corresponding committee actions:
S-2842: Investment of State Pension Fund Assets
The New Jersey State AFL-CIO testified on the bill heard by the Senate Budget and Appropriations Committee that provides for investment of State pension fund assets in certain debt obligations issued by New Jersey Transportation Trust Fund Authority and New Jersey Infrastructure Bank. The committee voted 11 to 0 to release the bill. The New Jersey State AFL-CIO advocated for desperately needed amendments to provide checks and balances on these potential investments. Senate President Sweeney, prime sponsor of the bill, committed to work with labor advocates to address their issues before advancing the bill further. The bill was originally posted for a full senate vote on Monday but is now being held.
S-1: Encouragement of Shared Services
The New Jersey State AFL-CIO testified on the bill heard by the Senate Community and Urban Affairs Committee that aims to encourage shared services for local and regional governments. The committee voted 3 to 1 to release the bill. Senators voted as follows: Yes – Brian Stack, Jennifer Beck, and Jeff Van Drew; No – Christopher Connors. The State Federation urged the committee to hold the bill at this time in order to adopt amendments to address our concerns related to civil service and layoffs.
A-3296: Employee Contributions to State-Administered Retirement Systems
The Assembly Appropriations Committee voted along party lines to release this bill from committee. The measure specifies that increased employee contributions to TPAF, JRS, PERS, PFRS, and SPRS will be credited as additional contributions to those retirement systems and will not be used to reduce the normal contributions of the State and the other public employers. The bill was previously released by the Assembly Local Government Committee. The New Jersey State AFL-CIO is in support of this legislation and thanks the prime sponsors, Assemblymen Singleton, Wimberly, and Holley.
Paid Family Leave
The Assembly Regulatory Oversight and Reform and Federal Relations Committee heard testimony on the state’s paid family leave benefits program. The New Jersey State AFL-CIO testified, recognizing the success of the program and proposing ways to further strengthen it and increase utilization. The primary recommendation of the State Federation included an increase of benefit levels and providing job protection that prevent employers from firing workers for using the program.
In Unity,
Charles Wowkanech
President
Laurel Brennan
Secretary-Treasurer
Today, the Appellate Division of the New Jersey Superior Court repudiated Governor Christie’s Job Banding Rule and all amendments, reversing all NJ Civil Service Commission (CSC) decisions implementing the rule.
“For over a century, the Civil Service System has been based on the idea that people are appointed and promoted based on a system of objectively-determined merit and fitness. From his first day in office, Governor Christie has been obsessed with dismantling this fair, transparent system which protects the public from patronage and discrimination,” said CWA NJ Area Director Hetty Rosenstein. “So, I am extremely heartened that the Court repudiated Christie’s sneaky scheme to dismantle civil service by ignoring the will of the people, the legislature, the law and our system of checks and balances.”
In 2012, the Christie Administration attempted to job band all Civil Service titles—which would group together civil service job titles into a “broad band” of titles, thus allowing management to freely move and promote workers from lower to high titles regardless of fitness or merit.
Governor Christie’s sweeping changes to the promotional process for non-uniformed state workers gutted modest taxpayer protections from political patronage. Christie’s scheme sought to create more patronage and corruption at all levels of government. Christie’s plan lumped workers into “broad bands” of job titles— limiting valuable public oversight of which employees are performing specific tasks. It replaced promotions for workers based on objective qualifications and done based on a transparent and objective testing process with “advancement” through the employment “bands.” The “advancement” would be done solely at the discretion of management. It would not be subject to minimum qualifications requirements or public oversight. And it could allow politically-friendly workers to get ahead, at the expense of those who are deserving. Christie was undermining promotions for those deserving and subjected promotions to the whims of political pressure. Simply put, Christie’s proposal handed power over to politicians and backroom players, at the expense of both good government and New Jersey’s taxpayers.
Moreover, Christie’s changes also allowed his administration to gut veterans’ preference in promotions for most positions in state government. Since the testing process is the only place that veterans’ preference exists in New Jersey Civil Service, it replaced a clear commitment to our state’s veterans with a “trust me” system. Management would merely be directed to weigh veterans’ status in their own minds when making decisions about advancement.
Between June 2013 and 2014, CWA successfully got the New Jersey Legislature to—not once, but twice— pass Resolutions that voided the Civil Service rules that allowed for this. In spite of those Resolutions, Civil Service disregarded the Legislature’s veto that voided the rules and attempted to implement the job banding of Department of Transportation titles and Office of Information Technology titles. CWA, joined by Senate President Steve Sweeney and Assembly Speaker Vincent Prieto, filed an appeal against the Governor’s Civil Service Commission for violating the resolutions taken by the Legislature.
These measures Civil Service Commission was seeking to go around had been on the books for over a century, and were deemed so vital to fairness in public service that they’re written into the N.J. State Constitution. So obviously, there was widespread condemnation against Christie’s plans – from Civil Rights organizations, veterans, people with disabilities, women’s organizations and public watchdogs, etc. And today, all these folks have been vindicated by the Court.