CWA Local 1033

The State of New Jersey is shut down because the Legislature and Governor failed to reach a budget agreement. Essential employees will be told to report to work and everyone else will be locked out of work until this budget is passed by the Legislature and signed by the Governor.

Representatives of CWA have been here at the State House at every budget and General session seeking to protect our members, our pensions, and State Services. We have been lobbying all day, every day, this week, along with many of our allies in labor, faith, and community groups.

Unfortunately, Governor Christie is more interested in exacting final revenge on New Jersey than he is in negotiating a budget. After the Senate and the Assembly had come up with a budget that by all accounts, should have resulted in the Governor’s signature, Christie demanded that both houses pass a bill that would have created maximum havoc to healthcare in New Jersey. He raised this issue to derail the process after the Democrats drafted a budget that essentially agreed to 99% of his original budget proposal.

Assembly Speaker Prieto has posted the budget bill as the Legislature’s first priority and has refused the political shakedown of the State’s only non-profit insurer and the only insurer that covers Medicaid.

When Prieto refused to go along, Sweeney’s allies in the Assembly, withheld their votes for a budget.

CWA took a strong and relentless position. Pass a budget and put it on the Governor’s desk.

Unfortunately, bad politics have once again taken the place of good government.

What should you do?

Call these Legislators* who are blocking the passage of a balanced budget. Tell them that a “no” vote or an “abstain” vote is the same as voting “yes” to a shutdown. This is unacceptable.

ASSEMBLY REP

PHONE

District Area

Craig Coughlin

(732) 855-7441

Middlesex County

Joe Danielsen

(732) 247-3999

Middlesex County

Joe Egan

(732) 249-4550

Middlesex County

Nancy Pinkin

(732) 548-1406

Middlesex County

Troy Singleton

(856) 234-2790

Burlington County

Herb Conaway

(856) 461-3997

Burlington County

Eliana Pintor-Marin

(973) 589-0713

Essex County

Gordon Johnson

(201) 530-0469

Bergen County

Eric Houghtaling

(732) 695-3371

Monmouth County

Joanne Downey

(732) 333-0166

Monmouth County

The Budget may be resolved over the weekend, but that is not clear. CWA representatives will monitor the budget all weekend long and continue to press the Legislators that did not vote for the Assembly budget to do so. (Our leaders and members have been making hundreds of calls and we will continue to generate that type of pressure.) CWA representatives will be at the State House for the duration of this crisis.

If the State is still shut down as of Monday morning, we will have a Tele-Town Hall call at 11 a.m. with all of our members. If we have your phone number, we will call you at the number we have. If we do not have your number, there will be an 800 number that you can call into.

Will we get paid?

“Essential” employees are working. CWA believes that this constitutes a lock out for those workers who are not working and that we are entitled to be paid. (We were paid in 2006, the last time there was a shut down.) Needless to say, Christie disagrees. We are going to institute the process necessary to demonstrate that our members are ready, willing and able to work. You will be told where and how to report in order to create that record.

CWA will keep you up to date as to what is going on. Please make calls to the Legislators listed above and make it clear that you hold them responsible for not voting for the Budget. Had they done so, there would not be a shut down.

*The following South Jersey Legislators also did not vote for the budget: Bob Andrzejczak, Vincent Mazzeo, John Burzichelli, Adam Taliaferro, Paul Moriarity, Gabriela Mosquera, Louis Greenwald, Pamela Lampitt. We did not ask you to call them because they are deeply committed to supporting Sweeney in his position. The only Republican to vote for the budget was Chris Brown from LD 2.

In Solidarity,

Hetty Rosenstein
CWA NJ Area Director

Category: News

State of NJ closure Executive Order

Posted on July 1, 2017 by Admin

State of NJ closure Executive Order

Category: News

State of NJ Shut Down

Posted on July 1, 2017 by Admin

12:34 a.m. July 1, 2017
Attention New Jersey State Workers

We have just left the State House. The State of New Jersey is shut down. A more comprehensive notice will be emailed to our members and posted on the www.cwanj.org website. It will give you instructions as to which legislators to call and insist that they vote for the budget.

If the shut down is not resolved by Monday, there will be Tele Town Hall call that will fully brief our members.

Please watch for the email tomorrow and check the website and this page frequently.

In Solidarity,

Hetty

Category: News

CWA Strong Union Strong! Standing strong with labor and community advocates to urge NJ legislatures to pass a clean budget by midnight tonight and avoid a State shut down.

Posted on June 30, 2017 by Admin

CWA Strong Union Strong! Standing strong with labor and community advocates to urge NJ legislatures to pass a clean budget by midnight tonight and avoid a State shut down. We will keep our membership informed through our website, email, texts, etc. we will do whatever it takes for workers rights!

Category: Committees, Legislative Political Action Committee, News Tags: Political Action

CWA Statement to Members on the State Budget

Posted on June 27, 2017 by Admin

There have been many media reports about various deals being negotiated as part of this year’s state budget process. There are several important issues being discussed now, including placing the state’s lottery into the public pension plans, taking portions of the Horizon Blue Cross/Blue Shield reserve funds to pay for an opioid addiction program and reform the way Horizon is governed, and changes to the school funding formula. Some elected leaders have threatened a state shut down if there is not a deal in place on all of these issues by July 1. Here is what CWA is working on at this time and here is our position on the important issues in this year’s budget negotiations:

Christie’s Pension and Lottery Deal:

Under this proposal, the lottery would be made an asset of the pension. Our legal and pension experts have reviewed the proposal and so have our actuaries. We have legal questions for which we do not yet have answers, but we believe the current proposal will do no harm to the pension plan or the services currently funded by the lottery. There is also a benefit to the plan of having a dedicated revenue source of approximately $1 billion a year if the plan survives any legal challenges. It is the goal of Governor Christie and Senate President Sweeney to have this deal completed as part of the state budget process, which requires a budget to be in place by July 1 or a government shutdown will occur. Even though we believe there is a small benefit to the pension, the fact that we have legal questions that cannot be answered in the time frame necessary to complete the legislation, CWA neither supports nor opposes this deal.

Horizon:

Under this proposal, a Governor would have the authority to appoint board members to Horizon Blue Cross/Blue Shield, and would have some authority to take portions of the reserves of Horizon BC/BS to fund other state initiatives. We believe that making large changes to health care delivery in light of the current uncertainty with health care in Washington, and doing it in a secretive process in which a bill goes from introduction to being law in as little as three days is unwise. We also believe that ratepayers of Horizon BC/BS should be the beneficiaries of Horizon reserves and that funding new state programs, however necessary they are, is inappropriate. Additionally, the reason New Jersey doesn’t have money to spend on opioid addiction programs is because we have seen eight years of record-breaking, budget-busting tax cuts for the wealthiest among us.

State Health Benefits:

The unions of the Plan Design Committee asked legislative leadership in both houses to reject Governor Christie’s call to find $125 million in savings to the SHBP this year. Governor Christie has broad power to certify what revenues will come in or how much things will cost, and legislative leadership was unwilling to cut $125 million in spending elsewhere in the budget in order to eliminate the need to save money in health care. We expect a budget resolution to amend Christie’s initial proposal that will call for $125 million in savings in health benefits this year to be part of this budget, and we expect Christie to call for shifting more costs to public workers as part of the Plan Design Committee negotiations this year.

CWA will oppose any further shifting of costs to members on healthcare.

We will need to 1) mobilize members to come to plan design committee bargaining sessions this year to ensure all unions refuse to deal with the Christie Administration, and 2) work hard to elect a Governor who will reverse the effects of this decision and identify other places in the budget to find these savings once a new Governor is in office next January.

Shutdown:

Some elected leaders are threatening a state shutdown if there is not a deal on the budget, the lottery/pension plan, Horizon, and changes to the school funding formula by July 1. We believe Democrats should not be making bad deals with the least popular Governor in the country, especially when we are mere months away from a new Governor. We believe threats to shut down the state and disrupt vital services over issues that have nothing to do with the functions of state government are irresponsible.

We will also not allow any elected official to push us into taking a terrible position on school funding or Horizon or the lottery/pension plan by threatening our state worker members with a shut down.

Thank you for your continued service to the State and our communities. We will continue to keep you informed as these issues develop over the next few days.

CWA Statement to Members on the State Budget

Category: News

NJ State AFL-CIO Endorsements

Posted on June 23, 2017 by Admin

NJ State AFL-CIO Endorsements

Category: Committees, Legislative Political Action Committee Tags: Political Action

Republican Health Care Bill Cuts Your Medicaid | Health Care | AFL-CIO Video

Posted on June 19, 2017 by Admin

The American Health Care Act (AHCA), which is the Republican health care bill, is about to be voted on in the Senate. This bill, along with President Trump’s proposed budget, will cut Medicaid funding almost in half. Many Americans, including seniors, children and women, will lose medicaid benefits and transfer the money meant for all of us to just the richest 1%. Call 888-865-8089 and tell your senators to vote no on the AHCA.

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Republican Health Care Bill Cuts Your Medicaid | Health Care | AFL-CIO Video

Category: Legislative Political Action Committee, News Tags: Political Action