Our Local shrunk 25% from 2000 to 2006, yet our leader boasted
about winning organizing awards. In 2007, the local realized an additional 1,500 members largely due to the previous
years' work by Tom Bruno to get Corrections Health Care back into State hands and the work he did collecting job descriptions
and then interviewing those in managerial titles ("M" category employees) in an effort to get them into CWA. without
his efforts, the Local's membership would still be in mid- 6,000's.
The 3% wage increase for state workers (which they were told would net
them a little over 1% after the new deductions kicked in) actually led to a net loss of pay ($20-$35 each pay) for them!
State workers were told that the State was broke and that is why they
had to accept the health care and pension give backs, yet the Governor’s own budget-in-brief, released on 2/21/07, showed
a $1.9 BILLION surplus from last year! THIS YEAR, the same story, except NOW the surplus is listed as $2.5 Billion, and still Carolyn Wade
is telling everyone the state is broke.
When one of our own members, Executive Board member, and former staff
representative, Tom Bruno, ran for the State Pension Board to help protect state worker pensions, our president, Carolyn Wade, and
executive vice president, Don Klein, tried to blackball him with the AFLCIO and refused to endorse him. 92,000
ballots went out to state workers all over the state and without a single word of support from our Local leadership or
the AFLCIO, he won with 55% of the vote. Did we even get to read about this dramatic victory for our members in the
Viewpoint??? Of course not! But everyone else got to see how our leadership let their personal feelings
get in the way of taking care of our members! http://politickernj.com/upset-pers-election-9077
We have lost our political clout in New Jersey politics. Our Local leadership
couldn't even get Hillary Clinton or Governor Corzine to come to our Local Convention in October of 2007. In fact, Carolyn
Wade proudly proclaims that she was invited to the Governor's Mansion to be TOLD that a retirement package will be offered
that does NOT include institutional workers, and that the hiring freeze will continue at least until June for the Department
of Human Services. In the same breath, she claims a victory because institutional workers will suffer NO LAYOFFS.
When you've suffered through a hiring freeze that decimated the Local
and created the kind of carnage we see coming out of Ancora Psychiatric, that isn't a VICTORY! It's a patheticly
thinly veiled attempt to distract people from the fact that there can be no layoffs where there are NO STAFF to layoff in
the first place!
There was a time, in the not-to-distant past, when Governors and Legislators
would ASK for our input BEFORE they made plans to injure our members. Now they are simply TELLING us what they have
decided to do. We wouldn't brag about your connections Mrs. Wade!
Governor Corzine created a task force to review State Worker benefits
in 2006, yet not one Local 1040 representative was on that task force to advocate for the members. Not one request from our Local leadership was made to the members to lobby for our inclusion. In short, our Local leaders were asleep behind the wheel while special interests and big money executives
carved up state worker benefits. And they're not done with us yet. In a report that was completed on September
5, 2007 but not released until three days after the elections, the Government
Efficiency and Reform Commission's Health Care Task Force Report recommends that state workers pay even more than the 1.5%
of their salary now required.
As the FY08 budget bills rolled through the Assembly and the Senate, not
one person from Local 1040 leadership testified on it, unless you count Tom Bruno who did it as a private citizen and stateworker.
http://www.njleg.state.nj.us/legislativepub/budget2008/Testimony/03132007/Bruno_T.pdf
Our leaders never asked for more money for our brothers and sisters
working in group homes. Not a word was said about property taxes which directly
impact on our brothers and sisters in county and municipal government. And the
only thing our Local leaders did for state workers was to remain silent.
A bill to close 3 more institutions was introduced and 3 public hearings
were held all over the state, yet not one person from our Local was there to comment on it. This has the potential to
shrink our Union by another 1,500 members and the Local leadership's response was a deafening silence. Is that
really the kind of leadership we want?
We deserve more than silence. We deserve more than lies.
We deserve more than a president who is more concerned about hiring her
friends and relatives (in positions with huge salaries that are not even authorized by our by-laws or our Executive Board),
than in trying to keep excellent staff.
And that is why we need a change, and why this
website has been created!
This September, the Local will have elections
for new leaders. You can choose to be part of the problem, or part of the solution!
