Here you will easily see the beginning of the lies when you read:  “CWA Local 1040 is the union of choice for over 9,000 workers in both the private and public sectors in New Jersey.”

The fact is, even in the year 2000, President Carolyn Wade presided over a Local union of 8,500 members TOTAL, far less than “over 9,000,” and she reported this to the Federal Government on a special Union reporting form called the LM2 which is publicly available from the U.S. Department of Labor.  Unfortunately, that was the last, good year for membership gains, and the last time we would see a membership number above 8,000.  In fact, in the last LM2 Report (December 29, 2006), she reported the total membership to be 6,326.  That’s a 25% drop in membership.  And with the drop in membership comes a drop in clout.

Next, let’s talk about the net 1% increase for state workers under the terms of their new contract.  Carolyn Wade went to several state facilities to talk directly to workers in the Spring of 2007 to persuade the membership to accept the tentative agreement.  According to her, it was a “good contract.”  First of all, there was NO WAGE FREEZE she said.  And even after the Pension and Health Care pre-tax deductions, state workers would net a 1% increase.  That was a lie.  As many state workers can now tell you, they actually netted a reduction in salary of approximately $20—$30 each biweekly pay period due to the recalculations that were required due to higher taxes for the 3% raises and due to the Leap Year variable.  The GROSS went up, but not the NET.

And while we are on the topic of state workers contract lies, it was Carolyn Wade who maintained well into the month of May during her meetings with Branches that we had to accept the Health Care and Pension concessions because “...the State is broke,” she said.  Meanwhile, the Governor’s printed “Budget-in Brief”, available for FREE to anyone just by calling or stopping by the Governors Office of Management and Budget (OMB) was released on February 21, 2007 and clearly showed (on page 62 of the Internet version, or page 58 of the booklet version, on the first line) the $1.9 Billion surplus.  This represents an increase over the previous year’s surplus of more than 9%! 

Wouldn’t we all love to be so broke?!

Then we have the NJ Direct 10 and NJ Direct 15 lies to deal with.  First of all, remember how Wade told all of us that the new plan would feature "nationwide coverage" with "no gatekeeper?"  Apparently, she thinks the nation is only as wide as NJ, PA and NY.   Even the OLD NJ Plus had in-network places in Florida, North Carolina, Texas and a few other states.  Not so with the NJ Direct 15 plan.  She promised that the UNION was putting this together so that our needs would be met.  That explains the shortcomings of the plan!

Let's not forget the Essential Employee designation that was supposed to be resolved before this winter, and the title upgrades that were due to be resolved withing 180 days of signing the contract (some of those upgrade requests are from 20 years ago).  Don't forget that the Essential Employee dispute was a contractual agreement in the PREVIOUS contract too, but the Local failed to enforce the terms of that contract, just like they have already failed to enforce the terms of this one.