News Archives
February 18, 2010
Public Employee Benefit Reduction Bills Released from Senate Committee
New Jersey State AFL-CIO President Charles Wowkanech testified before the Senate State Government Committee in opposition to recently introduced bills (S-2, S-3, S-4) seeking to reduce certain pension and health benefits for public employees at the state and local level. In his testimony, President Wowkanech instead asked the legislature to respect the collective bargaining process, through which bargaining representatives have made adjustments to benefits in response to the state’s troubled budget.
Wowkanech said “over the past two years, public employee unions have participated in good faith negotiations with public employers at every level of government. During this time, and through collective bargaining at the state level, employees are paying an increase in employee contributions for both health insurance and pensions, agreed to wage deferrals, as well as agreeing to several other changes, including furloughs, which have led to a 4% reduction, on average, in salary. We must emphasize that these changes were made through the collective bargaining process. Organized labor has a proud history of negotiating in good faith during difficult economic times, as these examples illustrate, and we ask the legislature to continue to respect this tradition.”
After approximately two hours of testimony, including testimony from several union leaders opposed to the bills, all three bills were released unanimously. Voting in favor were Senators Whalen (D-2), Buono (D-18), Gordon (D-38), O’Toole (R-40) and Bucco (R-25). All three bills have been posted for a Senate vote for Monday, February 22, 2010. To view the New Jersey State AFL-CIO’s position statement on the bills, please CLICK HERE.