New Jersey: The new face of austerity

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CAMDEN, N.J.—With states across the nation facing budget shortfalls and seeking to balance them on the backs of state workers, New Jersey governor Chris Christie has come into the national spotlight as a model for “tough-talking” state executives. Speculation abounds about Christie as a possible Republican candidate for president.

Since his election in 2009, Christie has welcomed confrontation with the state workers’ unions, particularly the New Jersey Education Association, and has played up his image as a “straight talker” willing to tackle budget deficits. His calls for reform have been on the cutting edge of the vicious right-wing assault on public education, calling for “merit pay,” attacking tenure, and systems of vouchers and charter schools that have been aimed squarely at destroying the power of one of labor’s remaining bastions.

The debate, and Christie’s position in it, have assumed national significance as his ally Scott Walker has made a frontal attack on the right of state employees in Wisconsin. There, the resistance of union workers has made the front pages and inspired protests in all 50 states, including a Feb. 25 rally of over 3000 at the New Jersey statehouse in Trenton.

For years, New Jersey governors—Democrats and Republicans alike—have held back the state’s contributions to employee pension funds, using the money for other projects, while employee contributions have been fully funded. This has forced an unnecessary crisis in these funds, and Christie is now using the promise of a partial state contribution as a bargaining chip to press teachers and other state workers for further cutbacks.

State budget shortfalls cannot be taken outside of the context of ongoing wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan that funnel billions to defense contractors. In New Jersey, it is also impossible not to speak of Christie’s $1 billion tax cut for the wealthiest 2% of citizens, while his property tax changes have actually raised taxes on the disabled, the elderly, and those making under $75,000 per year.

Christie’s obstinacy goes beyond unions and has already managed to hurt the expansion of public transit. Last year he unilaterally killed a proposed commuter rail project between New Jersey and Manhattan that would have doubled the rail passengers into and out of the city, reducing auto traffic and creating (Left) Gov. Chris Christie delivers N.J. State of the State address in Trenton, Jan. 11.

both short-term and long-term jobs.

He has also managed to outrage the state’s Black population. In 2010 Christie refused to reappoint the only Black member of the state Supreme Court. His selection panel for a replacement was headed by Peter Verniero, who as attorney general infamously failed to take steps to halt racial profiling by state police when the practice came to light in the 1990s. Unsurprisingly, they came up with a white Republican loyalist for the post.

Christie has all but thrown his hat into the ring for the Republican nomination for president next year. He is now making criticisms of Sarah Palin, a Tea Party favorite who has relatively few fans outside of those who think that Obama is some kind of socialist. But the real socialists understand that Obama too has no solution for the crisis except for further austerity. The agenda represented by the Chris Christies, Scott Walkers, and Sarah Palins of the world won’t be stopped by voting for another four years of Obama but by the working class declaring its independence from both capitalist parties and building its own party.

Workers from Egypt to Wisconsin have shown the clear way to resist Christie, his friend Walker, and the rest of the austerity measures and union-busting coming down the pike. Only mass action can save unions, beat austerity, and lead us on the road to a government run by and for working people. n ers and other corporate giants, they get a hefty hand out from taxpayers. In the past 20 years, NFL teams have received over $7 billion in taxpayer subsidies to build or renovate stadiums, with the average team receiving 65% of its stadium financing through taxpayer subsidies.

NFL players have made connections between their own struggle and that of the broader labor movement. Several players on the Super Bowl Champion Green Bay Packers released a statement in support of the struggle of Wisconsin public workers.

Packers team captain Charles Woodson released a statement: “Thousands of dedicated Wisconsin public workers provide vital services for Wisconsin citizens. They are the teachers, nurses, and child-care workers who take care of us and our families. These hard-working people are under an unprecedented attack to take away their basic rights to have a voice and collectively bargain at work.

“It is an honor for me to play for the Super Bowl Champion Green Bay Packers and be a part of the Green Bay and Wisconsin communities. I am also honored as a member of the NFL Players Association to stand together with working families of Wisconsin and organized labor in their fight against this attempt to hurt them by targeting unions.”

Here’s the line-up: Billionaire owners who receive billions of dollars in taxpayer funding to showcase modern-day gladiators versus the gladiators themselves who risk their lives to provide us with world-class entertainment and who stand in solidarity with their fellow workers’ struggles against the bosses. Doesn’t sound like millionaires vs. billionaires to me. Which side are you on? n are impacted disproportionately by these neoliberal budget austerity measures. All working people have a stake in this fight. We need to say to the ruling class: we did not create the budget “crisis,” and we refuse to have the budget balanced on our backs!

To win, workers need to plan and organize the fightback through democratic assemblies of the rank-and-file. The call for a general strike should be fully supported, and extended beyond public employees to the private sector, where workers have suffered even more egregious wage and benefit rollbacks. Unions should be using the protests to gain momentum in a vast drive to recruit new members and organize new locals throughout the country.

The labor movement should call a Emergency Congress of Labor to map out a fighting strategy on a national scale and organize the struggle against capitalism’s accelerating war on working people.

The working class cannot rely on the Democratic Party, bought and paid for by the business elite, to represent our interests. We need to found a new labor party based in democratized unions. United, labor has the power to reverse the massive rollback of our rights demanded by the capitalists to protect their profit margins. Solidarity forever! An injury to one is an injury to all! n Socialist Action march 2011 11