Wednesday, June 03, 2009
Corzine trades labor concessions for a single day of peace
You elect a Goldman Sachs partner governor, the least you can expect is a little spine in the making of deals. Instead, Governor Corzine made a significant concession to public employee labor unions all to avoid a single day of bad press coverage:
The legislature’s two top Republicans criticized Gov. Corzine for allegedly making concessions to a public workers’ union for fear that their protest of his campaign kickoff would force Vice President Joe Biden to cancel his appearance there.
The Star-Ledger reported yesterday that the Corzine Administration, fearing Biden would not cross the picket line, made a tentative agreement with the Communications Workers that they would take 10 additional furlough days in exchange for “bankable” personal days they can use in the future.
Senate Minority Leader Tom Kean (R-Westfield) accused Corzine of using taxpayer money for political gain.
"It's one thing to make concessions to win long-term benefits for New Jersey. It's quite another to do so to avoid one day of bad publicity. Taxpayers should be told today how much this purely self-serving political move will cost them,” he said.
I suspect that Corzine was even more cynical than Kean accuses. My bet? He and Biden agreed in advance that Biden would not cross the picket line so that Corzine would have the excuse he needed to give the public employees a free concession. If Corzine had really wanted to win the negotiation, he would have conspired with Biden to come up with an excuse whereby Biden would cross the picket line or, more likely, stay away entirely on account of some made up reason.
1 Comments:
By 
, at
Wed Jun 03, 11:20:00 PM:
Perhaps I can be excused for not understanding, even slightly, New Jersey politics.
I'm just embarrassed to bits, but what the heck.
Why does governor Corzine want Joe Biden to flap his jowls on his behalf? Would you?
Must admit the blatant For Sale sign does remind me of Governor Davis who was ousted by Arnold, who then proceeded to abandon all his principles too.
Maybe California politics doesn't add up either.
M.E.
