Without a doubt, 2010 is going to be a watershed year for the state of New Jersey, and with the dreaded ‘naughts finally over, its citizens will look forward both toward a new decade and, consequently, a new leadership. The recently-elected governor, Republican Chris Christie, certainly has his work cut out for him: by most estimates the state budget deficit is some $9.5 billion and growing. With state funds all but dried up, municipalities are struggling to pay for even the most basic of services, and all but the most essential programs are being put on the chopping block. Everyone, from data entry clerks to mental health counselors, emergency medical technicians to librarians, are wringing their hands, nervously wondering if their “non-essential” jobs will be next to get the ax.

During the height of the election, it was clear New Jersey voters were fed up with the fiscal policies of the Democratic administration of Jon Corzine – a former Goldman Sachs executive. Property taxes continued to rise with little to show in terms of deficit relief or continued social-program funding. Political corruption, already an entrenched practice in New Jersey, ran rampant, and political appointees with sinecures and six-figure salaries were comfortably nestled in every corner of state government.

As the campaign season wound up, Christie steadfastly billed himself as the “not Corzine” candidate. Despite having no managerial experience in fiscal matters as a former district attorney with a reputation for being tough on corruption, it was somewhat of a surprise when Christie won the election, running on an anti-gay marriage, anti-labor, anti-drug law reform ticket in a historically “blue” state.

Christie’s campaign is the most recent manifestation of all the anti-union rhetoric that’s been buzzing about lately. It has become quite fashionable to look to public employees as one of the main causes for New Jersey’s budgetary woes, despite a lack of supporting evidence to claim so. The unionized public-sector workers were not responsible for causing the economic crisis. Like most of the working public, they were, and remain to this day, the greatest victims of it.

The largest union, the Communication Workers of America (CWA), represents over 50,000 public and private employees in New Jersey alone and remains one of the strongest bastions of unionism in the state. It is a major political force in New Jersey politics, consistently backing the Democratic Party, even when it runs contrary to the interests of its membership. Christie, true to his Republican stripes, served to stir up negative sentiments toward the CWA via a series of interviews on talk-radio during the run up to the election, criticizing the union as a burden on taxpayers while providing little to no benefit to the public. New Jersey voters, already battered from the triple assault of increased taxes, high-unemployment, and political incompetence, are beginning to take his message to heart.

In the summer of 2009, then governor Corzine met with CWA representatives to hammer out a new contract. As union negotiators demanded a modest 3.5% wage increase, debate between the two parties grew heated. Finally, under the threat of layoff for 7,000 workers, the union agreed to a contract that stipulated employees would be subject to 10 furlough (unpaid) days in the budget year starting July 1 along with a wage freeze and some “bankable” paid personal days that workers could take in the future. The projected cost-savings to the state was estimated at $300 million over the course of the next fiscal year. In exchange, Corzine gave his pledge that the possibility of layoffs would be “off the table” until December 2010 at the earliest. At the same time, Christie lambasted Corzine for being “weak” in dealing with the union, suggesting the state should not have given into their demands during a time of economic crisis.

Now that Christie has won the election, many are wondering if he will keep true to his campaign promises (or more appropriately threats). On several occasions, he has gone as far to say that since the “no-layoff” pledge was given by his predecessor, he is not bound necessarily by its terms. More alarmingly, some voices in the media have speculated that Christie may declare a state of financial emergency—the fiscal equivalent of martial law—that will give him carte blanche to balance the budget at any cost, including massive program cuts and public employee layoffs en masse.

In light of the hostile aims of the new Christie administration, the goal of all union members and working-class fighters is clear: to actively oppose all service cuts, layoffs, and benefits reductions with militant actions, i.e., with strikes, workplace occupations, and by forming representative committees made up of proven class fighters who won’t bow to the dictates of the bosses by surrendering the struggle as the union bureaucrats have done so often during previous struggles. Nevertheless, the current union leadership of the CWA must perform its required task of representing its constituents by organizing and participating in such actions – strikes and or workplace occupations – to halt Christie’s attacks and every other such offensive on the part of the capitalists emanating from the New Jersey state capitol building.

If the current leaders of the CWA refuse to mobilize the rank-and-file membership for such and other similar actions, then must be replaced by those who can carry on effective defensive and offensive actions: where representatives chosen directly in mass assemblies in which the working membership can decide openly and democratically who should lead them in the fight against layoffs, furloughs, wage freezes, and every other scheme by the bosses to make us pick up the cost of their tab.

The CWA bureaucrats, under pressure from the mass base, may be inclined to call for and even participate in limited – usually for only one day – strike action to maintain its influence and control over the rank and file. Such actions, however, will not be enough to break the intentions of both the incoming Republican governor and other State House and Senate Democrats who purport that they are “friends of labor” but then, like the former Democratic governor, unleash unrelenting assaults on the best sections of organized labor in New Jersey.

Success in these circumstances, when the entire ruling class through its State has its sights set on those sectors and layers of the working class that dare resist its plans, requires the utmost unity amongst and provision for solidarity action between workers of every branch of industry. By uniting the workers of the public-sector unions with those of the private sector, organized labor as a whole with the unorganized masses, the great multitude of workers’ struggles taking place across New Jersey have a greater chance of victory.

If the working class wills it, it can grind the capitalist economy to a halt. That is our greatest weapon against the bosses who require our labor to fill their bank accounts. Link up the struggles! By standing united in action regardless of legal scruples, we can bust the measures put forth by the capitalists to make us pay the cost of their crisis.

United militant action and solidarity can beat the bosses in the immediate sense, but for just how long will we be able to keep them off our backs once we let our guard down? For the second that we do, the capitalists will try everything in their arsenal to claw back the social gains made through our victories. We cannot, therefore, afford to let our guards down. We need a vehicle whereby we can openly fight for our interests as workers against the bosses on the terrain in which they operate: the political arena. What we need is our own political party – a workers’ party.

The gubernatorial General Election this past fall in New Jersey proved beyond doubt just how impotent and worthless the Democratic Party is in the face of an historic crisis of capitalism. Through their own policies and actions, they are demonstrating to millions of workers (both organized and unorganized) that they are not the “friends of labor” they routinely try to make themselves out to be. Regardless of the political party in power – Democrat, Republican, or “Independent” – the result is always the same: continuous attacks on the conditions of working class along with the social and historic gains made over the past century.

A new direction is needed, and now, more than ever before, the path before the unions in America is clear: to break irrevocably from the Democrats! Only by forming and building a worker’s party will the working class finally be able to independently represent itself on the political field of battle. This party, however, must not emulate the Labor Party in Britain or the Social Democracy either. If it is to really represent the historic interests of the working majority, it must be armed with a program of social revolution against the exploiters, the social parasites: the capitalists – for the overthrow of their class power and property.

The working class desperately needs a platform from which it can spread the message of social revolution across the entire country; therefore, it is necessary for the unions, as component elements of the AFL-CIO and Change to Win, to initiate a public dialogue discussing the necessity of a workers’ party as opposed to the longterm support given to the Democrats. We demand that the CWA and, indeed, all the union leaderships break from the Democrats and form a political party of the working class and all the socially, racially, sexually, and nationally oppressed. Rank-and-file members must apply the most consistent pressure on their leaders to heed this call, as it is in their immediate and historic interests.

The CWA can stand at the forefront of the workers’ movement by heeding the call for all these proposals. By taking indefinite strike action and instigating workplace occupations against the crisis, such actions could be popularized across America, spreading invariably like wildfire. It could ignite class-wide resistance to mass unemployment, home repossessions, wage and pension freezes, etc. Such resistance is needed now more than ever, and it all starts with the organizations of workers, leading the way like the CWA.