Fight back against NJ Governor Chris Christie’s plans to gut public education!

As New Jersey continues to wallow in the throes of a $11 billion budget crisis, the governor and his cronies have set their sights on the newest target of cuts: the public-education system.  Already, massive funding reductions to the tune of $820 million have been proposed, roughly an 8 percent drop from the current budget.  Extracurricular activities—one of the last refuges for the youth of the state—are being cut systematically outright or drastically pared down.  Hundreds, if not thousands of education workers stand to lose their jobs, and after-school music programs, entire sports teams, and the arts are slated to disappear.  To be sure, though, the cuts are not only a measure to bring the budget under control.  The governor is a man with an agenda, and if he gets his way, the teachers will be scapegoated as the ones who “traded the future of the state’s children for their own ‘selfish’ gains.”

With each passing day, it becomes more and more apparent that the real target of the administration’s attacks on education concerns the New Jersey Education Association (NJEA).  A massive budget gap coupled with record-high unemployment has created the ideal conditions for the governor, Republican Chris Christie, to mount his assault.  Christie, an advocate of charter schools and hater of unions equally, sees the public-education system in New Jersey as unwelcome drain on the state’s coffers.  Given some of the statements he’s made in regards to the union, it’s almost as if he can barely contain his disdain for the NJEA, calling it the “bully of State Street” and declaring it being run by “crass union bosses.”  His sentiments are understandable though—as it stands now, the only real impediment standing between his ambitions of statewide-privatized education is the NJEA.  The organization, by far the state’s largest and arguably most powerful union, represents some 204,000 members.  If Christie could break the NJEA in order to realize his plans of a market-driven educational system, the end result would spell disaster for all organized workers in the state.  From then on, it would only be a matter of time before he attempted to bust up his next largest enemy: the Communications Workers of America, the public-employee union.

A new program proposed by State Sen. Raymond Lesniak (D., Union) and Senate Minority Leader Tom Kean Jr. (R., Union) and supported by Christie, if enacted, would severely undermine the power of the NJEA by systematically privatizing the character of education.  It would create a five-year pilot program, modeled on a similar program in Pennsylvania, that would allow low-income students in “chronically failing” public schools to be able to apply for scholarships to attend private schools, including parochial schools.  The scholarships would be funded by private corporations, who would, in turn, receive dollar-for-dollar tax credits.  Taken as a whole, it is clear that the proposal is  merely a dressed-up voucher program designed to undermine the public-education system in order to build up a private one.  In doing so, the NJEA is slowly suffocated as its members lose their jobs.

The teachers of New Jersey have done nothing to contribute to the current crisis, yet they are continually made out to be the cause of the state’s budget woes.  As if continual fear of layoff and the  possibility of a minimum year-long wage freeze wasn’t bad enough, recently Christie has had the gall to offer additional aid to school districts whose teachers agree to accept the wage freeze.  The contractual (and modest) raise of at least 4% is barely enough to keep teacher’s pay in line with the rate of inflation.  Without the raise, they stand to take, essentially, a pay cut.  When it comes to honoring the terms of teachers’ contracts, Christie’s efforts to soften the crippling blow he is serving up is nothing more than a pathetic attempt to provide a bandage after severing a crucial limb.

Fight back!  Enough is enough!  Christie and the rest of his sycophants and cronies have done everything in their power to avoid the one thing that will actually solve the budget crisis: tax the rich!  Working people can no longer withstand the worst of increased taxes, wage cuts, tenuous employment, and slashed benefits.  Right now, it is more important than ever to resist any and all assaults on the gains the working class has made.  Union membership in the United States has been in decline since the 1970′s and even now, in the midst of a global economic crisis of historic proportions, union membership continues to slip downward.  Without organizations like the NJEA and CWA fighting for the interests of members and workers at large, we will all find ourselves at the mercy of the intrigues of the bosses and their friends in the State house.

The teachers in New Jersey need to be ready to strike indefinitely at a moment’s notice in order to preserve their jobs, rates of pay, and benefits.  They may even need to go as far as occupying their places of employment.  Whatever the case, one fact is glaringly clear: the NJEA needs to be at the forefront of the fight.  One day of picketing on the steps of the State house, though, will not be enough. The rank and file of the NJEA should call on their current union leaders to take immediate, direct action against the Christie administration and the state government of New Jersey more generally in defense of their interests.  Tell them to stand up for you for a change, not submit before “orders” from Trenton!  Any union officials that are unwilling to participate in such measures to counteract these attacks need to be replaced with committed rank-and-file militants that are willing to do what it takes in order to win the struggle.

They should form their own committees of action comprising democratically elected, recallable representatives who have nothing to gain by capitulating and making concessions to the bosses.  Strikes should be controlled solely by those engaged in them, not by pliant negotiators. The only way to victory is if workers from the public and private sector join in solidarity and fight together in defense of quality, state-funded public education.