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 those making $250,000 a year or more.  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 change anything.  The rank-and-file are not stupid—they know there is absolutely no reason why they must be forced to grovel before the very people that would turn them out, would order the police to arrest and beat them.  The union bosses will do everything in their power to keep the seething anger of the rank-and-file from boiling over into direct confrontation.  If that should happen, they would be out of a (highly paid) job.  The rank and file of the NJEA must, therefore, 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 current and long-term interests.  Tell them to stand up for your interests 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 kicked out and replaced with committed rank-and-file militants that are willing to do what it takes in order to win the struggle.

At the same time, workers should not wait around passively for their current “leaders” to take action.  If need be, 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 seeking above all to maintain to their cozy relations with the class enemy or their political representatives.

The state thinks it can break the teachers and their union by privatizing educational services.  They think they can pit us against each other, worker against worker, and let us tear at each other’s throats for the crumbs they throw us.  We need to prove them wrong!  We need to stand together!  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.  Every effort to link up with others attempting to resist the onslaught against the working class needs to be made.  Strikes must become a continual, unrelenting act.  Jobsite occupations need to become the norm.  Any victories the teachers have are likely to breed more and more struggles and subsequent victories in other segments of industry.  Workers need to lead other workers by example though solidarity strikes.  Coordinated, mass action is the only way we can break the State and the bosses.  If we will it, we can bring the whole system to a standstill.

• Defend secular, state-funded public education!  Fight back against privatization schemes or any attempts to provide private businesses a place in the life of our educational system.

• Down with all private, privately managed (charter), and religious educational institutions!

• Employ punitive levels of taxation on the wealthy, the corporations, the multi-nationals, the banks, and finance houses to provide updated educational materials to students in public-education institutions;  higher wages, increased benefits, and well-funded pensions to all those dedicated to instruction and mentoring of the youth; renovations to the millions of dilapidated, crumbling public-school buildings across New Jersey and America; construction of more public schools in New Jersey and across the country in areas where they are determined to be of critical importance.

• Open the State account books and computer records to inspection by the workers and the citizens of New Jersey!  We demand to see where all the money the New Jersey state government collects is going and why they say there is nothing available to fund public schools.

• Down with all bureaucratic control of our public-education system!  Fight for students, teachers, parents, and workers’ control over the establishing of curricula, budget management, and the day-to-day operations of running elementary, secondary, and higher public-education facilities.