Chris Christie vs. The Teachers’ Union
The biggest fight that erupted last week was the fight New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie picked with the teachers union. Based on Scott Rasmussen’s polling, I’d say that Gov. Christie has won the PR fight:
Sixty-five percent (65%) of New Jersey voters favor a one-year pay freeze on the salaries of administrators, teachers and school workers to reduce the state’s level of local school aid, according to a new Rasmussen Reports telephone survey.
Just 28% of voters in the state oppose this pay freeze to meet Governor Chris Christie’s proposed $820 million reduction in school aid. The newly-elected Republican governor is proposing the reduction as part of his effort to close the state’s $11 billion budget deficit.
That’s only part Gov. Christie’s victory in the PR battle. Here’s information that tells us just what voters think of the NJEA:
The state teachers’ union, the New Jersey Education Association (NJEA), is angrily opposing the proposed pay freeze, saying it will set back education efforts. But 66% of New Jersey voters say the union is more interested in protecting its members’ jobs than in the quality of education. Twenty-four percent (24%) believe the union places the quality of education first.
Two-thirds of New Jersey voters are right in saying the NJEA isn’t as interested in improving education as they are in protecting its members. That’s a stunning figure by anyone’s calculations. This information should be just as unsettling to NJEA leadership:
It’s clear, too, that New Jersey voters are following the budget spat between the new governor and the teachers’ union. Ninety percent (90%) of voters in the state say they have been following news reports about it at least somewhat closely, including 55% who are following very closely.
With New Jersey voters watching this issue this intensely, the NJEA certainly knows that their moves will be intensely scrutinized. That’s the last thing the NJEA, or any other union, wants. They’d rather maintain a low profile while negotiating. Scrutiny isn’t the unions’ friends during negotiations.
Based on this article, I’d say New Jersey’s legislators don’t like being asked to choose between fiscal restraint and their political allies:
Assembly Speaker Sheila Oliver folded her hands on the conference table in her East Orange office and took a deep breath, as if she were telling herself to stay cool in the face of such disrespect. She has a list of policy disagreements with Gov. Chris Christie. But that’s politics, and she expects that.
What bothers her is that Christie seems to think he doesn’t have to yield one single inch to her. “He’s talking to the Legislature as if he’s still prosecutor and we’re the defendants,” she says.
Speaker Oliver likely doesn’t like the fact that Gov. Christie is negotiating from a position of strength. When she speaks of being treated with disrespect, that’s most likely a reaction to her getting used to getting her way.
BTW, the legislature and the NJEA are on trial. They’re being tried as to whether they’re with the voters or whether they’re only interested in themselves.
With New Jersey voters’ overwhelming support, Gov. Christie understands that he shouldn’t cave to the unions, that he’ll win by siding with the voters. If he sides with the voters, Gov. Christie will strengthen himself in future budget battles. The NJEA and their allies understand this, which is why they’re fighting him this early in his administration.
The last thing they want is to be dealing with a popular governor.
Technorati Tags: Education, Unions, Pensions, Health Care, Sheila Oliver, NJEA, Democrats, Chris Christie, Republicans
Cross-posted at LetFreedomRingBlog
April 18th, 2010 at 3:50 pm
Time was (and I can remember a few) when teachers were teaching primarily for the joy of teaching, and money was almost an afterthought.
If the union is so concerned about “the children,” they wouldn’t be mortgaging the next few generations’ futures; if they were so concerned about “the children,” they wouldn’t be pushing severely socially crippling behaviors on “the children” and telling them that such behaviors are “normal;” and if they were so concerned about “the children,” they would recognize that by indoctrinating them into the religion of humanism they are as severely violating the First Amendment as they accuse Christians of wanting to do.
But, of course, they’re all educated so they know better than all of us parents who have to spend so much time explaining to our children how their teachers are wrong, and why.
At least we have facts to back our arguments; all they have are unproven unicorn theories.