The Rev. Al Sharpton told workers fighting for their jobs at a southern New Jersey residential care center for severely disabled women that it's wrong for governors like Gov. Chris Christie to balance state budgets on the backs of working-class people who didn't create the fiscal crises.
Sharpton was joined Tuesday by national union leaders Randi Weingarten of the American Federation of Teachers and Lee Saunders of the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees for a rally in Vineland, one of several the trio is holding around the country. The group later planned to participate in a discussion with state lawmakers in Trenton and a workers' rally in Newark.
“We have committed to going all over this country to deal with the reality that we cannot balance the deficits and the budgets that we didn't cause on the backs of working-class people,” Sharpton said. “They are not talking about shared sacrifice. They are talking about putting it all in one place.”
He also attacked Christie very bluntly, as he’s quoted on NJ.com.
"The assault on working-class people, on municipal and state workers, on teachers, on pensions is not only anti-labor, it's a violation of the civil rights of American citizens," Sharpton said. "To defraud workers after you made a pension deal with them in the name of austerity is deceiving the very voters that voted for you."
The closure of the Vineland Developmental Center would eliminate 1,450 full- and part-time jobs in the Vineland-Bridgeton-Millville region, which already has an unemployment rate of 14.6 percent. The state average is 9.2 percent.
In addition to closing Vineland, Christie has proposed overhauls to pension and health care benefits that would require all public workers to pay more. He's also proposed changing teacher tenure and tying teacher raises to student achievement, and frequently berates the teachers' union for standing in the way of those proposals.
Local
Breaking news and the stories that matter to your neighborhood.
The governor's office didn't return a message for comment.
Sharpton urged the workers at the Vineland Developmental Center to demand justice for themselves and the 350 severely disabled women who will be displaced if the center closes as planned. Christie's proposed budget calls for saving $1.6 million a year by shutting the center within two years. The west campus is on schedule to close June 30, with the east campus to follow in 2013.
Barbara Jackson, who has worked at Vineland 21 years, says she doesn't know what residents or workers will do if it closes.
Felicia Zimmerman, who has worked there 18 years, said it's the only job she's held since high school.
“This is all I know,” said Zimmerman, 40. “I'm scared to death.”
Weingarten, who represents teachers across the country, said it's time for governors to stop blaming public employees for states' fiscal woes.
“I thought this New Jersey governor was about creating jobs,” she said to cheers from the 250 or so who had gathered. “So why is it he would create the layoffs of so many people in this community? Why is it when Republicans run to create jobs instead they lay people off and hurt communities?”
Saunders, AFSCME's international secretary-treasurer, said Christie is “dead wrong” about closing Vineland because the facility “provides essential services to the people who need them most.”
The state Human Services Department didn't immediately respond to an email message for comment on the relocation of residents.
“We know the state has money problems,” said Saunders. “Maybe one of the problems is that when the governor got into office, he decided he was going to give millionaires a tax break rather than keep up public services.”
Christie allowed a surcharge on millionaires to expire after taking office last year and he has refused to revive the tax, despite Democrats' urgings.
