August membership meeting

The next Local 1085 membership meeting will be at 7 PM on Tuesday, August 17, at the union hall in Woodbury Heights. The agenda will include delegates’ reports on the CWA Convention, legislative updates, and approval of a new Vice President for the Gloucester County Social Services unit.

Local mourns sudden death of VP Milton Bagby

Members of Local 1085 were saddened at the recent loss of Vice President Milton Bagby, who died suddenly on June 30.  Milt was hired by the Gloucester County Board of Social Services in 1984 and immediately became active in the union.  During his career he served as a Steward, Chief Steward, and Vice President, along with serving on the Legislative-Political Action Committee and chairing the Activities Committee for many years.

 Union picnic to be held at Lake Garrison August 21

A picnic will be sponsored by Local 1085 on Saturday, August 21, at Lake Garrison in Monroeville.  Tickets are available at the Local office, at a cost of $5 each for union members and their guests. To purchase tickets, call the office at 853-8516. Tickets include admission to the lake as well as a picnic lunch.

CWA fights latest legislative attacks on public employees

CWA members are telling their legislators that the attacks on public employees must stop. Earlier this year, the Legislature passed a package of measures cutting pension benefits for new employees and requiring all public employees who receive health benefits to pay a minimum of 1.5% of their salary toward the cost of those benefits. Recently the Legislature enacted a 2% cap on property tax increases, which will further squeeze counties and municipalities that are already suffering from reductions in state aid by Governor Christie. It is expected that in the absence of increased state aid, the cap will eventually result in more layoffs and more cuts in public employee compensation.

Meanwhile, there are many bills under consideration by the Legislature that would further attack public employees, most of which are in response to Governor Christie’s proposed “toolkit.” One such bill is S-2206, sponsored by Senate President (and Freeholder Director) Stephen Sweeney. This bill would undermine collective bargaining in the public sector by allowing employers in Civil Service jurisdictions to furlough employees without having to negotiate with the union. The bill would also allow these “temporary layoffs” to be staggered (instead of doing an entire department at a time), which would make it even easier to furlough employees than previous court decisions have allowed.

Local President Rich Dann pointed out that wages and hours of work are fundamental subjects of negotiation between labor and management in New Jersey, yet S-2206 would allow public employers to thumb their noses at employees and their unions by reducing wages and hours of work through the furlough process. For example, an employer could agree to a 3% wage increase in negotiations, then take away the extra pay from employees by unilaterally imposing 8 furlough days. Sweeney’s sponsorship of S-2206 is especially ironic because Local 1085 recently negotiated two furlough days with Gloucester County in order to avoid layoffs. Dann said the County did the right thing by negotiating and that all employers should do likewise when contemplating furloughs.