Tuesday, the New Jersey Senate passed a
Chris Christie-backed bill raising pension and health care contributions for public workers. On Wednesday, the Communications Workers of America
filed suit on a related matter: the state's failure to make payments to the pension fund. Basically, those missing payments created the crisis of an underfunded pension, and now Christie and the legislature are fixing that crisis by making workers pay for what the state was supposed to have paid for over the past 13 years.
Today, with the NJ Assembly poised to pass the bill, more than 8,000 turned out to protest. Despite being unpopular with the Assembly's Democratic majority, it appears likely to pass:
Forty-one votes are needed for passage and Assembly Speaker Sheila Y. Oliver (D-Essex) will need only the support of seven other Democrats beside herself. The 33-member Republican minority is prepared to support the measure. Oliver, Senate President Stephen M. Sweeney (D-Gloucester) and Christie agreed to the compromise bill over the protests of rank and file Democratic legislators and leaders of public employee unions, who argue that changing health and pension benefits are collective bargaining issues.
Despite passage appearing assured at the beginning of the day, though, the Assembly doesn't seem to be in any hurry to vote; it remains to be seen if they're hoping the protesters will leave if the vote is delayed long enough or if there's any chance the bill will be amended significantly.