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Governor Chris Christie’s Smackdown of NJ Teachers Union

By: The_Rebel (Diary)  |  September 10th, 2010 at 01:33 PM  | 

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A NJ teacher was complaining at a town hall meeting this week about the many teachers who had been laid off, about how she can’t pay her bills, and how uncaring the Governor has been by, she claims, lambasting the teachers. Christie’s response blows her and the union away. If they had taken the one year pay freeze and agreed to contribute 1.5% of their pay toward their health insurance, most of the layoffs would not have happened. But the union said no way, not one dime.

This should be required viewing for all Republican governors and candidates. Furthermore, select portions of this video should be part of a national Republican ad, showing just how out of step the unions are with those of us who have had pay freezes and pay cuts, and who do not get 100% of their health insurance paid for by their employer.

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  • Achance

    and you haven’t lived until you’ve done it before a crowd that the union has packed. He had a pretty friendly crowd and just the one teacher who wanted to get in his face.

    The “teachable moment” here is that they ALWAYS back down if you stand up to them. Lefties and union goons count on you being nice to them, on your not getting in their face. Nobody ever gets in their face and they really don’t know how to deal with it. The do their demonstrations and general Hell-raising in nice friendly blue places where the cops and the goverment are co-conspirators. Put them somewhere else where they get actual opposition and they fold like the cheap tent that they really are. White collar/public employee unions are kinda like what they say about celebrities who are famous for being famous; they’re powerful because people think they’re powerful. If you stand up to them, you find that they’re not powerful at all once it gets past the chest-pounding phase.

    • The_Rebel

      But I’m a bit concerned after that e-mail blast by the Bergen County union leader calling for people to pray for the death of the Governor, that some kook from the union will actually take matters into his own hands. Where is the same type of outrage from national leaders, union and otherwise, that we just saw from the likes of Obama, Clinton, and others about burning the Koran.

      • Achance

        They’ll say they’re going to huff and puff and blow your house down, but if you blow back, they blow away. I won’t say there aren’t some union types that you should be afraid of, but generally the public employee unions are non-violent except in their nice, safe demonstrations in places where they know the cops have their backs. In those places they’ll break stuff, throw rocks, and maybe even manhandle somebody. Some of them have paid staff that might get violent, but there’s not that many of them and you can spot them from a mile away. There usual threat is that they’re going to the media or they’re going to call your boss. If you don’t care or that doesn’t work, they don’t know what to do next.

  • jannicc30

    …just to vote for him. The man is laying out a blueprint for all GOP governors. Treat the citizens like adults, and they will act like adults. Except the libs. They’ll continue to act like babies.

  • http://www.spartanburgteaparty.org karenmartin

    In much the same way that the average citizen tea party patriot has the responsibility to reform their political party to root out corruption, demand accountability, control spending, embrace transparency etc. it is up to teachers to reform their unions. I have no patience or sympathy for teachers who complain about the layoffs or about having to buy classroom supplies in 2010. We’re here. It’s no surprise. You’re not special. We’re not all that enamored with the job you’ve been doing with our kids. For every one of you who has a true calling and noble motivation and has benefited our kids, your counterpart has either worked for or allowed your union to hold hostage our kids’ educations and the taxpayers monies.

    There are good teachers, adequate teachers, bad teachers, lazy teachers, rock star teachers, and innovative teachers just like in any profession. But unlike many, your profession has a union which has crippled many of your good intentions in the classroom and is the root cause of much of what is wrong with the education system. So like the tea party is doing with the GOP … teachers must take back their union. And once you have it back … kill it.

  • Achance

    ain’t hardly any such thing. Sure there are some teachers that show up here and say, “we’re not like that,” and they’re right, not all of them are, but a lot are worse. For every teacher with any sense of personal responsibiity and good sense politically, there are thousands that are just mind-numbed robots who haven’t thought a single thought since the Ed School pumped them out with their mediocre grades and their mediocre curriculum about how to teach stuff you don’t know.

    And I say that coming from a family of teachers and I have a sister that I love dearly who is still a teacher. She’s finally gotten some sense as she’s gotten older but for a good twenty years after school, she didn’t have the sense God gave a goat.

  • renny

    All union members are not liberal or radical Dems. It’s just their dues that the union bosses use exclusively on Dem. candidates.

    At my former school system (where I still coach), the membership is renegotiating the contract with an eye to freezing salaries for three years and asking extracurricular contributors like me give back 20% of our stipends. These ideas were generated by the membership and not the NEA.

    So, don’t get too rabid. Unions are not as monolithic as their leadership would portray.