Shared Sacrifice?

In New Jersey, ‘Shared Sacrifice’ for Public Workers, Not the Rich


(uggg...union rank and file are getting shafted here)

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".....Mr. Sweeney, you see, cut a deal with Gov. Chris Christie, the congenitally pugilistic Republican, in which — if the Assembly goes along with it later this week — all the public workers in the state could be forced to swallow large increases in their contributions to their pension and health benefits.
Mr. Sweeney agreed to revoke the right of unions to collectively bargain for health care...."

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"......But Monday offered a through-the-looking-glass moment of a sort, seen across the nation, as middle-class union members became improbable symbols of a recessionary era brought on by Wall Street financiers.
“Shared sacrifice” is a phrase often repeated, though only the latter of the two words is honored. Governor Christie, like the Democrat Andrew M. Cuomo in New York, has played bulldog for the wealthiest, insisting that he will not extend a so-called millionaire’s income tax surcharge.

Bob Master, political director of the Communications Workers of America, District 1, which represents most state workers, points to the inverted math. Under the tax surcharge rescinded in 2010, a couple who made $750,000 would have paid about $4,800 a year, or slightly less than a teacher making $65,000 will be forced to pay in higher health care and pension payments under the new plan.

“From our point of view, we worked very hard over the past 25 years to bargain for our health care plans,” Mr. Master said. “Sweeney is playing right out of the Republican playbook.”
That, it should be said, is a milquetoast denunciation. The teachers’ union is running television ads lambasting the governor and the South Jersey political power broker George Norcross as near-biblical betrayers. And Bill Lavin, representing New Jersey firefighters, wagged his finger at the State Senate last week and promised that “if this bill passes, the only thing that sunsets will be the Democratic Party.”

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http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/21/nyregion/in-changes-to-unions-benefit-truth-is-scarce-betrayals-abound.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=shared%20sacrifice&st=cse