This opinion editorial was published in today’s Star Ledger.

By NJ Voices Guest Blogger/For NJ.com

March 05, 2010

By Gerard J. Meara/Star-Ledger Guest Columnist

The Star-Ledger editorials “Out of Control: The cost of public workers” and “The rules are rigged” (Feb. 28 and March 1) were more diatribe than policy argument, more hysteria than reasoning and more pandering than persuasive presentation. The editors should do some homework and learn the realities of a situation before declaring, “it’s time to go nuclear.”

The essence of the newspaper’s position is that public employee unions somehow have an upper hand with public managers when it comes to negotiating labor contracts — that “the rules are tilted in favor of the unions.” Let’s start by comparing bargaining laws in…

Below is today’s Star Ledger Editorial. In it, they call for draconian changes to the way public employee unions conduct their business in New Jersey. The article cites a handful of abuses by police and teachers, and then recommends freezing all public employee salaries regardless of contracts, rewriting collective bargaining laws, taking negotiating responsibilities away from municipalities, placing mandatory caps on salary increases and threatening massive layoffs to achieve these goals.

If I didn’t know better, I would think that this editorial was written in Mississippi, not New Jersey. But sadly, it was written here. We agree that changes need to be made to stop abuses. We support those changes. But throwing the baby out with the bathwater is outrageous.

We need…