Sharpton, national union leaders rally in New Jersey

VINELAND, N.J. - The Rev. Al Sharpton accused Gov. Christie on Tuesday of balancing the state budget on the backs of the working class as he spoke to workers at a southern New Jersey residential-care center for disabled women that faces a shutdown.

Sharpton was joined by national union leaders Randi Weingarten of the American Federation of Teachers and Lee Saunders of the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees for a rally in Vineland, one of several the trio is holding around the country. The group later met with state lawmakers in Trenton and attended a workers' rally in Newark.

"We have committed to going all over this country to deal with the reality that we cannot balance the deficits and the budgets that we didn't cause on the backs of working-class people," Sharpton said. "They are not talking about shared sacrifice. They are talking about putting it all in one place."

The closure of the Vineland Developmental Center would eliminate 1,450 full- and part-time jobs in the Vineland-Bridgeton-Millville region.

Besides closing Vineland, Christie has proposed overhauls to pension and health-care benefits that would require all public workers to pay more. He also proposed changing teacher tenure and tying teacher raises to student achievement, and frequently berates the teachers union for standing in the way of those proposals.

The governor's office did not return a message for comment.

Sharpton urged the workers at the Vineland Developmental Center to demand justice for themselves and the 350 severely disabled women who will be displaced if the center closes as planned. Christie's proposed budget calls for saving $1.6 million a year by shutting the center within two years. The west campus is on schedule to close June 30, with the east campus to follow in 2013.

Felicia Zimmerman, 40, who has worked at Vineland 18 years, said it was the only job she has held since high school.

"This is all I know," she said. "I'm scared to death."

Saunders, AFSCME's international secretary-treasurer, said Christie was "dead wrong" about closing Vineland because the facility "provides essential services to the people who need them most."

However, Human Services spokeswoman Nicole Brossoie said keeping people with developmental disabilities isolated in facilities like Vineland runs counter to a federal Supreme Court mandate.

"Closure is being advanced to protect the civil rights of people with developmental disabilities, in particular their right to move out of institutions and into communities, as determined by the U.S. Supreme Court," she said.