So what Christie's people did (for him) in shutting down the GW bridge last Fall just verifies what he's been doing all along. Why else would one of his first acts as governor (which I wrote about here) have been shutting down a new tunnel between Jersey and New York that construction had already begun on and was mostly funded by the Federal government and The Port Authority (same folks who shut down the bridge) but to get back at the unions who were building it and would have added many jobs but which didn't support him for governor?
And now among other things, to get back at the Teachers Union, which he's been doing since he first became governor over four years ago, by creating more and more obstacles to their doing their jobs and more and more work for no more pay etc., he proposes a longer school day and a longer school year but no comparable pay raise. A typical rightwing corporate America trick. More work hours, heavier work load for the same pay or less.
As it is the teachers are forced to teach to the test and those tests are all over way before school ends already, which means the rest of those school days are spent making do work with the kids' minds already on vacation. I'm too tired to go on, but you get the idea…
[PS: next morning's reflection on the above makes me realize I did a poor job of characterizing Christie's relationship with unions, because in several cases he did his best to make deals with unions for their support and it worked (The Bayonne Bridge project etc.) creating or keeping some jobs. Though his treatment of the Teachers union and his pulling of the plug on the tunnel project, which would not have scratched his back from the New York side, as opposed to projects like the Bayonne Bridge etc. still holds true…]
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