Cops, Firefighters Protest Against Cuts

TRENTON, N.J. - More than 12,000 off-duty and retired New Jersey police and firefighters protested staff cuts and the prospect of paying more for health-care benefits.

Slideshow: Trenton Public Safety Rally

The demonstration in Trenton centered on two points.

First, possible layoffs and unfilled positions in local public service departments are making cities less safe.

And second, police and firefighters don't want to pay significantly more for healthcare.

While they differ on just how much, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and Democratic senate president Steve Sweeney agree paying more for health care is needed.

The participants, including retired police and firefighters, said all of the layoffs of their colleagues have made the state a much less safe place to live and work.

Christie said on Thursday he's ready for a fight that concerns about public safety is "the card they always play" when unions balk at paying more for health care.

The rally came one day after Christie said he loves collective bargaining and he is ready to start negotiation with the state worker unions, the contracts for which are up in June.

This was the second government worker rally at the Statehouse in a week. The AFL-CIO sponsored a unity rally last Friday for Wisconsin workers who are fighting a move to limit their collective bargaining rights.

Public safety workers began setting up for their rally before dawn. The state Police Benevolent Association had 110 buses.

Unlike the governors of Indiana and Wisconsin, Christie says he is in favor of collective bargaining but plans to be a tougher guy to bargain with then his predecessor, former Gov. Jon Corzine, who attended a public worker union rally outside the statehouse and told the workers he'd fight to get them a fair contract.

Christie says that right there ended any need to bargain for Corzine, and he gave the workers a 7-percent raise in a zero-percent inflation rate. Christie says he won't be so giving with the taxpayers' money.

Sweeney, a Democrat, says pension and health care benefits for the average public safety worker cost local governments $47,000 a year. He says those costs will cause the systems to collapse unless workers start paying more.

Sweeney says the pension and benefits reform he's proposed are designed to keep the systems solvent, not hurt workers.