Move Over, Camden
The Great Recession is far from over. Mayors across the country are preparing for another grueling round of budget cuts as free-falling property values continue to destroy tax revenues. A recent article in the New York Times cites a study from IHS Global Insight, which projects “that 105 metropolitan areas would not return to their prerecession peaks for jobs until 2015; for 32 areas, including Toledo, Ohio, and Detroit, it would not happen until 2025.” That is sobering news.
One of the worst hit cities is Camden, New Jersey, but Camden is hardly alone in her fiscal plight or dismal future. Dozens of cities and counties across the US are in long term financial jeopardy. Camden is a study of what happens when events conspire with inertia to create a downward spiral.
As of last Wednesday evening, 68 firefighters were laid off there, after the local union and the City failed to reach a deal.
A few facts about Camden:
-80% of the city budget comes from the state. (It’s 2010 budget was $185M, $121M came from Trenton.)
-They are expecting to collect only $21 million in local tax revenue for the current $138 million budget.
-It is America’s poorest city with a median household income of $18,000.
-More than 50% of the 80,000 residents live in poverty.
If the measure of what a city should provide to its citizens is what it can afford, then Camden should be providing next to nothing. The City has little or no funds or tax base and Governor Christie has long since made clear his disdain for the program that has consistently provided state funds to cities that are deemed to be stressed. He also signed legislation capping property tax increases at 2% removing a key revenue producer for local governments. The outlook, especially as the Great Recession lumbers on, is extremely bleak.
Camden is a desperate and destitute enclave teetering towards implosion where the accepted norms no longer apply. Yet leaders, labor and management alike, seem to cling to the past for fear of a bitter future. How many other American cities are drifting toward a Camden Scenario?
Camden, New Jersey, street scene
In this crisis environment, is the role of a union leader to act to protect jobs or to protect a level of wages and benefits that will automatically (and often immediately) result in union members being laid off? Are union leaders charged with looking ahead to make tough decisions or is it just the here and now that matters? In Camden and similar cities those are the fundamental questions if unions are to be relevant in this post-prosperity economy.
The “play-it-safe/ no-risk” strategy in the short term means putting the weakest into the lifeboats and lowering them away. The ship is still taking on water but the load has been lightened and the list is gone, if only for awhile. This strategy implies that no other actions (changing course, reassigning crew, and adjusting rations) will do. Sounds fine if land is just over the horizon or you aren’t in the life boat. But what if land is nowhere in sight?
Camden and cities like her are firmly and forlornly adrift. Hewing to old rules and the play-it-safe strategy in these places means a lot of things, one of which is that newer firefighters who put their faith in the union and its members have been abandoned without a (real) fight. Regarding “everyone goes home” —in Camden they went home and may not come back and it doesn’t make unions stronger or more effective, quite the opposite—it makes them irrelevant as they stoically protect “gains” destined to be enjoyed by a select few and only for a while.
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Saving Firefighter Jobs
9 commentsMove Over, Camden
The Great Recession is far from over. Mayors across the country are preparing for another grueling round of budget cuts as free-falling property values continue to destroy tax revenues. A recent article in the New York Times cites a study from IHS Global Insight, which projects “that 105 metropolitan areas would not return to their prerecession peaks for jobs until 2015; for 32 areas, including Toledo, Ohio, and Detroit, it would not happen until 2025.” That is sobering news.
One of the worst hit cities is Camden, New Jersey, but Camden is hardly alone in her fiscal plight or dismal future. Dozens of cities and counties across the US are in long term financial jeopardy. Camden is a study of what happens when events conspire with inertia to create a downward spiral.
As of last Wednesday evening, 68 firefighters were laid off there, after the local union and the City failed to reach a deal.
A few facts about Camden:
-80% of the city budget comes from the state. (It’s 2010 budget was $185M, $121M came from Trenton.)
-They are expecting to collect only $21 million in local tax revenue for the current $138 million budget.
-It is America’s poorest city with a median household income of $18,000.
-More than 50% of the 80,000 residents live in poverty.
If the measure of what a city should provide to its citizens is what it can afford, then Camden should be providing next to nothing. The City has little or no funds or tax base and Governor Christie has long since made clear his disdain for the program that has consistently provided state funds to cities that are deemed to be stressed. He also signed legislation capping property tax increases at 2% removing a key revenue producer for local governments. The outlook, especially as the Great Recession lumbers on, is extremely bleak.
Camden is a desperate and destitute enclave teetering towards implosion where the accepted norms no longer apply. Yet leaders, labor and management alike, seem to cling to the past for fear of a bitter future. How many other American cities are drifting toward a Camden Scenario?
Camden, New Jersey, street scene
In this crisis environment, is the role of a union leader to act to protect jobs or to protect a level of wages and benefits that will automatically (and often immediately) result in union members being laid off? Are union leaders charged with looking ahead to make tough decisions or is it just the here and now that matters? In Camden and similar cities those are the fundamental questions if unions are to be relevant in this post-prosperity economy.
The “play-it-safe/ no-risk” strategy in the short term means putting the weakest into the lifeboats and lowering them away. The ship is still taking on water but the load has been lightened and the list is gone, if only for awhile. This strategy implies that no other actions (changing course, reassigning crew, and adjusting rations) will do. Sounds fine if land is just over the horizon or you aren’t in the life boat. But what if land is nowhere in sight?
Camden and cities like her are firmly and forlornly adrift. Hewing to old rules and the play-it-safe strategy in these places means a lot of things, one of which is that newer firefighters who put their faith in the union and its members have been abandoned without a (real) fight. Regarding “everyone goes home” —in Camden they went home and may not come back and it doesn’t make unions stronger or more effective, quite the opposite—it makes them irrelevant as they stoically protect “gains” destined to be enjoyed by a select few and only for a while.
(Click on Read More to continue this article)
(more…)