As reported by trentonian.com, New Jersey’s state government unions are up against more than a combative Governor Chris Christie going into contract negotiations. They are up against numbers regarding their salary, which were recently released and could complicate their efforts to rally public opinion to their side.

More than 17,000 union represented state

On Thursday, February 25, 2010, Assembly Speaker Sheila Oliver and Assembly Republican Leader Alex DeCroce announced bipartisan Assembly legislation to reform public worker pensions and health benefits has been introduced.

They also said additional legislation to target pension and benefit reforms at state authorities and agencies and to close a loophole that allows public employees

Employees in New Jersey’s largest state-worker union overwhelmingly ratified a revised contract agreement on Tuesday, June 30, 2009 that defers a raise and trades furloughs this year for future vacation days. With a little over 13,000 votes cast online or by phone by the deadline, the margin was 69 percent to 31 percent according to

Jerry DeMarco, a reporter with the website www.examiner.com has reported that significantly more police unions around the state are turning towards interest arbitration as a means to settle their contract due to the hard line stance that many municipalities and county governments have taken during negotiations.

DeMarco reported that the average salary increase for