Task force last year recommended the authority — which oversees the Turnpike and Garden State Parkway — solicit bids for a private firm to collect tolls on the two roads
A New Jersey Turnpike toll collector talks to a motorist in this Star-Ledger file photo.WOODBRIDGE — They are the faces of the quintessential New Jersey roadway.
Often, the faces of New Jersey Turnpike toll collectors are the first travelers from out of state see in the Garden State, and can make good first impressions by giving helpful directions or bad first impressions by being surly.
Those faces could change in the spring, if a proposal to privatize toll collectors is approved.
Many of the faces had concerned and angry expressions at the New Jersey Turnpike Authority headquarters in Woodbridge today, first for a rally outside the building to protest privatization efforts, then inside for the monthly meeting of the authority commissioners.
"From the movie 'Wall Street,' it was said, greed ... is good — and in our business, greed is another word for privatization," said Ray Stever, president of the New Jersey State Industrial Union Council, an affiliate of the union that represents toll collectors.
A governor’s task force earlier last year recommended the authority — which oversees the Turnpike and Garden State Parkway — solicit bids for a private firm to collect tolls on the two roads.
That would be a stop-gap until the toll roads went to all-electronic, cashless tolling, according to the recommendation. The task force estimated annual savings of between $35 million and $42.5 million.
The request for proposal calls for toll collectors to make $12 per hour, well below the $30 per hour experienced toll collectors make. Bids are due March 7.
More than 850 employees would be affected, including 700 on the Turnpike. The union contracts expire in the summer.
State Transportation Commissioner Jim Simpson said he understood the frustration and anxiety the workers feel, but the state was forced to look into privatization to keep costs in line with what authorities are paying toll collectors elsewhere.
He said the toll takers could still remain on the job because they have an advantage as incumbents, but added, "Obviously, they need to get realistic on work rules and a whole bunch of other things."
"At the end of the day, we are going to do what is best for New Jersey, because that is what the governor wants," Simpson said.
Franceline Ehret, president of the International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers Local No. 194, which represents Turnpike toll collectors, said the union proposed significant savings to authority commissioners on Friday.
"They had asked for between $12 million and $14 million in concessions, and we gave them a proposal that was better than $16 million," Ehret said, declining specifics. "We wanted to show that we were serious, that we understood their issues and that we were willing to sacrifice to try to bring this to quick resolution."
Simpson said today that was the first he heard of the proposal by toll collectors.
Ehret predicted that with privatization, customers will see fewer collectors and have to wait in longer lines at the toll booths.
She said the Turnpike is a "financially stable company" that anticipates a $200 million surplus this year and will make more from hiking tolls next year.
"If they were struggling, like a company that is going out of business, then I could understand them maybe having to go through all of this and making these kinds of demands," Ehret said. "But they are making family-shattering demands."