Vote on privatizing toll collection could be taken as soon as April 29
WOODBRIDGE — As the deadline nears for the New Jersey Turnpike Authority to decide whether to privatize toll collection on the Turnpike and Garden State Parkway, toll takers are bringing out big political guns to help save their jobs.
The first three speakers in a long list at today's Turnpike Authority meeting in Woodbridge were state Senate President Stephen Sweeney (D-Gloucester), state Sen. Loretta Weinberg (D-Bergen), and state Assemblyman Thomas Giblin (D-Essex).
The lawmakers noted that under the threat of privatization three years ago, toll collectors agreed to salary cuts of about 25 percent, from $65,000 annually to $49,500 for veteran employees. The cuts and concessions have saved around $30 million, they said.
“They’ve given their share, they’ve taken some hard cuts,” Sweeney said. “I’m asking the commissioners to really consider scrapping the plan — whether you have to take a formal vote or just throw it out the door.”
Added Weinberg: “This issue in particular, it seems to be a solution in search of a problem. The employees who provide this service are hard-working men and women who go to work every day to ensure that the system is functioning effectively.”
Giblin told Authority commissioners toll collectors were their “eyes and ears at the different exchanges, as far as safety issues are concerned.”
“They look out, they go above and beyond and they wear that badge very proudly, being a worker associated with the New Jersey Turnpike Authority,” he said.
A decision on whether to privatize could be made at the authority's next meeting on April 29.
There are 200 full-time and 350 part-time toll collectors on the Turnpike and 136 full-time toll collectors and 35 to 40 toll supervisors on the Parkway. Also part of the privatization would be 20 Turnpike toll technicians, four toll clerks and about 100 toll and toll technician supervisors. In all, the proposal involves more than 800 workers.
State Transportation Commissioner Jim Simpson, who chairs the Turnpike Authority, is reserving comment on the privatization proposal until after bids are received from companies early in April.
“It all depends on what the numbers look like,” he said.
Nicholas Pappas has been a toll collector on the turnpike for two decades. He works in a booth at Exit 9 in New Brunswick.
He said he and fellow toll collectors took a $9-an-hour pay cut in the last contract because “we were told to accept this or be privatized and lose our jobs.”
“We are the ones who breathe your fumes, endure the elements and deal with the public,” Pappas said.
Since then, he said, the Turnpike and Parkway have raised tolls by 50 percent and the Turnpike Authority has amassed record-breaking revenues.
He said that had he and his wife not had a side business running a daycare, he would have “gone under.”
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