News Release: January 6, 2003
Contact: Chris Biddle, 609-393-7707, ext. 227, or Steve Wilson, ext. 245The New Jersey Business & Industry Association in 2003 will promote a pro-growth agenda designed to strengthen the state's business climate and encourage the creation of new jobs, Executive Vice President Philip Kirschner said recently.
NJBIA's pro-growth agenda is based on input from the Association's 19,000 member-companies and is intended to give policymakers guidance in fashioning initiatives that will encourage, rather than discourage business expansion and job creation.
Although employers as a group are feeling more optimistic about their business prospects, they are feeling less happy with the state's political leadership. In responding to NJBIA's 2003 Business Outlook Survey, employers gave the Governor and the Legislature an approval rating of only 11 percent.
Regarding the economic outlook, NJBIA President Joe Gonzalez said the same survey found employers are looking forward to the new year for the first time in the new millennium.
"This year's survey reveals hopeful evidence that the worst is behind us. After two very tough years, we are encouraged that our members are feeling more upbeat in their outlook," Gonzalez said.
Thirty-six percent of respondents to the NJBIA survey, conducted in September 2002, said they expected conditions in their industries to improve in the first six months of 2003, versus only 23 percent who expected conditions to worsen and 41 percent who expected conditions to stay essentially the same. This represents a reversal of sentiment from the 2002 survey, when more were pessimistic than optimistic. Among specific industries, expectations were more positive than negative in all major sectors except retail and construction, where they were essentially neutral.
Despite the more positive outlook, only 24 percent of respondents expected to expand employment in the year ahead, while 10 percent anticipated cutbacks and 66 percent expected no change. This represents the second weakest employment outlook found in the NJBIA survey in nine years.
The brighter economic outlook has not translated into greater confidence in state government, Kirschner said.
"If there is a message for the Governor and the Legislature for 2003 it is this: it is time to address the everyday concerns of employers," Kirschner said.
In the 2003 survey, only 11 percent said the Governor and Legislature were doing a good job. A majority said New Jersey is worse than other states on a variety of government performance measures:
- 70% said New Jersey is worse than other states in its attitude toward business;
- 68% said the state is worse in attracting new business; and
- 59% said the state is worse in promoting economic development.
Asked how they viewed New Jersey as a site for business expansion, only 35 percent said the Garden State was good or very good, down sharply from a 12-year high of 50 percent in the 2001 survey and the lowest rating in six years. To regain the confidence of the business community, Kirschner said, political leaders must address the nuts and bolts issues that impact the way employers run their business on a daily basis.
NJBIA, through its 11 employer-run policy committees, has developed a pro-growth agenda to help guide policy-makers on the issues that employers say are important to them. The agenda includes:
1. Balanced Labor Laws
"Eighty-seven percent of private-sector employees work for companies with no union affiliation," Kirschner said. "Yet many current state policy initiatives favor the 13 percent of unionized employees. In making new laws, the Governor and Legislature must take into account the needs of both the union and nonunion segments of our workforce without favoring one over the other."
Specifically, the state should not pass laws such as union-only project labor agreements that discriminate against nonunion employers by virtually shutting them and their workers out of public contracts or forcing them to unionize in order to win those contracts.
Similarly, the state must not impose costly employer mandates not seen in other competitor states. In particular, NJBIA is opposed to the paid family leave mandate now pending in the state Legislature. Only California has enacted a paid leave mandate.
2. Common Sense Environmental Laws
"Environmental policy can be probusiness without compromising environmental standards or harming our land, air and water," Kirschner said. "The state should work cooperatively with the business community to foster compliance rather than take an adversarial approach on environmental issues."
The NJ Department of Environmental Protection should emphasize results and cooperation over fines, penalties and strike-force inspections. Progress should be measured on whether the quality of our air and water has improved, not the volume of fines imposed.
Furthermore, the permitting process must be made faster. New Jersey can improve the efficiency of the state's permit-approval process without compromising environmental quality standards.
"The current system puts New Jersey at a competitive disadvantage with New York and Pennsylvania, where employers get quicker permit approvals sooner and get economic development projects built sooner," Kirschner said.
3. No Corporate Tax Increase
Last July, the state imposed a billion-dollar tax increase on New Jersey employers in the middle of a recession. This is bad public policy. No other state balanced its budget on the backs of its private-sector employers.
"The state should not look to the business community to balance its Fiscal 2004 budget," Kirschner said. "We already gave at the office."
4. Cut Government Spending
With a $4 to $5 billion budget deficit looming, state government must commit to cutting government spending and the size of the bureaucracy before seeking to raise taxes. Businesses cut spending when their revenues decline. State government should do the same. Yet a recent audit shows that state government spending actually increased 3.1 percent over the last year.
5. Healthcare Mandates Study Commission
The cost of providing health insurance benefits is rising by a double-digit rate of inflation for most employers. The state can do its part to control rising costs by creating a Healthcare Mandates Study Commission, as proposed in A-3137 (Roberts, Weinberg), that would review all legislation on insurance-coverage mandates before any are formally considered by the Legislature. Taken together, mandates account for about 15 percent of the cost of health insurance premiums today.
"These are common sense measures that recognize the importance of private-sector commerce," Kirschner said. "A strong private-sector economy will provide jobs, generate state and local tax revenues, and make it possible to address the multitude of issues that confront this state. New Jersey's political leaders have the opportunity to pursue policies that will put the state on solid economic footing in the future. Let's hope they seize it."
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