"It's been that way for 50 years," said Fran Ehret, president of Local 194 of the International Federation of Professional and Technical Engineers. "If they're going to try to take away something we've had for 50 years, we'll have to grieve it."
A lawyer for DRPA police officers in Fraternal Order of Police Lodge 30, Charles Joyce, said the FOP would challenge the ban on free rides.
"We will vigorously contest the action, and we will prevail," he said. "Gov. Christie is obviously politically grandstanding. We have a clear contractual right to this benefit."
Joyce also scolded three labor leaders who are DRPA commissioners for issuing a statement along with the other five New Jersey board members on Friday, agreeing to Christie's veto and promising, in the future, to "be ever cognizant of putting the interests of our customers first."
Christie, on Thursday, said employees "should pay for their personal, nonbusiness use . . . just as the authority requires of its customers."
He sent directives to the Turnpike Authority, which operates the turnpike and the Garden State Parkway; the South Jersey Transportation Authority, which operates the Atlantic City Expressway; the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which operates six bridges and tunnels, PATH trains, and other facilities; the Delaware River and Bay Authority, which operates the Delaware Memorial Bridge and the Cape May-Lewes Ferry; and the Delaware River Joint Toll Bridge Commission, which operates the I-78 toll bridge across the Delaware.
A directive was not sent to NJ Transit, whose employees get free rides on the agency's trains. Asked about that Friday, Christie spokesman Michael Drewniak said the governor's office "will also be evaluating all free-passage benefits at any other relevant agencies."
