Furloughed Road Workers In NJ Take TTF Fight To Streets

CINNAMINSON, N.J. (CBS) - Hundreds of road workers have been idled by the ongoing impasse over replenishing the New Jersey Transportation Trust Fund.

Their union is venting their frustration in public, targeting members of the State Senate where a compromise plan is being held up.

Smaller road projects have been halted across the state for more than a month. Shawn Wilson of Burlington Township says this dispute could not come at a worse time for people like him:

"This is our prime time season as far as summertime. This is when we make our money. During the winter time it gets cold. We have bad weather. We get shut down."

Picket lines formed outside the offices of State Senators Diane Allen and Dawn Addiego, part of an organized statewide campaign by the Laborers International Union of North America to get some movement on the TTF.

"People are suffering. Real people are making hard decisions about mortgages, about sending their kids to school," union spokesman Rob Lewandowski said. "Everyone knows that things need to get fixed. We want them to know it's not just important. It is urgent."

Legislators would tend to agree with that sentiment.

"This should have been handled a long time ago," Allen told KYW Newsradio in a telephone interview, "and the fact that the head of the Senate, the head of the Assembly and the Governor haven't been able to reach an agreement is, I think, ridiculous."

Right now, emphasis is on the senate. If this drags on into the fall, the union says it'll apply pressure on the assembly and the governor, even though they've already acted on a compromise tax cut plan to accompany a 23 cent a gallon hike in the gas tax.