Union Leader Says "Adolf Christie" Is Bringing Nazi Germany To Jersey

One of these things is not like the other one...

Genghis Khan, King Leopold, Adolf Hitler…Chris Christie? At a rally outside the New Jersey Statehouse in Trenton, union leader Christopher Shelton compared the governor of New Jersey to the leader of Nazi Germany, telling a crowd of several thousand, "Welcome to Nazi Germany. The first thing that the Nazis and Adolf Hitler did was to go after the unions." Shelton, the head of the Communication Workers of America, was there with other union officials and politicians to protest legislation that would raise the cost of pension and health benefits for public employees. According to the Star-Ledger, Shelton went on to call two democrats who supported the bill "Adolf Christie's generals." He continued: "Any politician who stands up against collective bargaining, in this state or any other, is not a Democrat. They're Nazis, goddamn it."

Wisconsin governor Scott Walker and his administration were compared to Hitler and the Third Reich after his state passed extremely controversial legislation curtailing the collective bargaining rights of public workers. While it's true that Hitler moved to "dissolve" Germany's unions after coming into power, he also planned and oversaw the murder of millions of Europe's "undesirables," a move that would surely sink Christie's 2012 ambitions. Obviously the comparison of Hitler to Governor Christie is absurd, and the speaker at the rally immediately following Shelton sought to distance himself from it, saying, "I'm here to support the workers. I'm also here to denounce the comparisons between Governor Christie and Adolf Hitler."

Governor Christie couldn't be reached for comment, presumably because he was holed up in the ~~Eagle's Nest~~ his Mendham home.

Contact the author of this article or email tips@gothamist.com with further questions, comments or tips.

By Christopher Robbins in News on June 17, 2011 2:48 PM

Comments [rss]

randomtransplant

Is anybody actually refuting the comparison to another ideological fascist, just acting offended?

Bruce Goldensteinberg

Not surprising a union goon would take this path. Unions attack their enemies by calling them what they themselves are. It is the unions that use gestapos to harass non-union members and shake down public officials for bigger pensions, causing my taxes to go up. We need to deal with these unions once and for all in this country and crush them with our heels!

Daniel

Oh please you're like everybody else in the private sector now. You didn't care about the public sector during the decades you made your cash in the private sector, laughing at the public employees for playing it safe by going for low entry salary with the promise of guranteed future middle class income, health benefits for the family, and a pension. Now that your 401k is worth shit and they still have their pensions that they legally negotiated for and paid into themselves you wanna lash out and penalize them... That's like being mad at your neighbor who opened a savings account just because you went to Atlantic City with your paychecks and lost your winnings cause you were too greedy to leave the black jack table before the last hand.

Kevin_Kramers

Yeah, get rid of the unions... While we're at it, lets get rid of 8hr days/40 hr weeks, minimum wage, sick pay, vacation pay, occupational safety laws, workers’ comp...

SonnyBobiche

You guys forgot to add that this guy has now apologized. You didn't really forget; you left it out on purpose. But that still brings up the question, how could he go on for so long about this comparison without realizing that he would have to apologize later?

Christopher J. Stephens

Saying something hateful and then apologizing afterwards doesn't make it OK, it just shows what was really in your heart (Mel Gibson? Tracy Morgan?). You ask how could he go on so long; I wonder how no one took away his microphone (megaphone? I haven't seen the footage).

SonnyBobiche

Oh, I agree about the fake apology considering how detailed his attack was. I guess this is like an attorney that says something outrageous to the jury knowing full well that the judge will direct the jury to disregard the statement. The lawyer knows that you can not magically forget something that you've just heard.

To the audience the "Adolf Christie" remark is the equivalent of Orwell's two minute hate event against Goldstein; that's what they'll remember.

Awesomer

"Adolf Christ!" New band name! Called it!

Gothamistriss

I wonder if there was this much backlash when the unions wanted things like minimum wage and work safety standards. I haven't researched this or anything, but I feel like if there was nobody fighting for workers' pensions and benefits, there would be no competition amongst public and private sector. Then whats to stop companies from not offering a pension or benefits at all?