The lasting impression of George’s impact lies within these
sheets. According to Cernek, they contain a forensic detailing of
every single contract negotiated in any department since George
has been coordinating. That’s every contract for rank-and-file
and superior officers. And George reminds that the greatness of
the collective bargaining committee over the years was its ability
to extract the details from the contracts and input them into the
spreadsheets.
From the inception, the contract warehouse offered detailed
demographics – populations of each town, number of officers
on the job, number of officers per 1,000 residents to compare
department sizes. If a Local needed to draw a comparison to
another town to make its case at the bargaining table, George
wanted its members to be able to access that information down
to the paragraph being referenced. If data counting sick-leave
used by officers the past three years in departments throughout
Burlington County was needed, the information was right there.
“George created a breakdown to recall information with the
touch of a button,” Cernek confirms.
When George retired, the PBA might have mused about giv-
ing him a gold spreadsheet rather than a gold watch. Cernek
quips that there should be a bronze statue of George holding the
spreadsheets posted in front of the PBA office.
What makes George, George, however, goes way beyond the
spreadsheets. He had a drive and passion to make things bet-
ter one step at a time that is inherent to a consummate public
servant. Policing prowess probably fueled George’s obsession to
always be researching and reading for the next idea that could
be used to gather more evidence.
“I think his attention to detail has allowed us to grow our abil-
ities to research and disseminate information,” Freeman ap-
praises. “And he prides himself on absolute accuracy. It’s a lot
like police work. We’re doing investigations, looking for informa-
tion, interviewing people, gathering evidence and seeing how it
relates to the law. In this case, it’s labor law. George was a great
detective.”
George could emanate information like a response to a Goo-
gle search because he was so prepared. Cernek called George’s
desire to be pre-
pared his golden
gift. It’s what Ko-
var said fueled
George’s great-
ness at the bar-
gaining
table,
what kept “these
young
CFOs
from all the
towns straight.
They
weren’t
getting anything
by George.”
Because he
was so pre-
pared, and be-
cause his moti-
vation was to do
everything for
“the members
As members who served on the PBA Collective Bargaining
out there ev-
ery day push-
Committee knew, “He knew what he wanted. We didn’t
ing
around
deviate from that,” explains Summit Local 55 State Dele-
the black-and-
gate Mike Freeman, who has succeeded George as collec-
whites,” George
tive bargaining coordinator.
became a great
asset at the bargaining table. The other side brought a negotia-
tor who prepared for a few days, maybe a week. George prepared
every single day for 50 years.
“It was like bringing a BB gun to do battle with a tank,” Cernek
testifies.
A profound hunger for information
Sitting with George at the table or in a meeting to prepare was
like watching Rembrandt at the canvas or Beethoven at the pi-
ano. He was very definitive on what was possible, he knew ex-
actly what the
governing body
was going to
offer, precisely
what the Local’s
counter should
be and pretty
much where the
contract would
end up. “He has
that much ex-
perience,” Free-
man assures.
And the oth-
er exclusive at-
tribute George
brought to every
The manual members received when attending the PBA
table and every
meeting
was
Collective Bargaining Seminar included more than 1,100
the ability to
pages and contained “all the information needed to run
procure infor-
a Local.”
mation from the
labor law and fi-
nance experts throughout the state.
“I was with him many times when, if we needed information,
George could make a call and talk to somebody nobody else
would be able to get on the phone,” Cernek relates. “And they
pretty much dropped whatever they were doing when George
called.”
Those labor law and finance gurus were the presenters at the
annual PBA Collective Bargaining Seminar, the conference that
grew from 30 members gathering in Brigantine for one day in
1986