Posts tagged Fairness Center
Op-ed: Unions owe New Jersey workers representation, not retaliation
May 26, 2026 // New Jersey’s Employer-Employee Relations Act prohibits labor unions from “[i]nterfering with, restraining or coercing employees” for exercising their rights, which include the right to pursue unfair labor practice charges when they believe they have been wronged — as Arancio and Leary did. That is why my firm is representing both Arancio and Leary in separate unfair labor practice charges against their unions, this time alleging illegal retaliation. Unions owe workers representation, not retaliation. New Jersey law recognizes that. MacCarthy, Arancio and Leary believe it’s time union officials do, too.
WATCH/EXCLUSIVE: Teacher alleges union retaliation in labor dispute
April 21, 2026 // Angela Arancio, a teacher at Middlesex Public School District and an 11-year member of the Middlesex Education Association, said union leadership failed to address issues she raised about inadequate class preparation time and teacher workload in a collective bargaining agreement. According to Arancio, the union took no action after she voiced concerns about the agreement between the union and the district.
John Coyne: The teachers challenging their unions’ political agenda in court
April 8, 2026 // Wolf won that gubernatorial election and later appointed PSEA President Jerry Oleksiak as his labor secretary. Oleksiak himself embodied another way teachers’ unions advanced their agenda in schools — through “ghost teachers.” Typically in urban school districts, teachers’ unions arranged for certain teachers to leave the classroom and work full-time for the union. The problem? These ghost teachers stayed on district payroll, receiving a taxpayer-backed teachers’ salary, pension, and health benefits. Oleksiak, a former special education teacher, was a ghost teacher for ten years leading up to his appointment by Wolf.
Commentary: $45 Million, No Answers: NJEA Leadership Still Owes Teachers the Truth
March 11, 2026 // How would you feel if you joined a union and paid $1,400 in dues each and every year, and the union’s president decided to run for governor and used $47 million of your and your fellow teachers’ dues without asking you? And then came in fifth place in the primary? Well, that’s what the NJEA’s president, Sean Spiller, did. How would you feel if $10 million of the $47 million was sent to a little-known firm, AP Consulting, for canvassing operations? No one spends that kind of money on canvassing in a primary. It raises legitimate questions about who authorized those payments, what services were provided, and why such an extraordinary sum was routed through a firm with limited publicly known political field experience.
Op-ed: AFSCME Let Me Down When I Needed Them Most
January 15, 2026 // I had paid the union thousands of dollars over the years and had never asked for a thing. But when I requested the union’s help to defend its own contract, it flat-out refused to process a grievance on my behalf. If I was shocked when the state broke the contract, I was outraged when my union rolled over and let it happen. I had to ask myself, if Council 13 wouldn’t even defend something as fundamental to a union as seniority, what other parts of the contract would it allow the state to trample?
N.J. teachers sue NJEA over wasteful Primary 2025 spending
October 7, 2025 // “I never agreed to bankroll a politician,” added Pocklembo, a 30-year veteran teacher. “It’s an obvious conflict of interest when the union president benefits from backroom deals to fund his own campaign with members’ money. It makes the union look shady and it undermines teachers’ trust.” “By diverting members’ mandatory dues to its president’s gubernatorial campaign, while giving them the impression that funding the union PAC was purely optional, our teacher clients allege that the union broke the law and breached its fiduciary duty,” said Nathan McGrath, general counsel for the Fairness Center which is representing DuPont and Pocklembo in their litigation. “This lawsuit seeks to hold the union and Sean Spiller accountable for self-dealing instead of serving members’ best interests.”
Former teachers union president sued, accused of $40M campaign cash grab
October 3, 2025 // Dupont said she opted out of supporting the union’s PAC when she signed her membership card. “Then I found out that a handful of union insiders spent $40 million of teachers’ dues – including mine – on the union president’s political ambitions. That’s wrong, and I believe it’s illegal.”
Unveiling Financial Transparency Failures in Labor Organizations
July 24, 2025 // In 2024 alone, the DOL recorded 177 union enforcement actions involving fraud, embezzlement, wire fraud, and falsified records. These are only the crimes that rise to the level of federal prosecution. Far more ethical violations, financial misuses, and questionable behaviors fall below the radar leaving union members in the dark and are quietly buried through internal repayments, hush resignations, or legal threats — all without any formal DOL investigation or public accountability. Despite 16 years as a union official, I did not become aware of the existence of LM-2 financial disclosure filings until our local filed a lawsuit against our state affiliate. Imagine that: even as a union president and past treasurer, I was unaware that both our state and national unions were required to submit LM-2 forms to the Department of Labor. If someone like me — deeply engaged in union governance — was kept in the dark, how can we expect average members to know their rights, much less exercise them?
Legal documents say union funneled $1.8M into lost trust fund
April 2, 2025 // A subsequent internal forensic audit uncovered credit charges totaling upward of $400,000 for personal frivolities for local and state union leaders. A $12,000 Rolex, tickets to a Miami Dolphins game, $3,000 bar tabs and luxury golf trips were among the charges listed in court filings. Five top union officials were faced with forgery and theft charges
Opinion: Why Trump’s anti-Semitism crackdown should worry UC union
February 23, 2025 // Following President Trump’s executive order to combat anti-Semitism came reports that his administration has opened investigations at five U.S. universities — including at UC Berkeley. There is, unfortunately, plenty to uncover from violent student groups to passive university administrators. But investigators would be wise to also examine the role unions have played. My own lawsuit against the United Auto Workers (UAW), which represents 48,000 employees across the UC system, should be enough to raise alarm bells. At UC Berkeley, where I am a postdoc, campus administrators were poised to break up a post-October 7, anti-Israel encampment, when the union came to its rescue. The encampment prominently displayed the inverted red triangle—the Hamas symbol used in violent propaganda videos to target Israelis—and banners reading “Glory to the martyrs” and “Student Intifada.” That didn’t deter UAW officials, who legitimized the protest by establishing a “union village” within it.