Posts tagged New Jersey
David Osborne: Unions spend big on politics — often at the expense of their members
November 17, 2025 // NJEA funneled general funds through Garden State Forward, Working New Jersey, and Protecting Our Democracy—all election-focused organizations that not only backed Spiller but also were headed by the NJEA president. These questionable activities landed NJEA in court with a lawsuit alleging that the union misled its members, including Dupont, who is a lead plaintiff.
New Jersey Education Association Under Fire for Promoting Antisemitism
November 14, 2025 // Its convention, held Nov. 6-7 in Atlantic City, featured a program, Teaching Palestine, whose lead presenter, Adam Sanchez, is affiliated with the Racial Justice and Organizing Committee, which has described the Oct. 7 terrorist attack on Israel as “resistance” and blamed the attack on Israel.
Shawn Fain: Future of UAW ‘hangs in the balance’ as strike looms at Volkswagen plant
November 7, 2025 // To Fain, anything shy of total job security is not good enough. The current negotiations at Volkswagen remain stalled over a clause in Volkswagen's current offer that stipulates the company will not close the plant or cut jobs "unless conditions beyond the control of the company arise that make compliance with this commitment impractical." "American workers live in fear," Fain said. "Fear that if they ask for a dollar more, the boss is going to fire them or move the damn plant. That's economic terrorism."
‘DRAG IS NOT A CRIME’: NJ Teachers Union Backing Sherrill to Celebrate ‘Queens’ After Election
November 3, 2025 // The New Jersey Education Association, which has 200,000 members as the Garden State’s chapter of the National Education Association, will host its annual convention on Nov. 6 and 7, two days after the gubernatorial election. At the convention, the NJEA Consortium—a union project undertaken with education and “social justice” organizations—will host a Friday event called “Drag is Not a Crime: The Past, Present, and Future of Drag.” The convention’s floor plan also includes a booth dedicated to the drag theme. The NJEA convention theme puts “learning” third—after “equity” and “justice.”
Opinion: My teachers union calls it representation. I say there are $114 million reasons to sue them
October 28, 2025 // But during the current election cycle, I learned that the NJEA quietly sent more than $40 million from our dues to a political action committee — without the knowledge or consent of members, and without a shred of transparency. Even worse, union officials used that money — including my money — to serve themselves. Those funds fueled former NJEA President Sean Spiller’s failed gubernatorial run, while he was still president of the union. Even when it was quite clear that Spiller had no chance of winning (he ended up finishing a distant fifth in the Democratic primary), PACs supporting him recklessly burned through piles of our dues money as Spiller was on the campaign trail — all while he somehow also served "full-time" as union president, collecting his enormous salary and benefits package from that job.
California’s Fast Food Minimum Wage Hike Cost the State 18,000 Jobs. That Shouldn’t Surprise Anyone.
October 23, 2025 // The trio looked at fast-food employment in California and found a decline of 2.64 percent between September 2023 and September 2024—six months before and after the law went into effect. During that same time period, fast-food employment in the rest of the United States slightly increased. Those different outcomes make it likely that the law caused fast-food businesses to hire fewer people, with a probable effect of lowering such employment 2.3 percent to 3.9 percent. At the middle of the range, that means about 18,000 fewer jobs in California.
Top teachers union invites pro-violence activists to shape public school curricula
October 23, 2025 // Many of the Rethinking Schools and Zinn Education Project materials promoted by the NEA explicitly target younger children. The NEA, for instance, on its official Instagram page, highlighted the work of Zinn Education Project fellow and third-grade teacher Sundjata Sekou, who hosts “racial literacy circles” where his fellow elementary educators discuss “cultivating genius in black and brown children.” Additionally, the Zinn Education Project has published reams of educational material aimed at teaching elementary school students about climate change, racism in America’s founding, and feminism, among other topics.
Opinion: A Teachers Union Candidate Took My Money and Ran for Office
October 22, 2025 // in a lawsuit filed Sept. 30 in New Jersey Superior Court, that it was also an illegal breach of contract and a violation of the union’s fiduciary duty to its members. On paper, the union tells teachers that giving to its political organizations is voluntary. The membership forms we signed, which function as a contract between a member and the union, have a separate box to check for voluntary donations to the union’s political action committee. I didn’t check that box and therefore believed my money wouldn’t be used by a PAC. That wasn’t true. In 2013 union officials created an obscure political group called Garden State Forward and funded it with more than $100 million in teachers’ dues.
Amazon Sued by NJ Top Cop Over Delivery Driver Employment Status
October 20, 2025 // Amazon is misclassifying thousands of New Jersey “Flex” drivers who use their own vehicles to deliver packages, the state attorney general claimed in a state lawsuit filed Monday.
The 15 Most Unionized Places in America
October 16, 2025 // To determine the most unionized locations in the U.S., researchers at Construction Coverage analyzed data from UnionStats.com and the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. The researchers ranked metropolitan statistical areas according to total union members as a percentage of total employment. In addition to union membership, the researchers also included statistics on union representation, which is the share of workers whose terms of work are collectively negotiated (whether or not they are union members). Only metropolitan statistical areas with available data were included in the analysis.