Posts tagged New Jersey Education Association
New Jersey’s Sean Spiller Wants to Lead the NEA. These Teachers Say Follow the Money
June 29, 2026 // Spiller is seeking the presidency of the National Education Association (NEA)—the NJEA’s national affiliate—roughly a year after unsuccessfully running for governor. Roselle teacher Dr. Marie Dupont and Hamilton Township teacher Ann Marie Pocklembo allege in a lawsuit that Spiller and other NJEA officials backed his primary campaign with $40 million of union members’ mandatory dues without their consent. The teachers argue that by funneling their dues through a union-controlled PAC and political organizations with union ties, the NJEA violated its contract with members.
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.
Op-ed: Government unions put politics before workers
January 3, 2026 // Unions can sidestep PAC contribution limits and disclosure rules by setting up 527 organizations or super PACs. They can avoid accountability by transferring funds through multiple intermediaries, thereby obscuring the source and any direct association with the union. The result is a shell game that gives the illusion of independent political action. Despite member-facing claims that dues cannot be used for politics, Department of Labor filings and Federal Election Commission reports tell a different story. Union executives frequently use workers’ dues to further political agendas. Often, the money funds a litany of leftist causes, including abortion, “defund the police” advocacy and opposing school choice and, in cases like Mr. Spiller’s, quixotic Democratic campaigns. (About 99% of union-funded candidates are Democrats.)
Commentary: A Cautionary Moment for Union Transparency as Former NJEA Leader Seeks a National Role
December 17, 2025 // Most notably, a pair of New Jersey teachers have filed suit against the NJEA and its former leadership, alleging that millions of dollars in mandatory dues were used for political activities—including a nearly $50 million governor’s race—without meaningful member consent. These allegations are serious. They speak not only to how decisions were made, but to whether educators had clear information about how their own money was being deployed. At the same time, the New Jersey Policy Institute has filed complaints with both the IRS and the New Jersey Election Law Enforcement Commission, asking regulators to examine whether the union’s funding structures and political accounts complied with federal and state rules.
Unions spend big on politics — often at the expense of their members
December 2, 2025 // “When I signed my union membership card, I did not check the back saying I wanted to contribute to the union political action committee,” writes Marie Dupont, a teacher and NJEA member, in The Wall Street Journal. “That was a contract stating my dues wouldn’t go to the union political apparatus, but a handful of insiders ignored that choice and broke that trust.” 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.
‘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.
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.”