WEC Staff

As the gross inequality between the top 1/10th of 1% and ordinary working people worsens, our state and municipal governments often turn to privatization to combat budget shortfalls due to shrinking tax bases. These efforts often put control of public services in disadvantaged neighborhoods into the hands of corporations, and only offer a short-term fix for municipal and state budgets. These issues are exacerbated as Wall Street banks extract large fees from our state government, little of which is reinvested back into the state of New Jersey. Join LEARN, in partnership with the Work Environment Council and the Public Need over Corporate Greed campaign, to learn about a potential solution to this economic spiral: public banking. In this workshop, Walt McRee, chair of the Public Banking Institute, and Joan Bartl, state coordinator, two nationally-recognized experts and advocates of public banking, will review the history and theory of state banking, and detail the benefits and risks of establishing a public bank in New Jersey. If you want to understand what money is, how banks work, and how a state bank might improve the lives of all New Jerseyans, this workshop is for you. The event will be held Friday, May 5th from [...]

In 100 hours the Peoples Climate March will thunder through the streets of Washington, DC to demand action for jobs, justice and the climate. Do not miss this moment. There are multiple buses from NJ; click through this page to purchase tickets from several of our Jersey Renews partners. If you need a ride from another location, click here. To find out where to go once you arrive in DC, and the route, click here. Please consider joining us at the Labor Rally, beginning at 11am, at the Department of Labor. These maps (PDF) provide instructions for travel from the bus parking lots to the Labor Rally, illustrate the route for the march, and also have instructions on getting back to buses. In 100 days Donald Trump has done a lot of damage -- and our resistance stopped him from doing a lot more. But if we don't begin to reverse his attacks on the climate, all of that may be for naught. In the last few weeks, WEC helped coordinate Jersey Renews kick-off events in Montclair, Camden and New Brunswick. More than a dozen organizations spoke at the events, each declaring support for making NJ a climate leader [...]

On April 23, at a Workers’ Memorial Day Rally and March organized by New Labor and WEC in New Brunswick, NJ, workers stood together to remember those who have died on the job or suffered workplace injuries at work. Daniel Templeton Comerie was one of the 45 New Jersey workers who died at work in 2016.  Daniel, a maintenance mechanic employed by Joint Meeting of Essex and Union Counties, went to work on the morning of March 11, 2016 and never returned home to his family.  Nat Bender, Communications Director at American Federation of Teachers New Jersey, and friend of Daniel and his wife Cherrie, read this beautiful testimony from Cherrie. My husband Daniel Templeton Comerie died on March 11, 2016.  The man I married is the love of my life.  We were together for 25 years, and married for 21 years. If you asked me how I feel. I feel dysfunctional, devastated and stricken with overwhelming shock.  I spoke to my husband at 9:30 a.m. in the morning, in his office, and at 2:00 p.m. I was told that he was gone. He was killed on the job when a large concrete slab landed on his chest.  [...]

WEC is pleased to announce the addition of two new members to our Board of Directors.   "As health professionals, we are creating standards in the workplace to protect the health and safety of our patients and workers in our union contracts and lawmakers in Trenton.  Joining the board of WEC provides an opportunity to work with others taking on challenges in their own communities and workplaces and I'm looking forward to collaborating to demand improvements for all workers in New Jersey," Alexis Rean Walker, Co-President Central-South Jersey Region, HPAE "As an advocate for income equality and labor standards that benefit working New Jerseyans, I'm thrilled to join the board of WEC to help this amazing organization achieve safe, secure jobs for all," Brandon McKoy, Policy Analyst for New Jersey Policy Perspective

New Jersey faces major threats from climate change. The state has already seen the impacts of heat waves and increased flooding from sea level rise. We cannot afford to be unprepared in the face of the next Superstorm Sandy caused by climate change. Likewise, there are major social and economic impacts of climate change if our state does not act quickly to reduce emissions. New Jersey’s electricity grid is vulnerable to power outages from extreme weather, like Superstorm Sandy and the storm that hit South Jersey in 2015 when nearly 300,000 people lost power. New Jersey must build a better energy future. It is well within our reach to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and secure prosperity and health for all New Jerseyans, in a cheaper manner than our current fossil-fuel economy. In fact, a 2015 report by Stanford and UC Berkeley showed that by achieving 100 percent wind, water, and solar energy by 2050, New Jersey would save $57 per person in annual energy costs. New Jersey can return to being a clean energy leader, learn from other states that are leading the way on climate change and save ratepayers money as well. In November 2016, the Institute for Energy [...]

The Healthy Schools Now coalition of the NJ Work Environment Council is proud to partner with Education Law Center in calling for the NJ Department of Education and NJ Schools Development Authority (SDA) to approve submitted Emergent Project requests from SDA districts.  With the most recent emergent projects submission deadline in September of 2016, the state agencies responsible for decisions have had more than enough time to review and grant approvals for emergency projects. According to the SDA, emergent projects defined in Department of Education regulations at 6A:26 "means a capital project necessitating expedited review and, if applicable, approval, in order to alleviate a condition that, if not corrected on an expedited basis, would render a building or facility so potentially injurious or hazardous that it causes an imminent peril to the health and safety of students or staff.” Twenty-three of the 31 SDA districts submitted a total of 429 project applications under the 2016 PEP program. This is a constitutionally mandated obligation for the state.  We implore the NJ Department of Education and Schools Development Authority to release the Emergent Project approvals expeditiously. Full Press Release

Congress just made it easier for employers to hide serious workplace injuries from OSHA On March 21, the Senate voted to overturn OSHA’s Volks Rule. The Volks rule restored OSHA’s traditional ability to require employers to maintain accurate records for five years and to be able to use that data to figure out where recurring problems occur and better enforce the law. According to Confined Space, "In short, for 40 years, OSHA was able to cite employers who did not keep complete or accurate injury or illness records over the previous five years. This enabled OSHA to identify deliberate patterns of under reporting and to force changes, not just on those employers’ recordkeeping practices, but on their unsafe work practices. Accurate records are the main way workers and employers can identify health and safety problems in the workplace and correct them." Employers still have to keep logs, but now they can’t be cited for improper record keeping except within a shorter time frame. Unions and workers have the right to see and should track employers’ OSHA Logs; if the logs are incomplete or have inaccuracies they should contact OSHA immediately so that the citations and/or fines stay within the six-month [...]

The Public Need over Corporate Greed campaign presumes that fundamental social change, in New Jersey and elsewhere, can only be achieved if workers, communities, and environmental organizations join forces to combat big moneyed special interests and corporate power. We are excited to announce that we have now trained 45 trainers who are prepared to educate other activists on the economic strip mining of our economy, and how corporations and Wall Street firms have robbed our country, state, communities, and workplaces. Together, we are prepared to shine a spotlight, and make clear the complex economics that political elites would prefer be kept muddled and unclear. Understanding finance and how it affects us is more important now than ever, as we move into an era in which industry executives and Wall Street financiers are leading our federal agencies and setting national policy. If you wish to arrange a training session on financialization and how it affects your community, please contact campaign organizer Brandon Castro. We don't yet have a date set, but we're exploring another train-the-trainer session, possibly this summer. If interested, please complete the application below. Trainer Apprenticeship Application Public Need Over Corporate Greed

The Trump election represented a body blow to the fight against climate change.  In this new era, state leadership is more important than ever.  That’s why 40 labor, environmental, faith, and community groups have come together and launched Jersey Renews, a coalition that’s rallying support for Garden State policies that will lead to climate justice, clean energy, and good jobs. Join us for one of our Jersey Renews kick-off meetings: Monday, March 27 7:30 to 9:00 pm St. Luke's Episcopal Church 73 S. Fullerton Avenue Montclair RSVP  Monday, April 3 12:00 to 2:30 pm Kroc Corps Community Center 1865 Harrison Avenue Camden RSVP Monday, April 10 6:30 to 8:00 pm Labor Education Center 50 Labor Way New Brunswick RSVP You’ll hear from dynamic speakers who will describe how intelligent state policies can help us reach the greenhouse gas emission reduction goals we need, maintain and create good jobs, and give us cleaner air in our communities.  New Jerseyans will elect a new governor later this year.  We need all the candidates to know that there’s powerful support for taking action on climate change. And, because we need to join our efforts to [...]