Labor and environmental groups on Tuesday called on the Christie administration to ensure that the public can review local emergency management plans, a concern because large quantities of volatile crude oil are being transported on railways through towns in Bergen County and elsewhere in New Jersey. See Article Here
The New Jersey Work Environment Council says 68 percent of counties and towns where the most potentially hazardous chemical and oil facilities are located denied the group's request to review local emergency response plans. See Article Here
"There are hundreds of facilities in New Jersey that use hazardous substances that can affect workers and the community," said Rick Engler, director of the New Jersey Work Environmental Council. See Article / Video Here
For years, New Jersey was considered to have some of the strongest whistleblower protections in the nation, shielding employees from retaliation from their employers when they tried to report corporate wrongdoing. Those safeguards could unravel in a series of court cases to be taken up by the state Supreme Court this fall, according to more than two-dozen environmental, labor, and consumer organizations, which have joined the litigation. See Article Here
A garment worker who was trapped in the rubble of a collapsed Bangladesh factory last year joined about four-dozen labor activists Friday in urging Secaucus-based The Children's Place to increase its payments to victims of the disaster that killed more than 1,100 people. See Article Here View the video from the demonstration.
This national media coverage would not have happened without the hard work that the Trenton community and Healthy Schools Now Coalition has done to raise awareness about the deplorable conditions in our schools. See the NBC News Here
Students at New Jersey's most resource-starved public schools walk down hallways covered in mold, take tests in asbestos-filled classrooms and trod across floors peppered with rodent droppings. See Article Here
A coalition that wants New Jersey to speed up the repair and replacement of run-down schools across the state staged a protest on the State House steps - using enlarged photos as props.
While the latest developments in the courthouse drama over Trenton High were playing themselves out, less than a mile away protesters launched a fresh demonstration in support of rapid improvements at the city school and others in similar plight around New Jersey. See Article Here View the Slideshow here
A new report by the New Jersey Work Environment Council (WEC) says millions of Garden State residents are still at risk from toxic chemical disasters five years after the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) adopted rules to implement the New Jersey Toxic Catastrophe Prevention Act that were supposed to drastically reduce that risk. See Article Here