SPECIAL EDITION LET'S GET TO WORK! THE NEW JERSEY STATE OF LABOR 2 SPECIAL EDITION LABOR 2021 WELCOME TO THE INSIDERNJ SPECIAL EDITION IN HONOR OF LABOR DAY P.O. Box 66 Verona, NJ 07044 [email protected] www.InsiderNJ.com It’s called struggle for a reason, because You will find labor leaders and elected no one ever thought the fight for a just of ficials considering some of the most Max Pizarro wage would be easy. “We were very wel - pressing issues impacting the workforce, Editor-in-Chief come to the workers,” IWW organizer including unemployment, labor expan - [email protected] Elizabeth Gurley Flynn said, in reference sion, the infrastructure bill before the to the Wobblies’ 1913 forays into Pater - U.S. House that would fund the Gateway son. “But we were set upon by the city Tunnel project, project labor agreements, authorities with vicious fury.” minimum wage, diversity among labor groups, the deadly impact of Hurricane “Vicious fury” doesn’t accurately convey Ida , and, of course, the COVID pan - the ongoing tensions between private demic. sector versus public sector labor in New Jersey. But it may relate those deeper You will also encounter our InsiderNJ Pete Oneglia disaffections and agonies experienced by Labor List recognizing the main players General Manager laborers not protected by unions, forced in the New Jersey Labor Movement, [email protected] to work for an unlicensed temp agency, among them the leader of the guild help - like Edilberto Caicedo, a forklift operator ing Gannett reporters in their quest to who died on the job in Kearny in 2019. unionize, some other new names based Michael Graham CEO on their political impact in 2020, and In the pages ahead you will find an essay those enduring labor leaders you’ve no John F.X. Graham on the political collisions of the Labor doubt seen over the years. Publisher Movement in New Jersey over the course of the past few years, and what they mean “Enduring.” Ryan Graham for this campaign cycle as Governor Phil Associate Publisher Murphy and Senate President Steve That’s a fitting description for labor in Sweeney pursue reelection. New Jersey on Labor Day. 3 SPECIAL EDITION LABOR 2021 Whatever the movement’s altered aims, imperfections, impediments, cross purposes, or work undone, the roots here remain, going back to the Paterson silk strikers who marched under a banner that read: “We Weave the Flag. We live under the Flag. We die under the Flag. But Dam’d if we’ll starve under the Flag.” Happy Labor Day, New Jersey! from InsiderNJ Max Pizarro Max Pizarro Editor, InsiderNJ 4 5 SPECIAL EDITION LABOR 2021 A POLITICAL HISTORY OF NJ LABOR IN THE NEW MILLENNIUM: PART 1 One of the most union friendly states included “No Irish Need Apply,” and Education Association (NJEA) versus in the country, notoriously disjointed worse, the trades find themselves chal - the Building Trades, the latter most New Jersey simultaneously lags dis - lenged now by other populations visibly represented by Senate Presi - mally in Blacks and Latino family net striving for fair wages, searching for dent Steve Sweeney (D-3), vice presi - worth and median household income, respect from the ranks of those others dent of the Ironworkers International according to the Bureau of Labor Sta - at the heart of the labor movement, (see no. 1 on the Labor Power List, tistics. In an era defined by a deep - and resisting the cyclic conditions of below). ened divide between the super-rich poverty. and the working class, workers fight - A lifetime of trades irritability welled ing among themselves benefits the Nowhere do the fractures appear up in him in a state absolutely coddled few not the discomfited starker than in the clash of non-citi - poleaxed by property taxes (an average many, and easily arm-twisted New zen and citizen workers, non-union - of $9,112 annually), Sweeney and Re - Jersey happily obliges. Made up of ized and unionized labor, and public publican Governor Chris Christie mostly white ethnics who forced their and private sector workers, amplified partnered to require state workers to way into jobs in defiance of edicts that with a vengeance by the New Jersey pay between 3% and 35% of their 6 SPECIAL EDITION LABOR 2021 healthcare pensions on a scale based ning the tricorn hats of imperial de - they would return fire at some point. on phased-in income. That set the sign provided someone had the Even though he beat them, and it felt public sector – leery of Sweeney in the money to back up their maneuvers. good, the contest depleted independ - senate presidency to begin with – and They tangled with each other as a ent expenditure coffers he counted particularly the NJEA on the matter of course, even if the price tag on, and showed – even if they fell warpath. Their backing the cause of – as it obviously did here - went hay - short - that the teachers didn’t mind a no-name Republican challenger Fran wire. In this case, the political conse - good ornery labor scrap. Better can - Greiner against the reelection of quences of the NJEA forcing the didate next time? They make things Sweeney, more than just a punch in Senate President into the most expen - difficult again, if come short of nuk - the mouth, by extension, to Sweeney’s sive legislative contest in U.S. history ing him. Targeting them didn’t make benefactor, insurance magnate splattered mostly on Governor Phil any sense. Well, he could target them. George Norcross III. The 2017 colli - Murphy, not an innocent bystander, Just not jump up and down on them. sion resulted in $18.7 million (unof - but also not properly a union mem - ficial estimates run higher) expended. ber. The teachers’ union might have They were labor, after all. proved a sufficient target for revenge Sweeney won. in the aftermath of Murphy’s Kind of. statewide – and Sweeney’s 59-41% And that meant there would be hell districtwide - win. Going back to his More on that later. to pay. 2005 pre-Christie proposal to cut 15% from state worker salaries and But “Middle Class on a Good Day” Union leadership never minded don - benefits, Sweeney had to have known Murphy? 7 SPECIAL EDITION LABOR 2021 The best the Goldman Sachs multi - Public and private sector didn’t get governor, just like that actor played a millionaire could do in the way of along. dish scrubber? Sweeney would humil - projecting a pro-labor vibe was to iate him the way Murphy had humil - allow his campaign to run an ad fea - Everyone knew that. iated him. turing an actor playing a teenage Murphy on his summer job as a dish - But to have a Wall Street goody- “What the NJEA has done is shit,” washer. Not only did Murphy lack goody suddenly surface, wrestle the NJ Building Trades President Bill union cred, that ad all but mocked governorship away from him on the Mullen bull-horned to a crowd of labor. Moreover, and this part infuri - strength of North Jersey support union craftsmen ready to march for ated Sweeney – Murphy, as the Dem - heavily undergirded by the public sec - Sweeney on Election Day. ocratic nominee for governor, chose tor, and then essentially give his tacit not to intervene with the leadership approval to one arm of labor going “Elections have consequences,” he of the teachers to persuade them to ape on another, enraged Sweeney. added with an edge. abort their massively funded, Repub - It went deeper than Murphy, of lican-assisted (ah, the irony; after course, although Murphy, aloof from The last time someone had said that all the teachers’ protestations of the murk of New Jersey politics with in relation to LD3 was four years ear - Sweeney’s alliance with Christie) ef - his out-of-town Ivy League creden - lier, when Christie declared, “Elec - fort to take down the sitting senate tials – would prove a suitably vulner - tions have consequences,” in response president. able incoming foil. He wanted to play to Tom Kean, Jr. running someone 8 SPECIAL EDITION LABOR 2021 against Sweeney without the financial backing of the NJEA. Sweeney didn’t need Kean anymore to prop up as his own personal Thurston Howell polit - ical punching bag. Without Christie around, the Republicans radiated in - sufficient relevance. If the teachers’ union thought their relationship with a Democratic governor would give them the clout they lacked during the Christie years, Sweeney and Mullen – never the most eloquent book-learned players – would promptly and sav - agely educate. Beating the NJEA in the ultimate labor versus labor gladi - atorial contest gave them the right. They would start by binding and gag - ging Murphy on the train tracks of Trenton. He wanted a millionaire’s tax? Easily reupped as senate president, Sweeney – in blue Braveheart face paint – derailed it. Murphy wanted free college? Almost overnight, the brotherhood Trying to be a good guy, Murphy gave politically beheaded Ballantyne. He a job to Ballantyne’s also suddenly Sweeney killed that, too. showed up at the union offices of the jobless political director at the Car - Northeast Regional Council of Car - penters, Lizette Delgado Polanco. Someone from Building Trades had penters, and there were none. the notion of trying to make nice with Surely, she’d be safe in the administra - the governor. They had restructured the union tion of one of the most on-paper around him; dissolved it out from powerful governors in the country. “Can’t… we… all… get… along?” under him. John Ballantyne of the Carpenters She wasn’t. seemed to say when he resisted It sent a chilling message to the lead - Mullen’s rejection of Murphy’s pick to ers of the 15 New Jersey Trades who And so it went: a season of Sweeney run the New Jersey Economic Devel - represented 150,000 workers: if you stampeding the halls of the Statehouse opment Authority.