Media | American Federation of Teachers New Jersey, AFL-CIO

Kean Federation of Teachers Union endorses Obe for Senate in Democratic Primary

May 13, 2013

The Kean University full-time faculty, librarian and professional staff union has endorsed Donna Obe for the 20th district state Senate seat currently held by Senator Ray Lesniak. The local’s executive committee endorsed Obe based on the Roselle Board of Education President’s positions on higher education and labor rights, according to President Dr. James A. Castiglione.

“The Kean Federation of Teachers members I met are extremely concerned about improving academics at Kean University and I share their urgency for change,” said Obe. “There should be only one standard when hiring – will that person make the greatest contribution to the academic excellence of the University? I am proud to be endorsed by their union and eager to work with them to improve higher education opportunities at Kean and at all the state colleges and universities.”

Obe participated in a candidates’ forum where she expressed concern about undue political influence at New Jersey’s institutions of higher education, Kean University in particular, according to Physics Professor Castiglione. Obe would support legislation to monitor and assess the performance of state Boards of Trustees and management at all institutions of higher education. Sen. Lesniak, a state legislator since 1978, did not respond to the request to participate in the forum.

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Update: Police chiefs endorse Christie, teachers for Buono

May 11, 2013

By Andrew Segedin, Staff Writer, The Montclair Times.

[...]

Christie’s stop in Cedar Grove marks the second time in as many weeks that a gubernatorial candidate was in the area to receive and endorsement. On April 18, Christie’s likely opponent, state Sen. Barbara Buono, was at Montclair State University to receive the endorsement of the American Federation of Teachers New Jersey (AFTNJ).

“I am honored to receive the endorsement of the AFT and its members who work everyday to build the foundation of New Jersey’s future,” said Buono in a statement provided to The Times.

Utilizing Montclair State as a venue was meaningful to both Buono and AFTNJ, according to federation president Donna Chiera. AFTNJ represents Montclair State’s faculty while Buono is alumnus of the university.

When deciding who to support in this year’s election, the choice became increasingly obvious, according to Chiera.

“It really wasn’t a difficult decision, because when you look at her voting record on women’s rights, public schools, higher education, millionaire’s tax, she’s clearly on the right side of everything that’s middle class,” Chiera told The Times.

Chiera said that the federation is looking for a governor who will sit down and collaborate with them on issues ranging from statewide expansion of pre-K to keeping New Jersey’s college-bound students in-state.

Asked if there was one thing in particular that AFTNJ is looking for in New Jersey’s next gubernatorial term, Chiera did not hesitate.

“Sen. Buono,” she said.

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Un-Civil Wars: Christie Administration Pushing for Sweeping Civil Service Changes

May 01, 2013

Rebuffed by Legislature, Christie goes for major regulatory changes through Civil Service Commission

By Mark J. Magyar

Tired of waiting for the Democratic-controlled Legislature to send him a new civil service bill to replace the one he vetoed two years ago, Gov. Chris Christie is pushing sweeping changes through a Civil Service Commission he effectively controls.

Gov. Chris Christie. Credit: Governor's Office/Tim Larsen

Christie’s civil service overhaul is the latest in a series of high-profile battles with public employee unions that have defined his governorship and propelled him to national prominence. These have ranged from school vouchers and merit pay for teachers to a landmark pension and health benefits bill that not only forced public employees to pay more, but also eliminated the right of unions to bargain on health benefits for four years.

The Christie administration’s proposed civil service regulation would effectively reduce and consolidate the number of job titles by eliminating competitive examinations for promotions within broad “job bands,” giving managers greater flexibility in deciding which employees to promote.

Christie asserts that stripping away civil service restrictions will make government more efficient and thereby enable local governments to lower property taxes. But union officials say the proposed changes will substitute patronage and favoritism for merit in the promotional process.

“This latest Christie scheme to gut civil service will create more patronage and corruption at all levels by putting every single advancement at the mercy of political pressure,” Hetty Rosenstein, New Jersey area director for the Communications Workers of America, said yesterday.

“The whole point of the Civil Service system is to prevent managerial decisions based on politics,” said Adrienne Eaton, chair of Rutgers University’s Labor Studies and Employment Relations Department and also president of Rutgers’ American Federation of Teachers/American Association of University Professors chapter. “This would undermine that principle.”

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Opinion: No ‘skin’ in this game

April 28, 2013

By Alexa Offenhauer, The Record.

Alexa Offenhauer is an adjunct English instructor at Raritan Valley Community College in Branchburg and a member of the American Federation of Teachers.

AT A RECENT town hall event at Raritan Valley Community College, I was given the opportunity to ask Governor Christie a question.

It was one I’d sworn I would not take. I am an adjunct instructor at RVCC, and I wanted to ask him about his position regarding teachers and teacher unions. But I did not want to go viral getting yelled at by the governor of New Jersey. Still, my hand raised itself of its own accord, and I found myself “sparring,” as one paper put it, with my elected official.

Governor Christie told me, among other things, that he believes in “shared responsibility” and that “we should all have some skin in the game.” He said that his cuts to pensions and benefits for teachers have, far from denying teachers, ensured the financial viability of these programs so that I, and teachers like me, will still have a pension when we retire. He also proudly touted the $750 million bond issue that will go to improving infrastructure at colleges and universities around the state, including at RVCC.

He told me, in short, that he is pro-teacher, pro-education and pro-student.

Except that his policies are none of these things, though many of them seem so on the surface. And he missed some important points that make his seemingly reasonable positions look extremely unreasonable from my perspective.

As an adjunct instructor, not a tenure-track professor, I have zero “skin in the game” regarding benefits and pensions because I have none. No health care, no pension, zero job security — none of the benefits Governor Christie assumes are a given for all teachers.

In this, I am far from alone. Adjunct — that is, part-time and non-tenure-track — instructors make up over 60 percent of the faculty at RVCC, a statistic that is on par with the national average. This is a problem not just for the adjuncts themselves, but also for the students and the institutions as a whole. Part-time adjuncts are generally over-worked, underpaid, rarely on campus — because they work multiple part-time jobs — and unable to be involved with the governance of the school or on-hand for their students.

This is also a problem for taxpayers, although most probably do not realize it. As an adjunct, I do not make enough to pay state or federal taxes. In fact, my salary is so low that I qualify for multiple welfare programs, including Medicaid.

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Diegnan honored by American Federation of Teachers of New Jersey with Friend of Education Award

April 24, 2013

NEW BRUNSWICK — Assemblyman Patrick J. Diegnan Jr., D-South Plainfield, was honored by the American Federation of Teachers of New Jersey (AFTNJ) on April 20 during its annual Statewide Legislative Conference.

Diegnan received the prestigious Friend of Education Award during the ceremonial luncheon. According to the AFTNJ, the award is given “to those whom have made significant contributions to public service as well as a strong record of commitment to safeguard and improve public education.”

From left: Donna Chiera, American Federation of Teachers of New Jersey president; U.S. Rep. Rush Holt; state Sen. Linda Greenstein; Assemblyman Patrick J. Diegnan Jr.; Randi Weingarten, AFT president; state Sen. Nellie Pou; and Charlie Wowkanech, president, New Jersey State AFL-CIO at the AFTNJ's annual Statewide Legislative Conference. / Photo courtesy Assemblyman Patrick J. Diegnan Jr.

“I am truly honored to be receiving the Friend of Education Award from the American Federation of Teachers of New Jersey representing over 30,000 of our state’s wonderful, hard-working educators,” Diegnan said. “New Jersey and our public school teachers preserve the basic promise of America, that no matter who you are, where you come from, what you look like, what your last name is, you can succeed. We’ve got a particular responsibility as elected officials in difficult times, instead of bashing teachers to support them; I will continue to fight for our teachers and all the children in their classrooms across our great state.”

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Buono receives another $100,000 in public funds in run for governor

April 22, 2013

By Michael Linhorst, State House Bureau, The Record.

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State Sen. Barbara Buono

On Friday, the 30,000-member New Jersey chapter of the American Federation of Teachers announced its endorsement of Buono for governor. The union’s president, Donna Chiera, said it made its endorsement decision after examining the “policy differences” between Buono and Christie.

“While the governor has demonized and bullied our educators, I stand ready to work with teachers and administrators as governor to improve education in New Jersey,” Buono said in a statement put out by the union.

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Can Dems Make Education Pivotal Issue in Governor’s Race?

April 22, 2013

Even with backing of both teachers unions, Buono faces challenge to articulate how she differs from Christie

By John Mooney

It’s taken a while, but Gov. Chris Christie’s aggressive school reform agenda — and the Democrats’ counter to it — could be emerging as a big issue in the 2013 gubernatorial election.

Christie’s very public involvement in the public schools — especially in some of the state’s most troubled districts — has been one of the hallmarks of his education agenda for the past three-and-a-half years.

To recap some of the governor’s political — and personal — initiatives: appointing a reform-minded superintendent in Newark, and playing a large role in hammering out a new teachers contract there; opposing Abbott v. Burke school-equity decisions; pushing for private school vouchers; blocking the surrender of state control in both Newark and Paterson; and, most recently, launching a takeover of Camden schools.

AFT for Buono

In the past few weeks, the Democrats in general and their presumptive candidate in particular — state Sen. Barbara Buono — finally started countering with what they would do differently. But it’s still too early to tell if they can make a case for it being different enough.

Buono, a Middlesex County Democrat, on Thursday accepted the endorsement of the American Federation of Teachers in New Jersey, the smaller of the state’s two teachers unions, but one that represents Newark and a few other urban districts.

The senator already has the backing of the state’s larger teachers union, the New Jersey Education Association. There’s been little question that she would gain the support of both unions, given that Buono was one of the few prominent Democrats to stand with them when Christie overhauled public employee pensions and benefits.

But Buono also used the press conference announcing the AFT endorsement as an occasion to chide Christie’s often-antagonistic relationship with the teachers unions and said she would move to work alongside rather than against them.

[...]

The president of the AFT-NJ, Donna Chiera, said it wasn’t a hard call for the union to back Buono. But she knows the challenge now is to draw clear distinctions in both the process and the results.

“I don’t think she would be as top-down heavy as the governor,” said Chiera, a Perth Amboy schoolteacher. “This administration is looking to do things to us, instead of with us.”

“I think Barbara recognizes that to truly have things done and to have the education system changed, those who are doing the job have to be involved,” she said.

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Buono goes back to Montclair to collect AFT endorsement

April 19, 2013

By Max Pizarro

MONTCLAIR – Bill Batkay stood among the public sector union throng that welcomed Montclair University alumnus Barbara Buono back to school.

“You look the same,” said Batkay, who said he believes he taught Buono, the presumptive Democratic nominee for governor, American Government.

Sen. Barbara Buono accepts AFTNJ endorsement for Governor

The school, though, didn’t look the way it does when Buono went here in the early 1970s.

“It’s changed,” she said, standing amid the campus finery.

Batkay was part of the backdrop of American Federation of Teachers (AFT) New Jersey who cheered and whooped it up for Buono as they formally gave her their endorsement.

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N.J. governor candidate Buono endorsed by second teacher’s union

April 19, 2013

By Matt Friedman/The Star-Ledger

MONTCLAIR — State Sen. Barbara Buono received the endorsement of the American Federation of Teachers for governor at her alma mater, Montclair State University, tonight and pledged that she would be “the education governor.”

Sen. Barbara Buono. John O'Boyle/The Star-Ledger

Unlike the much larger New Jersey Education Association, which endorsed Buono in March, the majority of the AFT’s 30,000 members are employees of colleges and universities.

Buono, the inevitable Democratic nominee for governor, stood in a theater lobby at Montclair State while touting her experience in the public school system, and how she needed financial aid when her father died shortly before she began her sophomore year there.

“I grew up in a New Jersey that wanted to see a kid like me succeed, and I believe that New Jersey is splipping away,” Buono said before ripping into Gov. Chris Christie, the popular Republican whom she hopes to unseat, for his 2010 budget’s cuts to education and his frequent criticism of unions.

“This governor just doesn’t get it,” Buono said. “Just last week he was out there and made headlines by calling out the teacher’s union. And he said unions are the problem. You know what governor? Unions aren’t the problem. Your misplaced priorities are the problem.”

Donna Chiera, president of the AFT, said Christie wants to change the public school system “top down.”

“Barbara Buono does not want to do things to us, she wants to work with us,” Chiera said.

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Education Worker Union Endorses Buono for Governor

April 18, 2013

Contact: Nat Bender, 908-377-0393, nbender@aftnj.org

Credit Senator’s vision for education and New Jersey that works for all

MONTCLAIR…Senator Barbara Buono has an exemplary record of support for public education and will be a great governor for students, teachers and New Jersey families, according to American Federation of Teachers New Jersey (AFTNJ) President Donna M. Chiera. “We looked at the policy differences to make our decision and on behalf of 30,000 members in pre-kindergarten to 12 school districts and college campuses throughout the state, I am proud to announce our enthusiastic endorsement of Senator Barbara Buono for governor.”

“I am honored to receive the endorsement of the AFT and its members who work everyday to build the foundation of New Jersey’s future,” Senator Buono said. “Governor Christie has left our education system in shambles – local school districts are underfunded, an alarming number of students are choosing to leave New Jersey to pursue higher education, and student debt continues to saddle the next generation.

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