Listen: Essential Workers Refuse to Reverse Course!
Essential 32BJ workers on the move…
By Bob Hennelly
On this episode of the Stuck Nation Tuesday Labor Radio Hour, we visit with Fran Ehret, executive director of CWA of New Jersey. The union represents 70,000 workers in the private and public sector, as well as most of the workers who work for the State of New Jersey for a myriad of agencies that cover everything from environmental to health care and social services.
During the pandemic it was these essential workers in our congregant care facilities and in public facing roles with the public who paid the highest price.
Now, Fran explains the union is fighting the erosion of members’ wages to the ever escalating predatory health care prices by demanding pricing transparency from the state’s politically connected hospitals.
On the eve of the UAW’s generational win at VW in Chattanooga, Tennessee last week, UAW Region 9 International Delegate Tom Ashton tells us about a nasty fight at a New Jersey Nissan auto parts regional distributor ship in Somerset to decertify the UAW’s recently organized bargaining unit there that just got their first contract. Of course, the fingerprints on the National Right to Work Legal Defense Foundation Inc. are all over this. This pivotal vote is tomorrow.
We finish up in the show with 32 BJ SEIU Vice President Izzy Melendez, who represents the rapidly growing security officer division whose 20,000 members are providing security just about everywhere from iconic addresses like Rockefeller Center to the city’s vast impromptu migrant housing site network and homeless shelters. They are at the table now and need our support to prevent any backsliding from the gains they secured doing Covid.
And lots of listener calls.
Listen to the entire show below: