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Labor
Party Sparks a Campaign
For New Jersey Health Care Workers |
Justice
Under the Law
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The NJ Labor Party, using a
little-known law, has petitioned to raise the minimum wage for
New Jersey health care workers. |
"Taking care of human beings ought to be considered a
really important job," says Assane Faye, area coordinator
of Service Employees International Union District 1115. But
instead, he says, the 7000 New Jersey nursing home workers his
union represents are horribly undervalued.
"Some of our members are making just $6.50 an
hour," he says. "We have members who have been in
their jobs for 13 years and are still making only $9 an hour.
Some of our members qualify for food stamps. How can you
explain that?"
For the pittance they earn, nursing home workers are coping
with a sicker and sicker population of residents, with less
and less staff. They’re moving people who weigh twice what
they do, and breaking their backs doing it. "The weekends
are the worst," says Faye. "There’s no management.
The workers are tired because they’ve already worked so much
overtime. And then it’s just poor quality care. It’s
horrible."
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| Union leaders hold a press conference after delivering the
petitions. From left, Assane Faye (SEIU 1115), Larry Adams
(President, Mail Handlers Local 300), Bill Kane (LP Co-Chair
and President, NJ Industrial Union Council), Bob McDevitt
(President, HERE Local 54 and new LP Interim National Council
member), Richard DiLucia (VP AFSCME 1199C), Bennett Zurofsky
(attorney for the NJ Labor Party), Doris Williams (LPN, member
AFSCME 1199C), and Mark Dudzic (President, PACE 2-149).
Photo ©2000 Michael Kaufman,
Impact Visuals |
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Not long ago, Faye heard about a New Jersey law he could
barely believe existed. But there it was, NJSA 34:11-56a7. In
the state of New Jersey, the law proclaims, workers are
entitled to a "wage fairly and reasonably commensurate
with the value of the class of service rendered and sufficient
to meet the minimum cost of living necessary for health."
Under the law, all it takes is 50 signatures to spark a state
investigation to determine if the wages being paid in a
particular industry really are fair. If it is found that wages
are indeed too low, the Labor Commissioner can appoint a Wage
Board to set a fair wage for the industry — and then adopt
it as law.
"I was amazed," says Faye. "I thought —
everything we’ve been trying to do for the past ten years,
trying to rally other unions in the state to work with us on
wage issues — and we’d never heard of this law."
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Nurse Doris Williams presents 100 times the signatures
necessary to Lenny Katz, NJ Assistant Commissioner of Labor.
Photo ©2000 Michael Kaufman,
Impact Visuals |
On Wednesday, June 14, Assane Faye was part of a delegation
of New Jersey unionists who stepped into the office of the New
Jersey Labor Commissioner in Trenton. In their hands was a
petition signed by 5,000 New Jerseyans asking the Labor
Commissioner to appoint a Wage Board to determine a fair wage
for health care industry workers in the state. The Assistant
Commissioner met briefly with the unionists and pledged to
investigate the issue.
But Faye and the other unionists don’t plan to passively
wait for action. As they announced at a press conference
following their meeting, they plan to use the law as a tool to
mobilize wider union and community support for fair wages in
the health care industry.
"If the commissioner does convene a Wage Board, we’re
going to demand that they hold public hearings," says
Mark Dudzic, president of Paper, Allied-Industrial, Chemical
and Energy Workers Local 2-149, who helped kick off the Wage
Board Campaign along with other unionists affiliated with the
Labor Party. "If they don’t, then we’re going to do
some mobilizing to pressure them to enforce the law."
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| Bill Kane, President of the New Jersey State Industrial
Union Council and Labor Party co-chair, greets the NJ
Assistant Labor Commissioner, petition in hand. Says Kane:
"Health care industry owners and management have been
reaping billions of dollars in profits on the backs of these
low-wage workers. Now is the time for our state government to
take action that is within its power, to shine the light of
day on this grossly unfair system of compensation." Photo ©2000 Michael
Kaufman,
Impact Visuals |
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From the beginning, Dudzic says, Labor Party activists saw
the New Jersey wage law as an opportunity for the Labor Party
to "build a public campaign consistent with the Labor
Party’s program. The Democrats and Republicans aren’t
going to take this up. But for the Labor Party, it’s a
win-win issue: Either this thing progresses and we win
something for low-paid workers in this state, or we show the
bankruptcy of the system where they can’t even enforce their
own law."
The New Jersey unionists have already done some serious
mobilizing. Starting with a handful of Labor Party unions,
they built a coalition that now includes 25 local unions and
four union councils, including some unions — like Faye’s
— that are not yet affiliated with the Labor Party.
Together, activists from these unions collected 5,000
signatures — a hundred times the number required —
beginning on Labor Day 1999. "We’ve passed the petition
around at local union meetings, at shopping centers, fairs,
and at the Labor Day parade in an absolutely drenching
rain," says Bob Brown, the Labor Party’s mid-Atlantic
organizer. Brown was instrumental in building the multi-union
coalition and rustling up those signatures.
However, Brown was not the one who first
"discovered" this buried law. That was David
Tykulsker, a labor lawyer and Labor Party member.
"I was just kind of nosing around in the books, as one
is wont to do, and I ran across this thing," says
Tykulsker. (He insists, however, that perusing the state
statutes is not really his idea of recreational activity.)
"This law has rarely been used, as far as I can
tell," says Tykulsker. "In the bad old days before
the New Deal, a number of states had this device of a Wage
Board to set minimum wages on an industry-by-industry basis.
In 1966, Democrats swept into power in New Jersey and passed a
new minimum wage law. But they kept the Wage Board provision
on the books."
Tykulsker says he’s excited that the New Jersey Labor
Party and friends have managed to get this far in applying the
law.
"It’s a cruel irony that many of these health care
workers don’t even have health insurance themselves,"
he says. "Some even qualify for public assistance. And
then here’s this law saying that everyone is supposed to
have a wage ‘necessary for health.’ Well, anyone who is
working full-time and yet has to rely on public assistance is
not getting the minimum wage necessary for health."
—Laura McClure
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Photo ©2000, Michael Kaufman |
For more information on the New Jersey Wage Board Campaign,
contact Labor Party Organizer Bob Brown, 732-418-1721.
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