Search News
For the Media
For media inquiries, call CWA Communications at 202-434-1168 or email comms@cwa-union.org. To read about CWA Members, Leadership or Industries, visit our About page.
Campaign Saves Social Service Jobs in New Jersey
CWA Local 1081 is celebrating the news that Essex County, N.J., will re-employ 65 of its members laid off from its Division of Social Services and hire an additional 20 family service workers to bring its food stamp and child welfare offices up to the state’s standard.
The victory, said Local 1081 President David Weiner, is a culmination of nearly a year of lobbying and demonstrations involving the local, Essex-West Hudson Labor Council, the NAACP, black clergy, Citizen Action and Jobs with Justice.
“It shows that compulsive persistence is rewarded,” said Weiner. “The labor ethic of never giving up until there is nothing left to fight for prevailed.”
The local mounted its campaign in winter 1999 when the state decided to front the county $8.8 million for temporary assistance to needy families, which Weiner said was used instead to help balance the county’s budget. Under County Executive James Treffinger’s welfare reform plan, the county had already paid $6 million to 21 private community-based organizations, according to Weiner, to train and place welfare clients into jobs.
“Only 13 percent of those clients actually obtained jobs” in 1998, Weiner wrote in a letter published by the Verona-Cedar Grove Times last May, also citing the county for diverting county equipment, supplies and staff in support of the federally funded, private effort. About 150 local members and supporters backed up their position with a march through the streets of Verona, the county executive’s hometown, and a rally in the town park.
In October 1999, Treffinger announced that 250 workers across county government — including the 65 in Social Services — would be laid off by the end of the year because of cost overruns.
The local stepped up its campaign of sending letters to members of the county Board of Freeholders and to the editors of local newspapers and with supporters mounted additional demonstrations. In November, the black clergy held a press conference on the failure of welfare reform as instituted by the county, urging a halt to the layoffs. In December, 60 people marched in Verona and sang mock Christmas carols, starting in front of Treffinger’s church. In January, workers and others picketed the Freeholders’ swearing-in ceremony at Essex County College.
Weiner contacted CWA’s Public Workers Vice President Brooks Sunkett for help and received additional assistance from CWA Research Economist Debbie Goldman at headquarters.
The local petitioned the state personnel department to protect “bumping” rights, and Freeholder President Joseph DiVincenzo wrote to state commissioners on their behalf, questioning the unrestricted use of state-controlled federal funds.
On March 4, Weiner wrote to the director of the state Division of Family Development, opposing the state’s waiver allowing Essex County to drop below mandated staff-to-client ratios. Then on March 8, he addressed the Freeholders’ budget hearing and submitted comments to the state Senate Budget and Appropriations Committee.
At their March 29 meeting in Newark, the Freeholders announced that the county would receive $4.25 million from the state to hire the 85 additional workers in keeping with state staffing guidelines.
The victory, said Local 1081 President David Weiner, is a culmination of nearly a year of lobbying and demonstrations involving the local, Essex-West Hudson Labor Council, the NAACP, black clergy, Citizen Action and Jobs with Justice.
“It shows that compulsive persistence is rewarded,” said Weiner. “The labor ethic of never giving up until there is nothing left to fight for prevailed.”
The local mounted its campaign in winter 1999 when the state decided to front the county $8.8 million for temporary assistance to needy families, which Weiner said was used instead to help balance the county’s budget. Under County Executive James Treffinger’s welfare reform plan, the county had already paid $6 million to 21 private community-based organizations, according to Weiner, to train and place welfare clients into jobs.
“Only 13 percent of those clients actually obtained jobs” in 1998, Weiner wrote in a letter published by the Verona-Cedar Grove Times last May, also citing the county for diverting county equipment, supplies and staff in support of the federally funded, private effort. About 150 local members and supporters backed up their position with a march through the streets of Verona, the county executive’s hometown, and a rally in the town park.
In October 1999, Treffinger announced that 250 workers across county government — including the 65 in Social Services — would be laid off by the end of the year because of cost overruns.
The local stepped up its campaign of sending letters to members of the county Board of Freeholders and to the editors of local newspapers and with supporters mounted additional demonstrations. In November, the black clergy held a press conference on the failure of welfare reform as instituted by the county, urging a halt to the layoffs. In December, 60 people marched in Verona and sang mock Christmas carols, starting in front of Treffinger’s church. In January, workers and others picketed the Freeholders’ swearing-in ceremony at Essex County College.
Weiner contacted CWA’s Public Workers Vice President Brooks Sunkett for help and received additional assistance from CWA Research Economist Debbie Goldman at headquarters.
The local petitioned the state personnel department to protect “bumping” rights, and Freeholder President Joseph DiVincenzo wrote to state commissioners on their behalf, questioning the unrestricted use of state-controlled federal funds.
On March 4, Weiner wrote to the director of the state Division of Family Development, opposing the state’s waiver allowing Essex County to drop below mandated staff-to-client ratios. Then on March 8, he addressed the Freeholders’ budget hearing and submitted comments to the state Senate Budget and Appropriations Committee.
At their March 29 meeting in Newark, the Freeholders announced that the county would receive $4.25 million from the state to hire the 85 additional workers in keeping with state staffing guidelines.