Defending the AFT
During my time in the District, until I became disabled and unable to work, I found the AFT representation excellent. Our contracts were negotiated at the local level taking into consideration the parameters needed to benefit the learning outcome for students in our classroom.
Our benefit package was second to none. Who has compared State health care plans to our present health package? Give it a try and open an eye.
NJEA members are just that. NJEA members. They are not AFT members. Why would they want to even think of attending an AFT meeting? Would be like a registered Democrat trying to sneak into the Republican convention. Silly at best.
What did all those NJEA dues get their members? Mandatory health contributions and decreased retirement benefits. Worse is yet to come for the NJEA membership rank and file.
I am retired now due to my injuries. But if I would have a vote it would be for the AFT. Local representation on the local level for those in our District as a priority.
No outsiders coming in to push their weight around. Do we need this? For what reason would we need it? I can see none whatsoever.
My father was a custodian in District and retired in the 1970’s. I was a business and mathematics teacher and retired in the 2010’s. The AFT was here and represented both of us.
We should not now allow a group of outsiders to enter our City and attempt to create a circus arena atmosphere during the critical negotiating technicalities needed to bring forth a viable agreement.
Obama brought change and created a disaster. Christie brought change and screwed us. Now the NJEA wants to bring us relief. I don’t believe so.
My thinking leads me to believe that the NJEA just wants all monies in their coffers from everyone who is an educational employee in the state. They have jealousy in their blood for the AFT.
Worst of all they attempt to undermine first amendment rights and laugh at our district wide communication channel of the “mailbox”. They profess that visiting a colleague at their home is not worth your time.
My door is open at all times to any of my colleagues and friends who desire to stop around. It’s always OK, in my book, to stop and say hello.
Bill Pafinty
Retired PABOE Teacher
Equal Pay for Women Can’t Wait
Donna M. Chiera
President AFT of NJ
Seven years ago, President Obama signed the Lily Ledbetter Fair Pay Act ensuring that anyone whose pay lagged because of gender, race, age, disability, or religion could assert her rights under federal anti-discrimination laws. While the act has helped many deserving individuals since its enactment, according to the National Women’s Law Center[i], women remain economically marginalized and underpaid in comparison with men throughout the United States and here in New Jersey.
Enter New Jersey legislative champion state Senator Loretta Weinberg introducing a critical measure to help address the persistent problem of pay inequity that hurts New Jersey families so dramatically. Sen. Weinberg’s bill takes steps towards strengthening New Jersey’s laws against discrimination particularly as it relates to wages and sex. A requirement for employers contracting with the state to provide demographic and wage information is a good measure to help identify discriminatory practices where they exist. This measure and corresponding initiatives in other states need to be supported with advocacy and activism to move them through attempts to derail and obstruct.
Legislative measures are one tool in what must be a multi-faceted approach to the persistent problem of the gender pay gap.
Our unions continue to advocate successfully for equal pay and make some progress. The Institute for Women’s Policy Research found that women represented by labor unions earn 88.7 cents on the dollar compared with their male counterparts, a considerably higher earnings ratio than the earnings ratio between all women and men in the United States (78.3 percent)[ii].
When I started teaching more than three decades ago, the profession was low-paid and comprised of a mostly female workforce. We suffered with low salaries for decades. Collectively bargained salary guides accounting for both experience and education have gone a long way towards addressing pay inequality within the ranks of professional educators, but it is still not enough. Unfortunately old attitudes persist and we still see that men are more likely to be moved into athletics coaching and extracurricular activities that offer stipends and more likely to be hired into district administration with higher salaries.
Although we know that education is a great equalizer in many areas and of immeasurable value in shaping our society, the wage gap exists regardless of education level. Women with master’s degrees working full time are paid just 72 cents for every dollar paid to men with master’s degrees, according to the National Partnership for Women and Families.[iii] Further, women with doctoral degrees are paid less than men with master’s degrees, and women with master’s degrees are paid less than men with bachelor’s degrees.
None of these persistent gaps are going to be closed by the force of wishful thinking or platitudes. We need solid legislation like Sen. Weinberg’s to keep us moving in the right direction. We need programs to train women for rewarding careers in trades as well as for professional and managerial roles. We need to change the mistaken impression that males are family breadwinners and women are only working to supplement a husband’s income. In fact, census data show more than 441,000 family households in New Jersey headed by women[iv]. About 23 percent of those families, or 99,308 family households, have incomes that fall below the poverty level.
One strength we have in advocating for local, state and federal legislation is that women vote at higher rates than men since 1980 and in higher numbers since 1964[v]. In 2012, 71.4 million women (64 percent of those eligible) voted, compared to 61.6 million men (less than 60 percent). In 2012, 81.7 million women were registered to vote, compared to 71.4 million men.
Legislators of both parties as well as candidates for higher office should be held to task for their past votes and asked to pledge to support bills that provide accountability and address wage discrimination. These are among the tools that we can use so that subsequent generations of Lilly Ledbetter’s daughters and nieces earn enough to be self-sufficient and those who choose to can care for their own families.
Donna M. Chiera
President of the American Federation of Teachers
New Jersey
References:
[i]The Lilly Ledbetter Act Five Years Later – A Law That Works,
http://nwlc.org/resources/lilly-ledbetter-act-five-years-later-law-works/
[ii] Unionized Women Earn More than Nonunionized Women in Every U.S. State, http://statusofwomendata.org/press-releases/unionized-women-earn-more-than-nonunionized-women-in-every-u-s-state/
[iii] America’s Women and the Wage Gap, http://www.nationalpartnership.org/research-library/workplace-fairness/fair-pay/americas-women-and-the-wage-gap.pdf
[iv] America’s Women and the Wage Gap, http://www.nationalpartnership.org/research-library/workplace-fairness/fair-pay/americas-women-and-the-wage-gap.pdf
[v] The Gender Gap: Gender Differences in Vote Choice and Political Orientations, http://www.cawp.rutgers.edu/sites/default/files/resources/closerlook_gender-gap-07-15-14.pdf
This is Outrageous!
Mayor circumvents City Code and Ordinances, Council supports and condones it; City Attorney goes against Ordinances she herself submitted.
This is an outrage. At the Council Meeting on January 13, 2016, it was pointed out that City Code 4-23 procedures had been violated in hiring Mr. Pelissier as the Interim Business Administrator.
Attempting to cover up the violation, Mayor Diaz presumably acted upon Ms. Quinones’ advice and submitted a letter to the City Council dated January 27, 2016, which circumvented City Code 4- 23 by backdating Mr. Pelissier’s appointment as an Assistant BA to January 5, 2015, thereby keeping his salary at $157,000.00. In a convenient lapse of memory by both the Mayor and Ms. Quinones, this disregarded another Ordinance, 1798-2015, that had just been adopted by the Council on December 9, 2015. Signed by Lisa Nanton Mayor Diaz, Elaine Jasko approved as to form by Arlene Quinones Perez, this ordinance limited the salary for an Assistant B.A. to $106,000 and required any appointee to be a resident of Perth Amboy.
In violation of this ordinance, Mr. Pelissier’s present salary of $157,000.00 represents an unlawful overpayment of $51,000.00. This is on top of the fact that Mr. Pelissier is not a resident of our city, another violation.
Mr. Pabon at the February 10th Council meeting, stated that Ordinance 1798-2015 adopted by the Council on December 09, 2015 should not have been passed, that it was
an error on their part, thus trying to provide cover for the Mayor, the attorney, and the Council, with the exception of Fernando Gonzalez, who was the only council member to vote “nay.”
Can anyone please tell me what is going on here? THIS IS OUTRAGEOUS!!
Virginia Lugo
Concerned Citizen
