With labor supporters embroiled in political fights across the nation, the New Jersey AFL-CIO has stepped forward with an innovative educational program that has had a lasting effect on New Jersey politics.
Founded in 1997, the NJ AFL-CIO’s Labor Candidates Program has been a political game changer.
Faced with a changing political climate and enhanced lobbying by corporate interests, the New Jersey AFL-CIO leaders realized that they couldn’t rely on allies in elected offices to support issues important to labor.
The first and only program of its kind, the program teaches candidates the facets of campaigning, fundraising and government.
Held each summer at the multi-day Labor Candidates School, and at Non-Partisan Training Seminars, the New Jersey AFL-CIO sponsored program has elected 778 union members to offices ranging from local school boards, town councils and mayors’ offices, to the State House including New Jersey Senate President Steve Sweeney, a union ironworker and the highest-ranking elected Democrat in the state.
Assembly Deputy Majority Leader and Labor Committee Chairman Joe Egan, a union electrician, Morristown Mayor Tim Dougherty and Woodstown city council member Joseph Hiles are some of the other success stories from the program.
A 28-year union veteran, Dougherty heard about the program in 2000 while he was with the Local 68 branch. After putting his name in for office, the NJ AFL-CIO reached out to him with information on the program.
Dougherty went on to earn 70 percent of the votes in his election.
“The course gave me a sense that I wasn’t alone in the fight,” said Dougherty. “There’s no doubt that it helped me take a step forward and get elected.”
That same type of electoral power was also seen in November 2012, when New Jersey was one of only two states to increase union turnout. A record 37 percent of statewide turnout attributed to union households, accomplished in part, due to a full slate of union member candidates on the ballot.
“I was running against an incumbent who was pretty popular, and I ended up beating him,” said Hiles. “The course gave me the blueprint for running a campaign. I would recommend it to any union member, not only in New Jersey, but across the nation.”
New Jersey State AFL-CIO president Charles Wowkanech founded the Labor Candidates Program, which was geared towards recruiting union members to run for political office.
“I realized that we couldn’t simply rely on our traditional allies to stand up for labor when well-funded special interests were opening their checkbooks,” said Wowkanech. “The best advocate for working families is someone who comes from the labor movement, who knows middle-class values because they live them. There’s no one better for that fight than a union member.”
As a result of the program, labor legislators have established New Jersey’s national-model paid family leave program, enacted a state Constitutional amendment increasing the minimum wage and tying future increases to inflation, created some of the nation’s broadest whistleblower protections, passed project labor and prevailing wage laws – both among the strongest in the country – and expanded card check in the public sector, among other victories.
For more information on the New Jersey AFL-CIO’s Labor Candidates Program, visit: http://njaflcio.org/pages/labor_candidates/
SOURCE: The New Jersey State AFL-CIO
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