Ask Governor Murphy: Can NJ's Democrats rely on support from labor?
In Gov. Phil Murphy’s first term, he built labor support by passing an ambitious agenda that included raising the minimum wage and requiring equal pay for women and earned sick leave.
But some of that support is fracturing. One of New Jersey’s public employee unions, the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, says it plans to sue the Murphy Administration for racial and gender discrimination. The union objects to raising the pay for corrections officers, who are mostly white men, while not doing the same for workers at the state’s health care facilities, who are largely black women.
Other workers’ rights organizations are frustrated that the State Legislature has not passed a bill protecting temporary workers. And many public employees are seeing their health care insurance premiums go up.
These cracks in labor support for Murphy and state Democrats have landed on the eve of a critical election for Democrats both in New Jersey and nationally. Is the Democratic Party able to keep the working class among its ranks? We’ll ask Gov. Murphy about it, and about why health care workers aren’t getting a pay raise.
