USWU APPLAUDS GOVERNOR MURPHY FOR SIGNING THE RESPONSIBLE COLLECTIVE NEGOTIATIONS ACT

NEW JERSEY – JANUARY 19, 2022 – The United Service Workers of America (USWU), today applauded New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy for signing the Responsible Collective Negotiations Act, into law.

The Responsible Collective Negotiations Act closes an unfair collective bargaining loophole and levels the playing field creating true workplace wage and benefit equity for public employees across the state.

The USWU represents 30,000 members within 18 affiliated local unions throughout the United States. In New Jersey, USWU represents approximately 8,000 members in public works, paratransit, municipal white-collar professionals, municipal EMT’s and paramedics and many more sectors.

The new law addresses several obstacles public service workers face as they bargain with municipal employers and attempt to exercise their collectively bargained rights. Public sector unions and management now can expand the scope of their negotiations beyond solely wages and benefits. Importantly, the Responsible Collective Negotiations Act also ends the arbitrary imposition of contracts on workers and their union representatives.

Currently management at local agencies can simply claim they’ve reached a “negotiating impasse,” essentially exploiting a loophole, in order to impose their preferred version of a contract offer made, but not mutually agreed to, forcing workers and unions into a “take it or leave it” position.

Troy Anderson, USWU, IUJAT International Trustee and Director said, ““We applaud Governor Murphy for taking this important step to level the playing field between public employees and management once and for all. This new law will better protect the bargaining rights of civilian workers at public agencies. For too long union members have been hamstrung by unfair policies that allowed management to impose contracts without negotiating in good faith. That inequity ends today. The Responsible Collective Negotiations Act also acknowledges that the needs of union members have evolved. The new law creates a framework for public employees to negotiate terms beyond wages and benefits.”

The new law regulating collective bargaining for public employees was one of several bills Governor Murphy signed on January 18. Anderson added, “We’d also like to thank the sponsors of the bill, former New Jersey State Senators Stephen Sweeney, and Dawn Marie Addiego, State Senator Linda Greenstein, Deputy Speaker Pro Tempore Daniel Benson, and Assemblywoman Annette Quijano.”