A message from Chris Shelton, CWA National District 1 VP:

Dear NJ State Worker:

Over the last three weeks, our union conducted a referendum among our state worker membership on the creation of a Strategic Media and Public Education Fund.  The purpose of the Fund would have been to educate the public about the continuing attacks on public sector jobs and services and help give us the power to defend our jobs and negotiated benefits. Leadership in six of the seven State Worker locals voted to create this fund and recommended that the members vote to support it.

Unfortunately, the members have voted down the creation of the Strategic Fund.  Only 20% of members voted - 3,525 no to 2,201 yes vote.  We are a democratic union, and we accept the decision of the members. There will, therefore, not be a dues assessment to pay for the Strategic Media Fund at this time.

However, the battle to protect our jobs and benefits will not stop.  We still have an urgent need to communicate our message to public about what we do, the sacrifices we have made, and our modest standard of living.

As a union we are doing many things in order to make greater resources available to communicate this message.  In District 1, we have cut our National staff (through attrition) to the bare bones.  The Delegates to the union's convention just voted to hold the national convention every two years, instead of every year. We have combined the national convention and the national Legislative and Political conference.  Two sectors and two CWA districts have been merged in order to cut costs. We have cut the cost of our conventions and meetings by changing venues, cutting back on all extra events, and eliminating all non-representation expenses.   Here in District One, I am also taking every possible step to reduce our expenses.

Most of the State Worker Locals contributed treasury money last year to help defray the cost of our radio and TV ads and the cost of the May 22 Rally.  (By the way, Governor Christie has made completely outlandish claims about how much CWA has spent in our media buy. We have not spent 1/10th as much as he claimed.)  Those contributions have made it possible for us to run a real campaign against the Governor's attacks.

These are hard times and require us to take unprecedented measures to defend our membership. We will again be asking your Local to contribute significantly from its Treasury funds so that we can continue to fight this broad attack on our jobs.  In addition to what it contributed last year, I will be asking each Local to find every possible way to make this a priority.  Each Local will have to make difficult choices as to how it participates in this campaign.

Thank you for you participation in your union.    Our struggle is hard, but we can and must prevail.  We are strong, and together we will protect jobs and services during these difficult times.

Thank you for your continued support and participation in CWA.

In Solidarity,

Chris Shelton

Vice President, District 1