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New Jersey’s public labor unions endorse lawmakers who oppose pension and benefits changes
This year’s battle in the Legislature to change the state’s handling of pensions and benefits for public-sector workers is shaping up to be a major issue in November, as public unions choose to back lawmakers who voted against the changes, and notably snub some who supported them.
Those endorsements — and non-endorsements alike — confer a degree of financial and get-out-the-vote support for candidates they favor, said Daniel J. Douglas, director of the William J. Hughes Center for Public Policy at Richard Stockton College in Galloway Township.
Union members can be recruited to knock on doors, drive voters to the polls, and recruit family and friends to help favored candidates.
“Those candidates who are used to that support will have to find a new way to” fill the gap created by the absence, Douglas said. (Harper, Press of Atlantic City)
