WE HAVE HEARD FROM NEW JERSEY TEACHERS – THEY WANT TO KNOW…
WHERE DO THEIR UNION DUES GO?
WELL, FINALLY, THEY HAVE ANSWERS – AND ALL THE DATA IS SOURCED AND FOOTNOTED.
SUNLIGHT POLICY CENTER OF NEW JERSEY RELEASES A NEW REPORT….
“NEW JERSEY TEACHERS’ DUES: WHY ARE THEY THE HIGHEST IN THE NATION AND WHAT ARE THEY PAYING FOR?”
Based on a first-of-its-kind investigation of teachers’ ever-increasing dues burden, the Sunlight Policy Center of New Jersey (SPCNJ) has released a data-driven report that presents the facts about how much teachers pay to be a member of the New Jersey Education Association (NJEA) and how these dues are actually spent by the political organizers who run the NJEA’s Executive Office.
SPCNJ’s report is designed to be a go-to reference for all New Jersey public school teachers. Like all SPCNJ’s reports, every fact is sourced and footnoted.
Specifically, the report shines a light on…
- How the NJEA-created funding system essentially forces teachers to join the NJEA and have their dues withheld from their paychecks so that the NJEA automatically siphons dues directly from every public school teacher’s paycheck without the teacher ever seeing the money.
- How this system has allowed the NJEA to extract more dues money from teachers than any state teachers’ union in the country – by a large margin and for a long time.
- How the NJEA takes a whopping 70 percent of teachers’ overall dues for itself – the highest percentage for any state teachers’ union in the country – compared to only 12 percent for local associations, where most of the work on behalf of teachers is done.
- How teachers’ dues have increased at almost twice the rate of teachers’ stagnant salaries, thus reducing their take-home pay.
- How the political organizers who run the NJEA Executive Office have spent more and more of teachers’ dues on politics – including $5.4 million wasted on the futile effort to defeat Senator Sweeney. Half of all teachers’ dues now goes to political spending.
- How teacher’s dues have made the NJEA executives who direct all this political spending part of New Jersey’s “one-percenters.” The average top-ten NJEA executive has seen compensation grow 22.5 percent to $628,095 per year – almost four times the growth rate of teachers’ pay and over nine times the average teacher’s salary.
For the first time, this groundbreaking report will provide all New Jersey teachers with real data on what their hard-earned dollars have been paying for…
It’s time these facts came to light.
It is time we begin educating ourselves on the facts….and its time our teachers have the opportunity to do the same.
As always, every point is documented, sourced and footnoted.