FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: June 27, 2018
Contact: Bryn Lloyd-Bollard | bryn.lloydbollard@1199.org | 732.606.5949

New Jersey—In response to today’s Supreme Court decision on Janus vs. AFSCME, Milly Silva, Executive Vice President of 1199SEIU United Healthcare Workers East, has issued the following statement:

“Today’s Janus decision reinforces what we know all too well—that the deck is stacked against working families. 1199SEIU members stand firm in their solidarity with New Jersey’s public-sector workers who bear the brunt of this Supreme Court decision, knowing that an attack against the rights of any worker is an affront to all workers.

“Wall Street billionaires have long bankrolled legal efforts like Janus, seeking to undermine workers’ rights to organize and sustain strong unions. This is not the first, nor will it be the last. Yet through it all, America’s labor movement has always been the primary vehicle for building our middle class, empowering millions of people—white, black and brown—to lift themselves out of poverty and secure a better life.

“Working people in New Jersey and across the country will not let corporations and extremist politicians run roughshod over their lives and erase decades of social progress. Despite all the challenges and roadblocks thrown in their way, workers today are mobilizing in unprecedented ways—whether it’s New Jersey nursing home workers fighting for safe staffing and a $15 minimum wage, or teachers in deep red states going on strike to protest low pay and overcrowded classrooms.

“Big business and their political allies are wrong if they think Janus or any other court case will kill off organized labor. As history has shown, the labor movement only grows in intensity when workers confront rising inequality and exploitation in their workplaces and communities.”

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1199SEIU United Healthcare Workers East is the largest and fastest-growing healthcare union in New Jersey and nationwide. We represent over 16,000 healthcare families in New Jersey and over 450,000 total members throughout New Jersey, New York, Massachusetts, Maryland, Florida, and Washington, D.C. Our mission is to achieve quality care and good jobs for all.