Jersey City, NJ – The U.S. opioid epidemic is yet another chapter in the shameful history of U.S. public health policy failing working-class Americans. The deadly effects of heroin and opioid addiction have long since plagued America’s resource-deprived urban centers and impoverished rural areas. However, the U.S. opioid epidemic has only recently entered the mainstream national discourse; clearly the result of its deadly effects now ravaging middle-class suburbia and the children of the 1%.

U.S. policy-makers have yet again proven only to be inclined to take action on public health epidemics if and when their deadly effects spill out of low-income urban centers and rural poverty zones into the ‘white picket fence America’ of policymakers beholden to the elite, in order to ‘stay in the game.’

Obstacles to transformational public policy changes

The non-existence of proven to harm reduction strategies – such as clean needle exchanges and free drug counselling and treatment services in the communities populated by those most in need, is a clear example of the criminality of the ruling class and their political puppeteers in Congress. Such callous indifference to human suffering is already an inherent fact of life for the masses under capitalism, but this criminal cruelty rooted in both class and national oppression hardly stops at indifference.

Instead of public health policy designed to lift people up from addiction and at least mitigate the most harmful effects of capitalist economic practices on its victims, the puppets of the 1% in Congress instead continue ever more brazen assaults on the 99%. The American Healthcare Act of 2017 (aka Trumpcare) and the expansion of the devastating ‘War on Drugs,’ both in rhetoric and in practice within Jefferson Beauregard Sessions’ Justice Department, signals in no uncertain terms that the U.S. government is resolved to further escalate its assault on the multinational working-class.

War on Drugs: Naked national oppression and class warfare.

Michelle Alexander proves this to be true beyond a shadow of a doubt in her 2010 New York Times bestseller, The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness, pointing to the fact “African Americans are not significantly more likely to use or sell prohibited drugs than whites, but they are made criminals at drastically higher rates for precisely the same conduct.”

Rather than enact policies that combat the economic angst crippling working-class and oppressed peoples, the U.S. is doubling down on austerity and repression in oppressed communities. Therefore, it should be no surprise that substance abuse and addiction rates continue to soar; people are facing a normalization of misery that fuels the desire to escape through substance use and abuse. The U.S. is perpetuating and expanding law enforcement’s most ruthless drug-enforcement practices. These cases are then handed over to district attorneys with a dogmatic religious-like devotion to the gods of mandatory minimum sentences; an indispensable tool in ensuring fully occupied private prisons for indifferent, and outright nefarious investors seeking the most ‘bang for their buck.’ Mandatory minimums bar judges from exercising discretion in sentencing when confronted with the most egregious of injustices.

Former New Jersey governor employs newly-found compassion on his way out the door

Enemy of the working-class, and now former New Jersey governor, Chris Christie, served as front man for Reach NJ during his final year in office in 2017 in an attempt to humanize himself prior to re-entering civilian life. Reach NJ is a state-funded public-service announcement campaign that features ads imploring people struggling with addiction to seek help. Christie proclaims in one of these ads that “New Jersey is experiencing an epidemic of heroin and opioid abuse; friends and family are dying from overdoses at a rate twice the national average; that number is rising, and we are working hard to do everything we can to stop this disease.”

On the surface, this appears to be a rare instance of a large state, devastated by the opioid epidemic, actually doing something different. However, the inconvenient truth for Christie and legions of opportunist New Jersey politicians is their long-established record of support for a ‘law enforcement only’ response to not just this crisis, but every aspect of drug policy so long as middle-class hamlets or the gated communities of the 1% are spared the effects.

These policies have created a nightmarish system for working-class people struggling with drug addiction – a system best characterized as a never-ending cycle of deja vu: arrest, incarcerate, profit from incarceration, release and repeat. It would be logical to assume that someone with such a shameful record of wielding repressive state power would not dare claim to be a champion for people battling the complex challenges that come with being an addict. Right? Wrong!

The now former New Jersey governor, despite never providing the needed state funding for comprehensive addiction counselling and treatment services for poor and working-class New Jerseyans, still had the audacity to make this ‘heartfelt’ appeal in one of his many 2017 Reach NJ ads: “If you’re struggling with addiction, supporting someone who is or just don’t know where else to turn, don’t suffer, don’t wait, I want you to know you are not alone; help is within reach.”

Christie’s ploy is hardly an isolated example of a died-in-the-wool enemy of the working class attempting to rebrand themselves for personal gain; it is essential that all reactionary politicians attempting to obscure indefensible records with humanizing propaganda not be let off the hook. Now is the time to fight back against the cynical ploys used by the politicians hand-picked by the 1% to carry out anti-worker class warfare in every city and state across the U.S.

Part II of this series will address the paradoxical complexities of the U.S. opioid epidemic. The nearly simultaneous timing of the influx of deadly fentanyl-laced heroin hitting U.S. streets, with law enforcement’s nationwide crackdown on lucrative ‘pill mills’ will be explored and analyzed in detail.

#JerseyCityNJ #PeoplesStruggles #OpEd #opoid

Jersey City, NJ – On March 16, public school teachers in Jersey City, New Jersey went on strike after months of frustrating contract negotiations with the city’s Board of Education. Their union, the Jersey City Education Association (JCEA), announced the strike to their nearly 4000 members late on the night of March 15.

Teachers began showing up to picket lines and rallies across the city before 5 a.m. – mere hours after the strike was officially announced.

The Jersey City Board of Education attempted to bring in substitute teachers as scabs to break the JCEA strike, offering to pay them double the normal per diem rate. Far from undercutting the strike, the move only furthered the resolve of teachers and staff districtwide.

The board decided not to cancel school, instead insisting that classes continue with a 12:45 p.m. early dismissal. But, their decision backfired since there were far fewer substitute scabs available for the school day to proceed normally. Student-teacher solidarity

However, the Jersey City Board of Education’s biggest miscalculation was to underestimate the level of student solidarity with teachers and school staff.

Students, rather than demonstrating “apathy,” ignored suspension threats by the school district and left their buildings to stand with their striking teachers, school staff and paraprofessionals. Students organized chants such as, “We want our teachers back! We’ve got our teachers’ backs!”

“Concerning the strike, I feel that if we want to talk about educating our kids, we need to pay our teachers,” said student Gekson Orlando Casillas, 18, at McNair Academic High School, who joined the picket lines. “It's hard to get teachers excited to come to work when they know they aren't making enough to get by. If we pay our teachers what they deserve, that means they get the resources and support they need.”

Casillas continued, “Students walking out with our teachers felt like the right thing to do. As the child of a JCPS employee, the battle these teachers are fighting is personal. It affects my family every day. Our teachers have our back. They support us as not only teachers, but as mentors, confidants and sometimes like parents. The student-teacher relationship is so important. So now it's time we help them.”

Key factors in the JCEA’s decision to strike

According to the union, the strike centers on two key issues: the “fight for affordable health care and a fair contract settlement.” The JCEA and the Board of Education have met more than 20 times for negotiations since their contract expired Sept. 1, 2017, with little progress and harsher cuts to teachers’ health insurance plans demanded by the school district.

Later in the day of March 16, the JCEA led a march of several hundred teachers and students to the Board of Education building, demanding a fair contract and no cuts to teachers’ health insurance.

Like the West Virginia teachers who won their statewide strike earlier this month, JCEA has organized food drives for students and families that rely on free and reduced breakfast and lunch programs through the public school system.

Health insurance cuts at the core of Jersey City teachers strike

While the Board of Education’s refusal to agree to a fair contract led to the strike, the root issue is a series of cuts proposed to teachers’ health insurance plans. Budget cuts and austerity measures passed under former New Jersey Governor Chris Christie have devastated public education funding in the state. School districts like Jersey City are enforcing these budget cuts by forcing teachers to pay more out-of-pocket health care costs and reducing the quality of their insurance plans.

“My members are fighters,” said JCEA President Ronald Greco in a March 16 press statement. “They fight for their students every day. They fight to make sure our kids get a quality education despite the questionable spending practices of the board of education on high-priced consultants and failing programs. My members fight to keep our communities safe and our students out of harm. And even now, when it’s our issue at the bargaining table, what we’re fighting for is not exclusive to just us. Quality, affordable health care is a fundamental right for everyone. My members are prepared to step up and take on this fight for everyone, knowing full well that it will be a long, difficult process.”

The Jersey City teachers strike comes on the heels of a nine-day statewide teachers strike in West Virginia, which ended in that state’s legislature passing a 5% raise for teachers and other public workers. West Virginia teachers faced deep cuts to their health insurance and placed humiliating burdens on teachers to keep their coverage. There, the state legislature demanded budget cuts for the same reason that Jersey City’s Board of Education cites: responding to budget shortfalls, which were created by giving tax breaks to corporations, millionaires and billionaires.

Strike fever

While public employees can legally strike in New Jersey – unlike West Virginia, where public sector work stoppages are illegal – the militancy of the JCEA is part of a strike fever sweeping teachers across the U.S. Budget cuts and givebacks demanded by state and local governments have pushed teachers to the limit, forcing many to strike out of necessity. Teachers unions in Oklahoma, for instance, have set April 2 as a tentative deadline for the state to pass greater funding for public education or face a West Virginia-style statewide shutdown.

This strike fever among teachers unions happens against the backdrop of the Supreme Court’s looming decision in the Janus v. AFSCME case. The court is expected to rule against unions and implement right-to-work-for-less laws across the country for public employees. This ruling will weaken public sector unions by allowing workers to reap the benefits of union membership – raises, contract protections, health insurance, pensions and more – without joining or paying dues.

Public sector unions are a key pillar of the U.S. labor movement, making up just under half of all union members. In 2017, 34.4% of all public-sector workers were union members (7.2 million), versus just 6.5% in the private sector (7.6 million). The Janus case is the latest attempt by anti-union billionaires like the Koch brothers to break the back of organized labor.

But while the Janus decision will hurt organized labor, especially public-sector unions, the militancy of the teachers in West Virginia, Jersey City, and Chicago – who held a one-day strike in 2016 – shows a path forward. With the law stacked against them, the teachers in West Virginia blatantly violated the anti-union laws restricting their right to strike, and they won. They demonstrated that these laws are written by and for the 1%. In reality, workers hold the real power. Even in a post- Janus world, unions can grow stronger and win through workplace militancy and struggle.

FightBack! will continue covering the Jersey City teachers strike.

#JerseyCityNJ #PeoplesStruggles #strike #teachersStrike #Strikes #NewJersey #TeachersUnion #TeachersUnions #JCEA

Jersey City is nicknamed “The Sixth Borough” as New York residents, out-of-state transplants and Wall Street up-and-comers live there and commute into Manhattan for work.

At a recent Jersey City city council meeting, they approved an ordinance to transfer 16 acres of city-owned land to a ‘non-profit’ entity so that the Liberty Science Center (LSC) can develop a charter school named SciTech Scity. The Liberty Science Center is a 300,000-square-foot learning center located in Liberty State Park on the Jersey City bank of the Hudson River near the Statue of Liberty.

The transfer began with the city council selling the land to the Jersey City Redevelopment Authority (JCRA) for a whopping sum of $1. Then JCRA sold the land to SciTech Scity LLC for $10. LSC founded SciTech Scity LLC as a way to become the lead developer of SciTech Scity charter school.

The second major player in the deal is Ironstate Development Company of Hoboken. They will oversee the project from start to finish. This steal of the century only became public after a 61-page document was released, mere days before the city council was scheduled to vote on the plan. The citizens of Jersey City are only now seeing the true intent of the project, and why those brokering the deal worked so hard to conceal it from public scrutiny. The sale passed with a 6-3 city council vote, which amounts to nothing more than selling out the future of Jersey City’s beleaguered working class, to Ironstate and other project beneficiaries.

Ironstate Development Company has a sordid past in gentrifying at the expense of the working class. Their most recent project is the development of a ‘sustainable’ urban rental housing called Urban Ready Living (URL). These apartment buildings, marketed towards upper-class commuters, create an exclusive community in downtown Jersey City. This cuts out workers who depend on nearby public transportation to get into Manhattan.

Jersey City’s Housing, Economic Development, and Commerce Department’s (HEDC) recommendation regarding the drawbacks of permitting publicly owned land to literally be given away to the private sector has been callously disregarded. In contrast to angry Ward F residents, city council President Rolando Lavarro argued that the city-owned land should be “sold” to SciTech Scity LLC, without any guarantees that the revenue would be shared with Jersey City.

The second point of contention is the STEM school that will be built at SciTech Scity. Before the city council meeting, Jersey City Mayor Steve Fulop released a statement indicating that the K-12 STEM School would be a public school. However, the statement was soon pushed aside as plans for a charter school emerged in its place.

New Jersey charter schools are technically considered public schools since they rely on taxpayer funds to support them. Furthermore, charter schools do not have to make public documents related to their operations, including financial statements and their trustee members. Not surprisingly though, these privately-owned enterprises guised as ‘public schools’ do not have to play by the same rules as their public school counterparts. As a result, they can accept and remove students as they wish, enabling them to ‘juke the stats.’ This is a pathetic attempt at peddling the fiction that traditional public schools are “broken beyond repair.” The fact that charter school teachers and staff are denied the right to unionize and collectively bargain contracts speaks volumes of the charter school PR machine’s true agenda.

At the city council meeting, Lorenzo Richardson (Jersey City Board of Education member), Ron Greco (president of the Jersey City Education Association Teachers Union) and Chris Gadsden (Jersey City Ward B councilman) spoke up to demand that the STEM school to be built at SciTech Scity be a Jersey City public school.

Jersey City Public Schools already has the resources and expertise to operate the proposed STEM school, and if SciTech Scity is allowed to open as a publicly-financed charter school, the people will be powerless to demand that such a school be made available to children from all of Jersey City’s six wards. The recently adopted city council plan does nothing to ease the overcrowding in downtown Jersey City public schools. Nor does it even so much as slow the pace at which working-class people are being displaced, as gentrifiers seek to gobble up ever more property and profit at the people’s expense.

The land transfer ordinance was approved by the city council by a vote of 6-3, despite city residents passionately making their cases as to why the ordinance needed to be defeated. The only members of the city council to vote against the land transfer ordinance were Ward B Councilman Chris Gadsden, Ward C Councilman Richard Boggiano and Ward D Councilman Michael Yun.

The SciTech Scity project is both the blueprint and end game for the gentrification of Jersey City’s heavily working -class Ward F. Upon completion of SciTech Scity, the property values near the center will skyrocket, which will be the death nail for Ward F’s working-class residents. These residents will be forced to move elsewhere, and more than likely out of the city altogether. These displaced residents are sure to be replaced by New York City transplants and social climbers from other parts of the country.

Jersey City community members are beginning to organize a campaign to fight back against these attacks on public education and the working class.

#JerseyCityNJ #HousingStruggles #gentrification #Antiracism

Local 1199 of the SEIU organized a protest on behalf of Grace Alexander, one of its members and activists. Like millions of others she has been getting a runaround for years in her efforts to modify her mortgage to something she can pay. Now she is close to foreclosure.

She has a lot of company. Local 1199 has more than 800 members whose mortgages are under water.

Scores of union members and activist supporters rallied outside the Harborside Financial Center mall. The protesters were introduced to a delegation of local elected officials who had agreed to talk to the bank for Grace Alexander. Security people tried to intimidate the protesters. They tried to stop the crowd from coming in the mall. They demanded, “no pictures.” No one paid them any mind. The protesters chanted, carried signs, and walked in a circle in front of the bank as the delegation went in. Security called the police, who declined to intervene.

The crowd went outside to continue the rally. Jersey City Mayor Jerramiah Healy, who is up for re-election, promised to hold citizens’ hearings on predatory lending. His challenger, Stephen Fulop, said the same.

The mortgage disaster is the responsibility of the banks, which drove the economy into crisis and were rewarded for it with huge bailouts. It is high time elected officials took notice of what this is doing to communities.

Government ‘homeowner assistance’ programs time and again turn out to be bank bailouts in disguise. They are worse than useless. The protest showed the only way to get out of the mortgage mess.

The right approach is to go right after the banks: the source of the problems. Grace Alexander’s brave act of breaking the ‘veil of silence’ helps other distressed homeowners, who tend to keep their problems to themselves. The event inspired rank-and-file members to see their union as an effective organization in the fight for many causes of social justice. Hopefully many other unions will follow 1199’s example.

#JerseyCityNJ #HousingStruggles #HomeForeclosures #SEIULocal1199 #MayorJerramiahHealy