Dear colleague,
The state of New Jersey is threatening to make hundreds of thousands of state workers and their families, including Rutgers employees, pay 20 percent more for our health insurance starting in January 2023. We need to unite with other public-sector workers and take action to stop this effective wage cut.
- Call the Health Care Hotline that connects you to the governor’s office at 833-479-1993 and tell Governor Murphy: Don’t increase state workers’ health care contributions. This is an automated line, so wait to be connected to a live person in the governor’s office.
- Join thousands of state workers in Trenton on Tuesday, September 13, at 12 noon for a mass union rally. Click here to let us know if you can come to Trenton or are interested in taking other action. Free buses are being arranged from across New Jersey.
The stated reason for this increase is that we used “too much” health care after doctors and hospitals fully opened back up after the pandemic. But during the pandemic, the state saved nearly $200 million in health care costs in 2020, on top of over $100 million in savings in 2019—even as many of us continued to go to work as essential employees, risking our own lives and those of our families.
This is how the state of New Jersey is repaying the people who were called “heroes” during the pandemic? With an effective wage cut?
The state received billions in federal assistance to cover pandemic-related costs for New Jerseyans. There is still more than $1 billion left over from federal pandemic assistance and more than $7 billion in the state’s “rainy day fund.” Why won’t the state use this money to cover COVID-related health care costs?
If you haven’t already, call Governor Murphy TODAY at 833-479-1993 and tell him that we didn’t cause the pandemic, we didn’t close hospitals and doctors’ offices, and we shouldn’t have to pay for something that’s beyond our control. And plan to join other union workers from across the state in rallying at the Statehouse Annex in Trenton on Tuesday, September 13, at 12 noon. Click here to tell us you can come or want to take some other action.
In solidarity,
Becky and Todd
Rebecca Givan, President, Rutgers AAUP-AFT
Todd Wolfson, General Vice President, Rutgers AAUP-AFT
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