A “Fact-Lite” Statement from Working Families

Via InsiderNJ, Working Families spokesman Rob Duffey issued a statement yesterday challenging Senate President Sweeney’s characterization of Working Families state director Sue Altman as a “paid protester.” Calling it a “Trumpian epithet,” Duffey claimed that Working Families represented “the cries of non-partisan advocates and reformers” and accused Sweeney of  “placing special interests over the public interest.”

This is laughable nonsense.

Altman is a “paid protester” – paid by the NJEA to push its agenda.  As SPCNJ revealed in its Star-Ledger op-ed, here are the FACTS:

1. Working Families received $795,000 from the NJEA from 2009-2016.
2. Working Families was paid $50,000 by the NJEA’s Super PAC Garden State Forward to get out the vote in the 2019 fall elections.
3. Working Families was secretly given $100,000 by New Direction New Jersey, a pro-NJEA, pro-Murphy Super PAC funded 70% by the NJEA.
4. Altman’s much-publicized removal from a senate hearing was due to her loudly protesting against the corporate incentive program, which is precisely the NJEA’s position.

That’s $945,000 attributable to the NJEA alone – and does not include the other public sector unions. Maybe Working Families can cease being a “dark money” group and disclose its full list of donors so we can know exactly how much its activists are being paid.  But the FACTS show that Working Families is paid a lot of money by the NJEA and is protesting in favor of the NJEA’s positions.  That’s pretty much the definition of a “paid protester.”

As for Working Families representing “advocates and reformers” and fighting against “special interests,” this is also laughable nonsense.  It is a FACT that Working Families time and again advocates for the NJEA’s interests, and that the NJEA is the largest and most powerful special interest in the state.

Duffey cannot and will not dispute any of these FACTS.

Don’t be fooled by Duffey’s spin: Working Families is paid to speak for the NJEA, the most powerful special interest in the state.

Read the full press release on InsiderNJ here.