NJEA Executive Director on the State of Public Pensions

Steve Adubato goes on-location to the 2019 NJEA Convention in Atlantic City to talk to Steve Swetsky, Executive Director, New Jersey Education Association, to discuss his vision for the future of NJEA and the state of public pensions.

2/1/2020 #332

Excerpt:

"Murphy's in the house as they say hey governor how you doing? How you doing? Hi buddy. Good to see you how's everything? Good to see you buddy. You with the team? Yes. I'm with the team. Everything good? Everything's great NJEA right? NJEA is top of the tops. Murray you agree? Oh a hundred percent yes. Good to see you at--thank you so much governor appreciate it well done, thank you Sean all the best that's what happens when you're here live in Atlantic city at convention center so by the way why don't we start with governor murphy the relationship of the new jersey education association with governor murphy is a breath of fresh air you know he's been a been a partner he just actually spoke to thousand of our members who were at a session with dr. Cornel west, so he was there for that big event, he came up, he spoke, he talked about what he talked to our members about three years ago when he was here when he was running for office and everything he spoke about then is the partnership that we've been able to develop. See if I ask, if I ask you about 2020 top two or three dare i call them agenda items let me just close this by the way the new jersey education association is an underwriter of the work that we do with caucus educational corporation and a supporter of our colleagues and partners at NJTV news top agenda items are working with our members around social justice issues economic justice issues, really starting to take a look at not just what happens in a classroom or what happens in a particular school but what happens in communities what are the things happening in communities that drive what happens in those schools. You know, let's break this down a little bit the theme of social and economic justice a big theme here at the 166th new jersey education association convention break that down what does that mean in terms of education our educators and our students? So i think typically you know unions typically focus kind of on you know those collective bargaining issues right the wages the working conditions and dare we will talk about pensions which we will in a moment, go ahead. We get, we get add in pensions and health benefits but those are the basic issues, but where is this come in? So if you look around if you look at communities if you talk about student success and what drives student success it's not simply what happens within a particular school, right it's the it's the out-of-school factors right that we talk about but nobody really focuses on so how do we look..."