Q: Where are you originally from?
Middlesex County. I’ve lived here almost all my life. I was born in Secaucus and we moved to Edison when I was two years old. I live in Woodbridge. Almost all of my family is in NJ.
Q: What do you like to do for fun?
I do a lot of volunteer work with the Veterans of Foreign Wars Auxiliary. My father is a Vietnam Veteran so I kind of grew up with the organization, and I want to always honor and support our veterans and their families for what they’ve done.
I also like to go bowling with friends and I’m really into Horror movies—my house is decorated year-round.
Q: What do you do at your job?
I’m an Agency Services Rep (4) in in the Office of Weights and Measures (under the Division of Consumer Affairs within Law & Public Safety.) I field calls from business owners and the public, train all administrative employees on the systems we use daily, and review expense reporters, travel, and purchase orders. I’m also the Administrative Assistant to David Freed, the Acting State Superintendent of Weights and Measures, and work with the county and municipal Weights and Measures employees while they are doing their jobs protecting the consumers.
Q: A lot of people might not be familiar with Weights and Measures. What does your Office do?
We ensure that all commercial weighing and measuring devices are accurate. The most common things are scales at grocery stores or bodegas, pawns shops and scrap yards, gas pumps. Also timing devices like laundry drying machines, air-pumps or vacuums, etc. We register tens of thousands of those every year.
When we get calls from consumers worried they’re being ripped off, we send out investigators to look into it. And we provide businesses accurate scales when they open.
We’re a state agency but there are also county-wide Weights & Measures, and six municipalities have them also. 21 counties and five municipalities.
Q: How long worked for Weights and Measures?
Over 24 years, all in our main office in Avenel. I was recruited when I graduated from college, where I studied office administration and accounting, and got my bachelor’s degree in criminal justice.
Q: How long have you been a Steward?
8 years. The makeup of our Office is unique because we’re represented by a few different Unions. CWA represents myself and the five other Administrative staff plus the 6 Investigators who are in the field almost all the time. There’s also a police union for inspectors, and the managers have their own union.
Q: What are the big concerns right now among your members?
Healthcare. Everyone feels like a lot of our raises are soaked up by soaring insurance costs. Something has to be done about that. There have been two contracts negotiated since I became the unit’s Steward, and the current contract expires next June. I think people are already feeling like we need to make sure healthcare costs don’t eat into our paychecks any more than they do, so that’s why I was at the rally for healthcare last week.
Q: What do you say to your coworkers who aren’t union members?
I’m proud to say we’re at 100% membership. Now, there’s only 12 of us in the unit, but I’m still very proud. We had one person who was not our the Union for the longest time. And I would tell them we need to have a seat at the table when bargaining with the state about healthcare, and together in the Union is how we do that.
Another thing that’s the case with administrative staff in almost every department is that you can “max out” your seniority. I’m an Agency Services Rep 4, which is the highest range it goes to. There’s no promotion out there for me, so getting fair step increases and yearly guaranteed raises matters a lot.
Q: Aside from having a seat at the table when bargaining contracts, what do you feel makes Union membership so important?
There are processes and procedures to protect us in the workplace that non-Union employers just don’t have. God forbid something happens with a bad supervisor, you have a whole team supporting you as a Union. You have a network to help learn about department policy changes before they happen, and usually get an explanation.
And Weingarten Rights are so important. I’ve seen people disciplined without knowing their Weingarten Rights. We’re a small work unit and we haven’t had to escalate too many problems with management, but I think that could also be that the Union is a deterrent. Management knows if they step out of line, we’re organized and can contest it.