Testimony by Tonya Hodges, CWA District 1 New Jersey Area Director

Friday, June 27, 2025
Testimony before the New Jersey State Legislature

Good morning. My name is Tonya Hodges and I’m the CWA District 1 Area Director here in New Jersey. CWA represents over 70,000 public sector workers in all areas of State and Local government. 

While we genuinely appreciate the legislature and governor’s continued support for fully funding our pension, we are deeply concerned and outraged by the last-minute attempt to achieve $100 million in savings from the State Health Benefits Plan through a process that blatantly violates our collective bargaining rights. 

For years, we’ve negotiated in good faith with the Murphy Administration to rein in healthcare costs, while ensuring that workers have access to quality, affordable healthcare plans.  In 2019, we took the initiative to negotiate the Unity plan and eliminate all other PPOs for CWA’s Executive Branch members. The Unity plan and the contribution rates for the plan were made part of our collective bargaining agreements. Other unions representing State workers negotiated identical agreements. CWA also negotiated a reopener provision if healthcare costs exceeded certain thresholds. Since 2019, the reopener provision of our contracts has been invoked on numerous occasions, resulting in 7% increases in employee contributions and copay increases for specialist and urgent care visits, saving the State budget over $50 million dollars. 

In July, when recommendations for new premiums are issued by the plan’s actuary, CWA, along with the other State Unions, will return to the bargaining table and negotiate additional savings. Our contracts with the Governor require that. 

The bottom line is that collective. bargaining. works. 

The Governor wants you to ignore our collectively bargained agreements that have already produced hundreds of millions of dollars in savings since he has been in office, and to impose upon CWA and other State unions a process that violates our contracts and that is contrary to current law. Don’t do the Governor’s bidding. 

You do not want to be known as the legislature that trampled on workers’ rights.

The Governor is holding the budget hostage to a demand that the Legislature mandate $100 million in healthcare savings, when he knows full well that there is an appropriate process to achieve savings. Furthermore, the Administration is anticipating increases of 20% or more come July. These increases will be simply unaffordable for our members. How can we expect a municipal worker earning $60,000 a year to afford to pay $10,000 or more for family healthcare? 

CWA and the Legislature know that our public sector healthcare system is broken and needs fixing. CWA and other Unions are committed to working with the Legislature to get this done. Time and time again, we provide solutions. 

In fact, we have been working on a bill with the Legislature that would go a long way towards repairing the State Health Benefits Program. Where is that bill?

We urge you to reject the pleas of an outgoing Administration to mandate healthcare savings through a process that violates principles of collective bargaining and repudiates existing contracts - and most importantly, will cause significant pain to real people who simply cannot afford to spend anymore on healthcare. We call upon you instead to partner with CWA and other Unions to address the unaffordability crisis in public sector healthcare. 

In addition, I want to mention that we strongly support additional investments in higher education. Many of our public institutions of higher education are facing major fiscal challenges and need support to keep doors open and programs funded. Further, we urge you to reverse cuts to Rowan University CARES Institute.

Thank you for your time.