AS A FORMER AFGE UNION STEWARD WHO ONCE LIVED ON LESS THAN $30,000 A YEAR, MEGAN KNOWS WHAT WORKERS ARE UP AGAINST AND WHAT CONGRESS NEEDS TO DO TO RESTORE WORKER POWER IN NEW JERSEY AND ACROSS AMERICA

Real wages for median workers have declined since 2020, even as corporate profits leapt up. This split can only happen because of a long-standing imbalance of power between employers and workers. NJ-07 feels it acutely. Somerset and Morris Counties rank among the highest-wage counties in New Jersey, anchored by major pharmaceutical, financial, and professional services employers. But high averages mask a deeper problem: private-sector union representation in these dominant industries is nearly nonexistent, leaving workers with little power to demand their fair share. Labor unions remain the single best means for fixing that balance. Yet rules supporting unionization have been hollowed out and defanged over decades of anti-union policymaking. And last year’s DOGE attacks on federal workers have shown exactly where Republicans stand on worker rights. 

The affordability crisis dominating American politics is inseparable from the decline of worker power. Public support for unions has reached its highest level since the 1960s. New organizing drives from Amazon to Starbucks have reenergized unions and Megan knows the importance of unions firsthand. She grew up in a family that struggled financially, put herself through school sorting mail and waitressing, and raised three kids on less than $30,000 a year, relying on Medicaid, WIC, and Head Start to make ends meet. As a Union Steward with the American Federation of Government Employees, she championed employee rights under the ADA and FMLA, advocating for fair treatment, accessibility, and dignity in the workplace. The NJ State Council of Machinists (representing more than 20,000 New Jersey workers) endorsed her because they know she means it. 

Organizing Rights and Worker Power

NJ-07’s economy is built on some of the most productive workers in the country: scientists and researchers in the pharmaceutical sector, financial professionals across the district, and retail, hospitality, and service workers who keep our communities running. But in nearly all of these industries, private-sector union density is close to zero. Current labor law presents big obstacles for workers who try to start a union. Employer-side interference in organizing campaigns, including captive-audience meetings, retaliatory firings, and indefinite delays in first-contract bargaining, make unionization a harrowing experience for workers. And the fissuring of the employment relationship through subcontracting, franchising, and staffing agencies allows profitable companies to evade the legal obligations of employment entirely, leaving workers with no clear employer to bargain with. The result is a district full of workers with job/income insecurity, no voice, and no obvious path to get one.

In Congress, Megan will:

• Champion the Protecting the Right to Organize (PRO) Act to streamline the union election process, strengthen penalties for employer violations, and establish first-contract arbitration procedures, bringing union representation to the millions of workers who currently want a union but are locked out of getting one.
• Push for sectoral bargaining standards for prevailing wages that set wage floors and working conditions across entire industries. This approach prevents a race to the bottom and is particularly critical in NJ-07’s retail, hospitality, and service sectors where fragmented employers make traditional union bargaining challenging.
• Close the loophole that lets corporations use subcontractors, franchisees, and staffing agencies to avoid bargaining with the workers they actually control by restoring the National Labor Relations Board’s broader joint employer rule.

Unions and AI

The rapid deployment of AI in the workplace raises basic questions about whether these technologies will be used to surveil and discipline workers. Without worker voice in the design and implementation of AI systems, employers face few constraints on deploying technology in ways that intensify monitoring, deskill jobs, and erode workplace autonomy. This is not a distant threat. It is already happening in workplaces across NJ-07 and across America, and workers have no seat at the table where these decisions are being made. 

In Congress, Megan will:

• Champion legislation requiring employers to bargain with workers over the design and implementation of AI systems in the workplace so technology serves workers rather than surveilling and disciplining them.
• Push for mandatory advance notice to workers and their unions before AI systems are deployed in their workplace, giving workers a meaningful opportunity to raise concerns and negotiate protections before the technology is in place.
• Push for AI to improve work-life balance rather than leading to widespread layoffs. 

A National Minimum Wage

The service workers, home health aides, retail clerks, and food service workers of NJ-07 work full time and still struggle to make ends meet in one of the most expensive regions in the country. New Jersey has led the way on minimum wage, phasing in a $15 floor that has made a real difference for low-wage workers across the state. 

But a patchwork of state minimums is not enough. The federal minimum wage of $7.25 per hour has not been raised since 2009, making it functionally irrelevant in most labor markets. 

In Congress, Megan will:

• Champion automatic annual adjustments to the federal minimum wage tied to inflation so Congress can never again let the minimum wage erode in real terms through simple inaction.

Protecting Federal Workers

New Jersey is home to nearly 50,000 federal workers, and NJ-07 has felt the impact of DOGE attacks on the federal workforce as directly as any district in the state. Federal workers and their unions have come under aggressive attack. The so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) has pursued mass layoffs, reclassified career civil servants, and sought to break the unions that represent these workers. These actions threaten not only the livelihoods of hundreds of thousands of workers but also the capacity of the federal government to deliver essential services. The right to organize is a baseline guarantee for all workers. Billionaire campaign donors should not determine who gets to keep their job and their union.

In Congress, Megan will:

• Use Congressional oversight authority to demand transparency and accountability from DOGE, including pushing to reinstate workers who were illegally terminated.
• Strengthen collective bargaining rights for federal, state, county, and municipal workers and oppose any effort to reclassify career civil servants in ways that strip them of employment protections so they can do their jobs free from political interference.