Socialist Workers Party Candidates Launch Run For NJ Legislature

BELLEVILLE-NUTLEY, NJ — A former New Jersey governor candidate aligned with the Socialist Workers Party is trying to ride the energy of a recent wave of union standoffs – including a picket line at Clara Maass Medical Center in Belleville – into her new campaign for the state senate.

Last week, Joanne Kuniansky said her campaign continues in District 33, which covers parts of Hudson County.

Kuniansky – a longtime labor activist who qualified for the gubernatorial ballot in 2021 against Gov. Phil Murphy and three other candidates – was working as a deli worker at Walmart at the time of her campaign. She previously worked in oil refineries and the meat packing industry. Read More: Meet The Socialist Walmart Worker Running For New Jersey Governor

Kuniansky is running alongside Lea Sherman, another Socialist Workers Party candidate who is seeking an Assembly seat in District 33. Both have filed petitions to get on the ballot.

Their platform – unsurprisingly – mainly revolves around employment rights and benefits for the working class.

Her campaign team referenced a recent picket line involving unionized nurses at Clara Maass hospital in Belleville. Read More: Tensions Rise At Clara Maass As NJ Nurses Rally For Contracts

“Today, more workers are saying, ‘enough is enough’ and using unions to fight for better conditions,” Kuniansky and Sherman said in a joint statement.

Kuniansky, who attended the picket line at Clara Maass in solidarity, also recently attended a rally to support members of the Writers Guild of America, whose strike for pay increases and better benefits has had a widespread impact on the U.S. entertainment industry. Read More: How The Writer's Strike Has Complicated Uptown's First Tony Awards

According to Kuniansky and Sherman, their platform as Socialist Workers Party candidates includes “defense of freedoms protected by the U.S. Constitution” and the creation of a jobs program. Nationally, it includes “defending Ukraine’s independence” and “taking Cuba off the state sponsors of terrorism list and ending the U.S. embargo of Cuba.”

Kuniansky and Sherman said they are calling for voters to break with the Democratic and Republican parties, who “defend the interests of the ruling capitalist families responsible for today’s social, moral and economic crisis.”

“A labor party can speak and act in the interests of the working class, working farmers and all the oppressed and take steps toward building a movement to replace capitalist rule with a workers and farmers government,” they said.

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