Meet The Socialist Walmart Worker Running For New Jersey Governor

NEW JERSEY — When Gov. Phil Murphy fought for his current seat in the 2017 gubernatorial election, he faced constant questions – and criticism – about his former job as a finance executive at Goldman Sachs.

It’s unlikely that Joanne Kuniansky will grapple with the same problem in 2021.

On Nov. 2, Kuniansky – the Socialist Workers Party (SWP) nomination for New Jersey governor – will match up against Murphy, the Democratic incumbent, and three other candidates who will appear on the ballot: Jack Ciattarelli (Republican Party), Gregg Mele (Libertarian Party) and Madelyn Hoffman (Green Party).

Kuniansky is currently working as a deli worker at Walmart, a gig that offers a stark contrast to Murphy’s Goldman Sachs pedigree. But Kuniansky’s job gives her a front-row perspective on the fight for labor equality – a cornerstone of her campaign.

And this November, she’s got a big goal: to help “build a political party of our own” in the Garden State.

The fight for justice on the job isn’t new for Kuniansky, who worked in oil refineries and meat packing before Walmart. In a campaign statement, she recalled “walking the Teamsters picket line” at Hunts Point Produce Market in the Bronx, and joining rallies for United Mineworkers currently on strike against Warrior Met Coal in Alabama.

Along the way, she’s called for:

• Federally funded public works programs to “put millions to work at union-scale wages”
• Shortened workweeks with no cut in pay to stop layoffs
• Cost-of-living clauses in every contract that raise pay and retirement benefits to offset every price rise
• Opening employers’ books for inspection by trade unionists and consumers’ committees

According to Kuniansky, she and her lieutenant governor running mate, Vivian Sahner – a fellow Walmart employee and former union auto plant worker – support for the fight against police brutality, protests against anti-Semitic attacks, and an end to “Washington’s wars.”

They’re also supporting women’s rights to family planning services, including “safe and secure birth control and abortion,” which they say is “essential for winning women's emancipation.”

Earlier this week, Kuniansky provided Patch with two campaign statements, which can be seen in full below.

“We need to build our own party, a labor party, based on fighting unions, that acts independently of the bosses and their twin Democratic and Republican parties to advance workers’ struggles for jobs, safety and higher wages,” she said. “Such a party would champion every struggle that points toward workers taking control of production.”

'Building Solidarity'

Along with the other four gubernatorial candidates, Kuniansky was given 500 words to sway voters with her position statement for the New Jersey Election Law Enforcement Commission. Read More: NJ Governor Candidates: Why You Should Elect Me (In 500 Words)

Here's what Kuniansky's campaign had to say:

"The Socialist Workers Party builds solidarity with todays’ labor battles, from striking Alabama coalminers to Nabisco workers. Workers face defending themselves from bosses demanding we give up hard won gains. Kuniansky travelled to Alabama to join a miners’ support rally and got messages of support and contributions from her co-workers to their strike fund.

"Unions must lead workers to get vaccinated and get back to work, putting us in the best position to fight bosses’ attacks and build solidarity with union struggles, fights against cop brutality.

"With millions unemployed and rising inflation, unions need to fight for a federally funded public works program to put millions to work at union-scale wages building hospitals, schools, housing that workers need. Shorten the workweek with no cut in pay to stop layoffs! Cost-of-living clauses in every contract that raise pay and retirement benefits to offset every price rise!

"Workers must break from the bosses’ Democratic and Republican parties and build a political party of our own, a labor party, based on our unions. The SWP aims to be part of building the leadership we need to unify all those exploited by the capitalist class and replace their rule with a workers and farmers government.

"Deaths in the wake of Hurricane Ida are an indictment of capitalist rule and all the parties that defend it. Workers were swept away in their cars, drowned in basement apartments. Thousands left to fend for themselves, homeless and without power. The deadly lack of preparedness and belated government response turned a 'natural' disaster into a social catastrophe.

"The government in Cuba organizes workers and farmers to confront these deadly forces of nature with minimal loss of life. That is only possible because workers and farmers were organized by their communist leadership to make a socialist revolution – to take political power into their own hands and take control of the factories, land and banks from the capitalists, transforming themselves in the process. My campaign points to the necessity of working people in the U.S. emulating that example and building a party here that can lead millions to make a socialist revolution.

"Along that road, working people need to fight for the right of women to family planning, including safe and secure birth control and abortion, essential for winning women’s emancipation. Protest ongoing attacks on the right to choose abortion.

"The working class needs our own foreign policy, we share common class interests with working people worldwide. We oppose all Washington’s wars and demand an immediate end to its embargo of Cuba and the sanctions it inflicts on the peoples of Iran, Venezuela and North Korea.

"The SWP calls for unconditional recognition of Israel as a refuge for Jews. We urge unions to protest Jew hatred - a deadly danger to advancing the class interests and solidarity of all workers and toiling farmers."

'Fight For Workers Control Of Production'

Kuniansky's campaign also offered the following statement to Patch when asked about her platform:

"Safety is at the heart of many working-class struggles today as the bosses drive to increase productivity and profits, leading to deadly speedup and disdain for livable working conditions. This is clear in fights by oil refinery workers against lockouts by ExxonMobil in Texas and Marathon Petroleum in Minnesota.

"Teamsters at Marathon are fighting to prevent bosses from subcontracting out union jobs, a threat to safe operation. The lives of some 1.7 million people living in a 19-mile radius around the refinery would be at serious risk from an explosion there. Steelworkers at ExxonMobil are fighting to ensure every crew has at least one experienced worker to lead in bringing down and starting up production units.

"Under capitalist rule, production is organized with no concern for workers’ lives or limbs, on the job or for others living nearby, nor for the soil, air and water being fouled by pollution. Driven to compete or die in the fight for markets, bosses cannot operate any other way. Regulations by alltoo complicit government bureaucrats do nothing to stop bosses determined to maximize profits at the expense of workers’ lives and our planet. I’m all too familiar with this from working at an ARCO refinery in Texas in the 1980s

"All work can be performed safely and in ways that protect our natural resources for use by future generations. But for that to become a reality, workers must fight to take control of production out of the bosses’ hands. This should be on the banner of every union. Workers control of production would allow us to put a halt to the backbreaking pace of work the bosses impose, take charge of decisions on the number of workers needed to do a job safely, and to eradicate the production of substandard goods.

"Coal miners took steps in that direction in the late 1960s and ’70s that show the way. They carried out a revolution in the United Mine Workers union and won union control over key aspects of mine safety, including the right to halt production if dust levels were too high. They fought and won construction of clinics throughout the coalfields that succeeded in sharply reducing the scourge of black lung disease. The record of what that working-class struggle accomplished shows we have the capacity to push back the bosses’ assaults on our health and safety.

"Opening the bosses’ books for inspection by trade unionists and consumers’ committees is an integral part of the fight for workers to take control of production and to show all toilers how the capitalists steal most of the vast wealth our labor produces.

"Workers control is a school for class consciousness. We come to realize our own capacities and worth. We see more clearly that our class can and must take over the management of the entire economy, and gain confidence that we can do so.

"We need to build our own party, a labor party, based on fighting unions, that acts independently of the bosses and their twin Democratic and Republican parties to advance workers’ struggles for jobs, safety and higher wages. Such a party would champion every struggle that points toward workers taking control of production.

"With our own party workers can lead millions of the exploited and oppressed to overthrow capitalist rule and bring to power a workers and farmers government. It would mobilize workers and farmers to take the factories, banks and farmland into our own hands and to run them ourselves.

"Ending capitalist exploitation and social relations is not a pipe dream. The socialist revolution made by working people in Cuba shows it is possible."

• See related article: 'Big Money' Rules NJ Governor Debates, Third-Party Candidates Say
• See related article: Meet 2 Alternatives To Murphy, Ciattarelli In 2021 NJ Governor Race

Send news tips and correction requests to eric.kiefer@patch.com

Sign up for Patch email newsletters. Learn more about posting announcements or events to your local Patch site.