AR Handbook – 15 • NJEA field staff bring negotiations expertise to your local’s doorstep. These are only a few of the services brought to you from NJEA headquarters and 21 UniServ offices located across the state. Answering the hard questions How will I afford it? Your membership starts as soon as you enroll. Fortunately, through automatic payroll deduction, just a portion of your dues is deducted each month. This way, you have the entire year to pay. However, your membership benefits such as free legal protection, discount consumer services, conference offerings, and negotiations service begins immediately at the time of enrollment. I just don’t believe in joining anything. Why should I join now? Your association serves many roles. It not only works to improve your working conditions, salaries, and benefits, but it also provides many professional development and mentoring opportunities. Because of your association, you no longer have to worry about being dismissed for unfair reasons or losing your health benefits. You will have the chance to attend a variety of enriching workshops and conferences. You can play an important role in the continual improvement of your profession. Your membership alone will strengthen your association. And perhaps as you get more familiar with your association, you might even want to take an active role. As a new member, will I have a voice in the association? Our association is proud of its democratic principles. Every member has an equal voice and a vote every time your association takes action. You also have direct representation to the NJEA Delegate Assembly (DA), Executive Committee, and NEA Representative Assembly (RA) through the representatives you elect to office. New Jersey also has 11 representatives to NEA’s Board of Directors. Why are dues so expensive? Dues are actually comparable to membership in many professional associations. However, in addition to the professional development opportunities, you also have a strong organization striving to improve your working conditions, salaries, and health benefits. I don’t see what the state association or NEA does that the local association can’t do. Wouldn’t it be better to spend my money for a local association? Through your state and national dues, you have a powerful presence in our state and national capitals. Your state and national organizations give you a voice on important issues such as school funding, facilities, curriculum standards, standardized testing, and privatization. In addition, we benefit from statewide public relations programs and are able to attend high quality regional, state, and national advocacy and professional development workshops and conferences. What if I don’t agree with a lot of things that the association does? That’s okay. If you think about it, we seldom agree with every activity of both the Senate and House of Representative s. And we would never consider giving up our voting rights. As a member, your voting power would give you a chance to make changes. Why should I join when I will get all the salary benefits negotiated anyway? Maybe. School boards are getting more and more sophisticated and want to know how many people the association represents. Joining shows the school board that all of us are together behind negotiations. My wife (husband) is also a member. Why should we pay double dues? Because you’re guaranteed double benefits. Membership isn’t altogether unlike an insurance policy. If one of you has an accident, it doesn’t help if the other is covered. The same thing applies if one of you needs legal assistance. If only one of you join, then the other one doesn’t have the chance to attend any of the advocacy and professional development offerings. Membership benefits come with membership. Both of you have a big stake in the success of your association. Unless both of you join, you are only giving half of your support to your own cause. We need strength and numbers in local negotiations and in state and national lobbying. Why should I be involved in politics if I don’t believe school employees should be involved in politics? There are lots of ways to get involved in your association besides politics. But it is still important that your local, state, and national organizations stay involved. Their efforts help elect friends of education who work to increase school funding, improve facilities, reduce class sizes, and protect threats to public education. NJEA’s involvement in political campaigns is driven by PAC (Political Action Committee) funds, not dues dollars.
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